Ramspeck v. Federal Trial Examiners Conference

• Decision Date: 16 July 1952
• Docket Number: No. 11421.,11421.
• Citation: 202 F.2d 312
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit
• Parties: Robert RAMSPECK et al., Appellants, v. FEDERAL TRIAL EXAMINERS CONFERENCE et al., Appellees.

202 F.2d 312 (1952)

Robert RAMSPECK et al., Appellants, v. FEDERAL TRIAL EXAMINERS CONFERENCE et al., Appellees.

No. 11421.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued June 16, 1952.

Decided July 16, 1952.

Writ of Certiorari Granted October 20, 1952.

William R. Glendon, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom Charles M. Irelan, U. S. Atty., Joseph M. Howard, Asst. U. S. Atty., and John J. McCarthy, Atty. United States Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellants. Ross O'Donoghue, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., also entered his appearance for appellants.

Charles S. Rhyne, Washington, D. C., with whom Eugene J. Bradley and Eugene F. Mullin, Jr., Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellees.

Richard S. Doyle, Donald C. Beelar, and Edward de Grazia, Washington, D. C., filed a brief in behalf of The Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Inc., as amicus curiae, urging affirmance.

Edward M. Reidy, Chief Counsel, Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D. C., filed a brief in behalf of the Interstate Commerce Commission, as amicus curiae, urging reversal. Harry L. Underwood, Washington, D. C., also entered his appearance for the Interstate Commerce Commission.

James H. Molloy, pro se, filed a memorandum as amicus curiae, urging affirmance.

Before WILBUR K. MILLER, PROCTOR and BAZELON, Circuit Judges.

Writ of Certiorari Granted October 20, 1952. See 73 S.Ct. 93.

PER CURIAM.

The urgency of a speedy determination of this controversy is recognized by all parties concerned and accounts for the immediate hearing and consideration of the case by this court.

It is the conclusion of the majority that the judgment of the District Court should be affirmed. Their views are in substantial accord with those of Chief Judge Laws of the District Court set forth in his opinion, 104 F.Supp. 734.

Affirmed.

BAZELON, Circuit Judge (dissenting).

By enacting § 11 of the Administrative Procedure Act,¹ Congress took from the agencies certain powers relating to control of tenure and compensation which they had exercised over hearing examiners, and gave them to the Civil Service Commission.² The congressional objective was to raise examiners from the level of "mere employees of an agency"³ to a status more consistent with the quasi-judicial duties they are called upon to perform. Pursuant to § 11, the Commission issued the regulations under attack here.⁴ These provide for (1) the "separation" of hearing examiners by the Commission's standard reduction in force procedures;⁵ (2) the classification by the Commission of hearing examiner positions within an agency according to the level of difficulty of cases which examiners filling these positions will handle; (3) the assignment of cases by the agencies to hearing examiners on these various levels, according to the difficulty of the case; and (4) the promotion by the Commission of hearing examiners within an agency from one grade to another. Each of these regulations is held by the trial court⁶ and this court to be invalid because it falls outside the scope of the governing statute. I disagree.

The basis for the contention that hearing examiners are insulated from reductions in force is the provision in § 11 of the Administrative Procedure Act that "Examiners shall be removable by the agency in which they are employed only for good cause established and determined by the Civil Service Commission * * *." (Emphasis supplied.) It is said that this language evidences a congressional intent to shelter hearing examiners from agency action designed to meet such ordinary exigencies as lack of funds, personnel ceilings and decreases in the amount of work an agency has to handle.⁷ "Good cause," under this view, means no more than "a personal shortcoming — malfeasance, incompetence, or some kindred disqualification * * *,"⁸ and hearing examiners can be removed "only" for such a reason.

