Source: http://yalejreg.com/nc/ninth-circuit-review-reviewed-inaugural-edition-by-william-yeatman/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 15:53:32+00:00

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In a recent post, Prof. Aaron Nielson noted that Notice & Comment once considered starting a “D.C. Circuit Review–Reviewed-style column for the Ninth Circuit.” This sounded like a great idea to me, so I reached out to the editors and volunteered for the part. Henceforth, on the 9th of every month, I’ll report on the court as perceived by an administrative law nerd.
Who’s the Real “Junior Varsity SCOTUS”?
In a thoughtful post from 2015, Prof. Nielson described “conventional wisdom” as being “probably right” in believing that the D.C. Circuit is the “second most important court” in the land.
With the utmost possible respect for Prof. Nielson and the D.C. Circuit, I submit that these secondary superlatives are more apt out west in reference to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The obvious effect of the court’s size. It’s only one of thirteen U.S Courts of Appeals (8%), and its jurisdiction includes 20% of the population. By virtue of sheer immensity, the Ninth Circuit is a powerhouse in whatever field of law is being considered.
The court reviews the lion’s share of decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals, due to both the prevalence of Hispanic communities within the court’s jurisdiction and the international border in the southwest.
The Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction includes the Bay area, which serves as headquarters to many public interest groups that focus on litigation. As a result, the federal district court in San Francisco exercises original jurisdiction over a high volume of challenges to agency action and inaction pursuant to either APA § 706 or some other enabling act (especially 42 U.S.C. 7604). This further increases the Ninth Circuit’s administrative law workload.
While I’m aware of no definitive evidence on the matter, I have some empirical support for the proposition that the Ninth Circuit is the true people’s champion of administrative law. A couple months ago, I wrote a two–part series for this blog exploring a dataset of all U.S. Courts of Appeals opinions that relied on Seminole Rock deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation. For the purposes of this post, let us assume that we can approximate the *strength* of a given court’s administrative law docket by simply counting the number of times that the court employs the Seminole Rock doctrine. From 1998 to 2013, the D.C. Circuit employed the Seminole Rock framework 61 times; during that span, the Ninth Circuit employed the doctrine 72 times. To be sure, the Ninth Circuit doesn’t exclusively establish law for many regulatory regimes, as does the D.C. Circuit; nevertheless, as a function of actual practice, the Ninth Circuit is an administrative law workhorse.
After administrative law credentials, Prof. Nielson next defended the D.C. Circuit’s reputation as the first-runner-up court by observing that “the D.C. Circuit’s cases are interesting.” Perhaps way back in 2015, when Prof. Nielson lent this perspective, it was possible for the D.C. Circuit to be considered the most interesting federal appeals court. Yet during the Trump presidency, surely the Ninth Circuit is now most eye-catching? For Pete’s sake, the President is warring with the court on Twitter! As things currently stand, the D.C. Circuit is positively dull in comparison.
Prof. Nielson’s final claim in support of conventional wisdom is that “the D.C. Circuit is bold.” But, again, what’s bolder than drawing presidential ire on social media?
In sum, the Ninth Circuit is eminently justified in staking a claim as the true “Junior Varsity SCOTUS,” and a major reason this is possible is on account of the court’s prolific practice of administrative law. Having established that the D.C. Circuit’s reputation as the “second most important court” is not unchallenged, let’s get to November’s noteworthy cases.
In Regents v. Department of Homeland Security, a Ninth Circuit panel upheld a lower court’s nationwide injunction to stop the Trump administration from repealing his predecessor’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday to obtain work permits and certain other federal benefits.
Of course, the Ninth Circuit is one of many Article III courts currently engaging in some sort of review of the Homeland Security Department’s rescission of DACA. These various cases have implicated numerous fascinating issues for administrative law nerds, many of which have been discussed at this blog, including whether shutting DACA down requires APA § 553 rulemaking procedures and the propriety of nationwide injunctions issued by U.S. district courts.
