Opinion ID: 719786
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Waiver of Sovereign Immunity under the APA.

Text: 9 A finding that the actions of an agency were arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law is reviewed de novo. See Shalala v. St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Ctr., 50 F.3d 522, 527 (8th Cir.1995). We start our analysis with the well-established proposition that the United States may not be sued without its consent. See Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U.S. 128, 141, 92 S.Ct. 1456, 1466, 31 L.Ed.2d 741 (1972). That consent must be express and unequivocal. See United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 33, 112 S.Ct. 1011, 1014, 117 L.Ed.2d 181 (1992). PRM seeks judicial review of FEMA's decision to continue using the term Preferred Risk under the APA. Section 702 of the APA explicitly consents to judicial review 2 of agency action where such action results in a legal wrong or adversely affects the plaintiff within the meaning of a relevant statute. Thus, this waiver contains two separate requirements: 1) the person claiming a right to review must identify some agency action, and 2) the party seeking review must show that he has suffered a legal wrong or been adversely affected by that action within the meaning of a relevant statute. See Lujan v. National Wildlife Fed'n, 497 U.S. 871, 882-83, 110 S.Ct. 3177, 3185-86, 111 L.Ed.2d 695 (1990). We focus on the second prong. 10 As a procedural statute, the APA provides no substantive requirements, but merely provides the framework for judicial review of agency action. See Defenders of Wildlife v. Administrator, EPA, 882 F.2d 1294, 1303 (8th Cir.1989). Accordingly, [t]here is no right to sue for a violation of the APA in the absence of a 'relevant statute' whose violation 'forms the basis for [the] complaint.'  El Rescate Legal Serv. v. Executive Office of Immigration Review, 959 F.2d 742, 753 (9th Cir.1991) (citing Lujan, 497 U.S. at 883, 110 S.Ct. at 3186); accord A-G-E Corp. v. United States, 968 F.2d 650, 655 (8th Cir.1992). The language of the APA makes this clear. Section 706 provides that the reviewing court shall set aside agency action found to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. § 706(2)(A) (emphasis added). Thus, although the plaintiff need not demonstrate that the substantive statute independently waives federal sovereign immunity, which is the function of section 702, the plaintiff must identify a substantive statute or regulation that the agency action had transgressed and establish that the statute or regulation applies to the United States. 11 PRM points to the Lanham Act of 1946, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1127 (1994), as the substantive statute that should govern the agency's actions with respect to trademarks. 3 The question to this court then is whether the Lanham Act's requirements apply to the federal government and regulate agency action. 4 If the Lanham Act does not apply to the federal government, FEMA's use of Preferred Risk would not constitute a legal wrong 5 nor would it adversely affect PRM within the meaning of the relevant statute, 6 the Lanham Act. As a consequence, the Lanham Act could not form the basis of an APA challenge to federal agency action. 12 In response to the government's assertion that an APA plaintiff must point to some substantive statute that the alleged agency action transgressed, PRM argues that it is exactly this type of unfettered agency action that Congress intended to limit by enacting the Administrative Procedure Act, which enlarges the authority of the courts to check illegal and arbitrary administrative action without any constraint. (Appellee's Br. at 13). Although we acknowledge the broad scope of the APA, its own language and the case law interpreting it clearly reject the conception of the APA as substantive, mandating free-wheeling judicial review of any agency action. 13 PRM also argues that the scope of judicial review is limited to the administrative record, which consists of the six letters exchanged between PRM and FEMA. As such, they contend that by failing to raise sovereign immunity in its correspondence with PRM, FEMA waived its ability to assert immunity. This fails to recognize the distinction between a factual evidentiary record and a jurisdictional basis. The issue before our court is whether the United States has waived its sovereign immunity in this case. Sovereign immunity is jurisdictional in nature. See FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. 996, 1000-1003, 127 L.Ed.2d 308, 317-19 (1994). Therefore, regardless of the scope of conversation between the plaintiff and employees of an administrative agency, questions of subject-matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time and may not be waived. See Yeldell v. Tutt, 913 F.2d 533, 537 (8th Cir.1990) (citing Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 702, 102 S.Ct. 2099, 2104, 72 L.Ed.2d 492 (1982)). Therefore, we proceed to the issue of the Lanham Act's applicability to the federal government. 14