Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except REHNQUIST
• Citation: Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 106 S.Ct. 2133, 90 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986)
• Decision Date: 09 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-225,85-225
• Parties: Otis R. BOWEN, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al., Petitioners v. MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS et al

476 U.S. 667

106 S.Ct. 2133

90 L.Ed.2d 623

Otis R. BOWEN, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al., Petitioners

v MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS et al.

No. 85-225.

Argued Jan. 22, 1986.

Decided June 9, 1986.

Syllabus

Respondents, who include an association of family physicians and several individual doctors, filed suit in Federal District Court to challenge the validity of a regulation that was promulgated under Part B of the Medicare program and that authorizes the payment of benefits in different amounts for similar physicians' services. Holding that the regulation contravened several statutory provisions governing the Medicare program, the court rejected the Secretary of Health and Human Services' contention (the question presented in this Court) that Congress has forbidden judicial review of all questions affecting the amount of benefits payable under Part B of the Medicare program. The Court of Appeals agreed.

Held: In neither 42 U.S.C. § 1395ff (1982 ed. and Supp. II) nor § 1395ii (1982 ed., Supp. II), has Congress barred judicial review of regulations promulgated under Part B of the Medicare program. Pp. 670-682.

(a) There is a strong presumption that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action. Only upon a showing of clear and convincing evidence of a contrary legislative intent should the courts restrict access to judicial review. Pp. 670-673.

(b) The provisions of § 1395ff(b) that authorize administrative and judicial review of determinations as to the amount of benefits under Part A of the Medicare program do not impliedly foreclose judicial review of Part B regulations. The reticulated statutory scheme, which details the forum and limits of review of determinations of the amounts of benefits payable under Parts A and B, simply does not speak to challenges as to the method by which such amounts are to be determined rather than the determinations themselves. That Congress did not preclude review of the method by which Part B awards are computed (as opposed to the computation) is supported by the legislative history. United States v. Erika, Inc., 456 U.S. 201, 102 S.Ct. 1650, 72 L.Ed.2d 12, explained. Pp. 674-678.

(c) Nor does § 1395ii, which states that 42 U.S.C. § 405(h) (1982 ed., Supp. II), along with other provisions of the Social Security Act, shall be applicable to the Medicare program, preclude judicial review here. Regardless of the abstract meaning of § 405(h), which prohibits certain ac- tions against the Government or its officers, that section does not apply on its own terms to Part B, but is instead incorporated mutatis mutandis by § 1395ii. The legislative history of the Medicare program provides specific evidence of Congress' intent to foreclose review only of "amount determinations," not of substantial statutory and constitutional challenges to the Secretary's administration of Part B. Pp. 678-681.

757 F.2d 91 (CA6 1985) affirmed.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except REHNQUIST, J., who took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Edwin S. Kneedler, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Alan G. Gilchrist, Detroit, Mich., for respondents.

Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented in this case is whether Congress, in either § 1395ff or § 1395ii of Title 42 of the United States Code, barred judicial review of regulations promulgated under Part B of the Medicare program.

Respondents, who include an association of family physicians and several individual doctors, filed suit to challenge the validity of 42 CFR § 405.504(b) (1985), which authorizes the payment of benefits in different amounts for similar physicians' services. The District Court held that the regulation contravened several provisions of the statute governing the Medicare program:

"There is no basis to justify the segregation of allopathic family physicians from all other types of physicians. Such segregation is not rationally related to any legitimate purpose of the Medicare statute. To lump MDs who are family physicians, but who have chosen not to become board certified family physicians for whatever motive, with chiropractors, dentists, and podiatrists for the purpose of determining Medicare reimbursement defies all reason." Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, 502 F.Supp. 751, 755 (E.D.Mich.1980).

Because it ruled in favor of respondents on statutory grounds, the District Court did not reach their constitutional claims. See id., at 756. The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the Secretary's regulation was "obvious[ly] inconsisten[t] with the plain language of the Medicare statute" and held that "this regulation is irrational and is invalid." Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, 728 F.2d 326, 332 (CA6 1984). Like the District Court, it too declined to reach respondents' constitutional claims. See id., at 332, n. 5.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services has not sought review of the decision on the merits invalidating the regulation. Instead, he renews the contention, rejected by both the District Court and the Court of Appeals, that Congress has forbidden judicial review of all questions affecting the amount of benefits payable under Part B of the Medicare program. Because the question is important and has divided the Courts of Appeals,¹ we granted the petition for a writ of certiorari.² We now affirm.

I

We begin with the strong presumption that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action. From the beginning "our cases [have established] that judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of Congress." ABBOTT Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1510, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967) (citing cases). See generally L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 339-353 (1965). In Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163, 5 U.S. 137, 163, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803), a case itself involving review of executive action, Chief Justice Marshall insisted that "[t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws." Later, in the lesser known but nonetheless important case of United States v. Nourse, 9 Pet. 8, 28-29, 34 U.S. 8, 28-29, 9 L.Ed. 31 (1835), the Chief Justice noted the traditional observance of this right and laid the foundation for the modern of judicial review:

"It would excite some surprise if, in a government of laws and of principle, furnished with a department whose appropriate duty it is to decide questions of right, not only between individuals, but between the government and individuals; a ministerial officer might, at his discretion, issue this powerful process . . . leaving to the debtor no remedy, no appeal to the laws of his country, if he should believe the claim to be unjust. But this anomaly does not exist; this imputation cannot be cast on the legislature of the United States."

Committees of both Houses of Congress have endorsed this view. In undertaking the comprehensive rethinking of the place of administrative agencies in a regime of separate and divided powers that culminated in the passage of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 551-559, 701-706, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary remarked:

"Very rarely do statutes withhold judicial review. It has never been the policy of Congress to prevent the administration of its own statutes from being judicially confined to the scope of authority granted or to the objectives specified. Its policy could not be otherwise, for in such a case statutes would in effect be blank checks drawn to the credit of some administrative officer or board." S.Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1945).

Accord, H.R.Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 41 (1946), U.S.Code Cong.Serv. 1946, p. 1195. The Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives agreed that Congress ordinarily intends that there be judicial review, and emphasized the clarity with which a contrary intent must be expressed:

"The statutes of Congress are not merely advisory when they relate to administrative agencies, any more than in other cases. To preclude judicial review under this bill a statute, if not specific in withholding such review, must upon its face give clear and convincing evidence of an intent to withhold it. The mere failure to provide specially by statute for judicial review is certainly no evidence of intent to withhold review." Ibid.

Taking up the language in the House Committee Report, Justice Harlan reaffirmed the Court's holding in Rusk v. Cort, 369 U.S. 367, 379-380, 82 S.Ct. 787, 794-795, 7 L.Ed.2d 809 (1962), that "only upon a showing of 'clear and convincing evidence' of a contrary legislative intent should the courts restrict access to judicial review." Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S., at 141, 87 S.Ct., at 1511 (citations omitted). This standard has been invoked time and again when considering whether the Secretary has discharged "the heavy burden of overcoming the strong presumption that Congress did not mean to prohibit all judicial review of his decision," Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560, 567, 95 S.Ct. 1851, 1857, 44 L.Ed.2d 377 (1975).³

Subject to constitutional constraints, Congress can, of course, make exceptions to the historic practice whereby courts review agency action. The presumption of judicial review is, after all, a presumption, and "like all presumptions used in interpreting statutes, may be overcome by," inter alia, "specific language or specific legislative history that is a reliable indicator of congressional intent," or a specific congressional intent to preclude judicial review that is " 'fairly discernible' in the detail of the legislative scheme." Block v. Community...