As the Regents court noted, “deferred action is not expressly grounded in statute [but] arises instead from the Executive’s inherent authority to allocate resources and prioritize cases.” Indeed, the Homeland Security Department entitled the DACA policy, “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children.” (Formatting added).
The rule that emerges is this: an agency’s nonenforcement decision is outside the scope of the [Heckler] presumption—and is therefore presumptively reviewable—if it is based solely on a belief that the agency lacked the lawful authority to do otherwise. That is, where the agency’s decision is based not on an exercise of discretion, but instead on a belief that any alternative choice was foreclosed by law, the APA’s “committed to agency discretion” bar to reviewability, 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2), does not apply.
The court calls this its “Montana Air rule,” after a circuit precedent that first recognized a footnote in Heckler, which left open whether “a refusal by the agency to institute proceedings based solely on the belief that it lacks jurisdiction” might be reviewable notwithstanding this general rule. See 470 U.S. at 833 n.4.
In rescinding DACA, the Trump administration reasoned that the original policy was illegal to begin with. The Ninth Circuit disagreed on the illegality of the underlying DACA policy, and therefore the court found applicable its Montana Air exception to the Heckler presumption of non-reviewability.
The Ninth Circuit’s idiosyncratic logic piqued my curiosity about how other courts have addressed government claims that the APA does not provide a cause of action to challenge DACA. As it turns out, lower courts have drilled many different holes through Heckler in finding APA jurisdiction to hear challenges to the original DACA policy, near-identical policies, and rescissions of these policies.
By contrast, federal district courts in New York and Maryland took the Overton Park highway through Heckler. Famously, in Overton Park, the Supreme Court found that agency action is presumptively reviewable if there is “law to apply.” The district courts in New York and Maryland found that the APA’s procedural requirements set forth “law to apply” in judging the Department of Homeland Security’s repeal of DACA, thereby providing a basis for judicial review. In a similar vein, a U.S. District Court in Texas located “law to apply” in the Department of Homeland Security’s enabling acts.
Given the remedial imperative, it is unsurprising lower courts have found avenues around Heckler to review DACA and its repeal. What is perhaps more eye-opening, at least to me, is the legal creativity shown by various courts in the course of plotting different routes.
Agencies need information from regulated entities in order to regulate. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) protects regulated entities from excessive red-tape by requiring that OMB sign off on any agency “information collection requests.” Oftentimes, however, agencies avoid these requirements by imposing so-called “bootleg” information requests on the public. It has long been assumed that the only remedy for a private party subject to an agency’s bootleg request is to raise the PRA’s “public protection” defense, which almost no one does, because it is extremely risky—if you refuse to comply with the request, raise the defense, and lose, then you will suffer the consequences of being in non-compliance with the law.
@donkilmer In the Ninth Circuit the en banc coordinator is usually the stepping stone to Chief Judge. Both terms are 6 years, giving one person 12 years to influence the Court.
 I’d be remiss if I failed to explain why I think the New York and Maryland district courts got it wrong. If APA § 701(a)(2) withholds judicial review where there is no “law to apply,” but, at the same time, the court finds “law to apply” in the APA, then I fail to see any limit whatsoever on judicial review, which would render §701(a)(2) nonsensical, like a snake eating its own tail.
William Yeatman is a public policy professional in Washington D.C. and a February 2019 J.D. Candidate at the Georgetown University Law Center.
I’m happy to see that the Ninth Circuit will be covered too. Thanks for joining the team!
Thanks! I’m thrilled to be aboard!
Happy to see that after three straight semesters of classes with Will (who is graduating this semester), I’ll still get my fix of Will’s insightful commentary indefinitely!
Thank Michael! It very much enjoyed being in classes w/ you. Also, I didn’t know you are E-i-C of the J of Law & public Policy. That’s awesome & well -deserved. Congrats!
“I” very much enjoyed … Have great holidays!

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