Opinion ID: 491631
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Accrual in the Context of Administrative Action

Text: 21 A cause of action against an administrative agency first accrues, within the meaning of Sec. 2401(a), as soon as (but not before) the person challenging the agency action can institute and maintain a suit in court. See, e.g., Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U.S. 503, 510-11, 87 S.Ct. 1177, 1181-82, 18 L.Ed.2d 256 (1967); Impro Products, Inc. v. Block, 722 F.2d 845, 850 (D.C.Cir.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 931, 105 S.Ct. 327, 83 S.Ct. 327 (1984). 3 Tautologically, a suit cannot be maintained in court--and a cause of action does not first accrue--until a party has exhausted all administrative remedies whose exhaustion is a prerequisite to suit. See Crown Coat, 386 U.S. at 510-19, 87 S.Ct. at 1181-86. Such remedies are often curiously called mandatory remedies, even though no one has ever been penalized for failing to pursue them. Conversely (and also tautologically), where the availability or pendency of an administrative remedy does not bar suit, a suit can be maintained in court--and a cause of action can first accrue. See, e.g., Soriano v. United States, 352 U.S. 270, 274-75, 77 S.Ct. 269, 272-73, 1 L.Ed.2d 306 (1957); Hurick v. Lehman, 782 F.2d 984, 987 (Fed.Cir.1986); Walters v. Secretary of Defense, 725 F.2d at 114; White v. Secretary of the Army, 629 F.Supp. 64, 67 (D.D.C.1985). Such remedies are commonly tagged permissive. 22 Nomenclature aside, the pivotal question for application of Sec. 2401(a) to agency action is whether or not the failure to avail oneself of available administrative appeals would bar suit in court. See also Lins v. United States, 688 F.2d 784, 786-87 (Ct.Cl.1982) (using mandatory/permissive labels in construing identical language in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2501), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1147, 103 S.Ct. 788, 74 L.Ed.2d 995 (1983); Bonen v. United States, 666 F.2d 536, 539 (Ct.Cl.1981) (same), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 991, 102 S.Ct. 2273, 73 L.Ed.2d 1286 (1982). 4 23 To contradict the wealth of authority drawing that distinction, appellant quotes only this court's language in Impro Products. In that case this court applied Sec. 2401(a) to bar an action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. Sec. 702 (1982), brought more than six years after the agency's final agency action, id. Sec. 704. This court said that [i]n the agency context, the logical inference is that the cause of action accrues when all statutorily required or permitted agency review has been exhausted. 722 F.2d at 850 (emphasis added). Of course, since no formal review procedures existed at all in that case, id., any inconsistency with the settled principles discussed above would be dictum. 24 There is, however, no inconsistency. It is clear from the context that the court did not mean the terms required and permitted to be a masked reference to the mandatory/permissive nomenclature prevalent in this area. Rather, the court meant only to describe the exhaustion doctrine, under which remedies that a statute expressly require[s] and those that it permit[s] ordinarily must be exhausted before a suit can be maintained. No case quoting the permitted language in Impro Products has read it to abolish the conventional distinction for purposes of Sec. 2401(a) between mandatory and permissive administrative appeals. See White v. Secretary of the Army, 629 F.Supp. at 67, 68 (expressly reaffirming distinction); Bittner v. Secretary of Defense, 625 F.Supp. 1022, 1029 (D.D.C.1985) (quoting White ). 5