The "strong reason which would be essential to support so strange a conclusion"⁹ does not exist. Congress put "the entire tradition of the Civil Service Commission * * * to use"¹⁰ when it prescribed a new system of tenure for hearing examiners in § 11. An integral part of that "tradition" is that federal employees are subject to reductions in force.¹¹ Commission criteria for determining how a reduction in force should be accomplished are now a firmly embedded implementation of that "tradition."¹² It surpasses the bounds of reasonable inference to suppose that Congress, without explicitly saying so, intended to abandon this "tradition" in order to immunize hearing examiners from reductions in force.¹³ Where Congress did mean to change certain "traditions" and practices existing at the time the Administrative Procedure Act was passed, it did not flounder in a sea of indirection.¹⁴

The classification, rotation and promotion regulations are so closely tied that, as a practical matter, they require joint consideration. The classification regulations set up a system of grade classifications for hearing examiners which describe the qualifications of the examiners for each grade and specify the kind of proceedings in which examiners of a given grade shall preside.¹⁵ Hearing examiner positions have been allocated by the Commission to the various agencies according to this general plan. For some agencies, the Commission has determined that all the positions allocated shall be at the same grade; in other agencies, it has determined that there shall be as many as five grades.¹⁶ The allocation of several grades to a given agency is based upon the Commission's determination that the cases at which hearing examiners preside in that agency vary considerably in difficulty and importance. The rotation regulations provide that "Insofar as practicable, examiners shall be assigned in rotation to cases of the level of difficulty and importance that are normally assigned to positions of the salary grade they hold."¹⁷ This contemplates that the agency will classify cases before hearing, assigning the more difficult and important ones, for example, to examiners with higher grades. Finally, the promotion regulations authorize and establish a procedure for the promotion of individual hearing examiners by the Commission from one grade to another within the agency. The agency may elect to fill a vacancy by promotion, either from the ranks of its own examiners or from the ranks of other agency personnel. If the agency elects the former group, the Commission alone selects the individual therefrom and the agency is bound by the Commission's choice. If, on the other hand, the agency elects the latter group, it can select the individual therefrom but the Commission may exercise a veto power over such choice.

Briefly stated, the substance of the broadside attack on the regulations is this: § 11 of the Administrative Procedure Act requires that hearing examiners "shall be assigned to cases in rotation so far as practicable * * *." Appellees read this to mean that cases assigned for hearing within an agency shall, in effect, be docketed regardless of their complexity; that a hearing examiner, as he finishes one task, will simply be given whatever case happens to be next in line;¹⁸ that since all the examiners within a given agency will be doing the same work, any difference in grade classification and pay would be not only unfair, but illegal;¹⁹ and that since all the examiners within a given agency will be of the same rank, there will be no occasion for individual promotions within the agency.²⁰ Underlying this construction of the Act is the notion that classification, rotation according to case difficulty and individual intra-agency promotions will give the agencies control over hearing examiners' compensation and thus destroy that independence from agency control which Congress intended the Administrative Procedure Act to assure hearing examiners.

Appellees' view, which is adopted by the court, goes much farther along the road toward complete examiner independence than Congress itself was willing to travel. In enacting § 11, Congress sought to strike a balance between the need for administrative efficiency and expertise and the need for freeing hearing examiners from dictation or intimidation by the agencies. Accordingly, Congress did not adopt any of the extreme proposals to isolate hearing examiners from the agencies or insulate them completely from expressions of the agencies' views. For example, it rejected the idea of a completely separate Government-wide "pool" of hearing examiners which some experts had favored.²¹ And it turned down another proposal for greater autonomy than § 11 provides "chiefly on the ground that it will remove the examiners from real responsibility to the agency charged with the administration of law."²² Instead, Congress adopted the less extreme proposal of removing from the agencies and giving to the Commission wide powers over the selection, compensation and removal of hearing examiners. This was the means adopted to end "the present situation, in which examiners are mere employees of an agency."²³

I cannot find in the simple congressional directive of assignment "to cases in rotation so far as practicable * * *" an intent to enact appellees' far-reaching proposals. Freezing all examiners within an agency into one grade and mechanical assignment of cases would go a long way toward dissipating the administrative expertise upon which courts now rely in giving deference to administrative judgments.²⁴ For usually it is through long experience in a particular field that expertness is acquired. Yet under the appellees' view, specialization by hearing examiners would depend, in large part, upon chance in the assignment of cases. Anomalous results would follow. In the Civil Aeronautics Board, for example, an ex-pilot who has heard nothing but airman certificate cases might suddenly find himself at sea in an intricate...