Opinion ID: 517689
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Authority to Order Equitable Relief

Text: 45 Our inquiry into the district court's authority to order equitable relief begins with the well-established principle that while the court must act within the bounds of the statute and without intruding upon the administrative province, it may adjust its relief to the exigencies of the case in accordance with the equitable principles governing judicial action. Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 364, 373, 59 S.Ct. 301, 307, 83 L.Ed. 221 (1939); see also Hondros v. U.S. Civil Service Comm'n, 720 F.2d 278, 298 (3rd Cir.1983) (APA is a source of injunctive relief to remedy an arbitrary or capricious delay or denial of agency action; court ordered plaintiff appointed to permanent position where agency arbitrarily delayed certification); Jacksonville Port Authority v. Adams, 556 F.2d 52, 56 (D.C.Cir.1977) (appellate court may, in the interest of equity and justice, make the plaintiff whole by ordering the FAA and the district court to act as if there had been a conditional grant prior to June 30, 1975 (emphasis added); court ordered FAA to grant entitlement despite passage of congressional deadline). 46 The Secretary attempts to defeat the inherent equitable powers recognized in these cases by relying on the following statement from Marshall v. Local Union 1374, Int'l Ass'n of Machinists, 558 F.2d 1354 (9th Cir.1977): 47 A statutory time limit is not mandatory unless it both expressly requires an agency or public official to act within a particular time period and specifies a consequence for failure to comply with the provision. 48 Id. at 1357, quoting Fort Worth Nat'l Corp. v. Federal Savings and Loan Ins. Corp., 469 F.2d 47, 58 (5th Cir.1972). Although Marshall was later held by this court to have been overruled by a subsequent Supreme Court decision, see City of Edmonds v. United States Dep't of Labor, 749 F.2d 1419, 1422-23 (9th Cir.1984), the Secretary argues that the rationale and result of Edmonds was disapproved by the Supreme Court in Brock v. Pierce County, 476 U.S. 253, 258-62 & n. 6, 106 S.Ct. 1834, 1838-40 & n. 6, 90 L.Ed.2d 248 (1986), thereby restoring Marshall to the status of valid precedent. 49 The Secretary's reliance on Marshall is misplaced. Assuming arguendo that Marshall and the Fort Worth doctrine are the law of this circuit, those cases do not hold that a court cannot order any equitable relief to compensate for an official's failure to act. As explained by the Supreme Court in Brock, the Fort Worth line of cases holds that [g]overnment agencies do not lose jurisdiction for failure to comply with statutory time limits. 476 U.S. at 259, 106 S.Ct. at 1838 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court in Brock specifically contemplated that other remedies were available to the court: When, as here, there are less drastic remedies available for failure to meet a statutory deadline, courts should not assume that Congress intended the agency to lose its power to act. Id. at 260, 106 S.Ct. at 1839 (emphasis added; footnote omitted). This conclusion is also recognized in Marshall itself, where the court stated that although the statutory time limit was not jurisdictional, the court should consider the rights of all parties affected ... in order to evaluate what action will best serve the purposes of the statute. 558 F.2d at 1357-58. Thus, Marshall does not compel the conclusion that the district court was powerless to order an equitable adjustment in this case. 20 50 Next, the Secretary argues that the relief ordered by the district court is contrary to Sec. 2(a)(1) of the Act, which provides for release upon payment of the buy-out charge and completion of the obligation to harvest to logical stopping points. We disagree. It was the Secretary's own regulations which provided that a purchaser's contract obligations should be held in abeyance during the period between receipt of an application and actual payment following the Secretary's approval of the application. The Secretary cannot now argue that this extra abatement period is contrary to the Act. As for the power of the district courts to order equitable relief under the Act, we find nothing in the statute to indicate that Congress intended to divest the courts of their inherent equitable powers. We recognize that the thrust of Brock and Marshall is that shall is not always mandatory unless Congress has specified a consequence. However, as noted above, Brock and Marshall rely heavily on the fact that depriving the agency of its power to act was a remedy which would thwart the statutory purpose. Here, by contrast, enforcing the deadline would serve the statutory purpose of providing immediate relief for timber purchasers. See Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 825, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 2497, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980) (By choosing what are obviously quite short deadlines, Congress clearly intended to encourage the prompt processing of all [claims]) (refusing to construe statute to extend limitations period). Indeed, the Secretary concedes that plaintiffs could have brought an action under the APA to compel the Forest Service to act. See Brock, 476 U.S. at 260 n. 7, 106 S.Ct. at 1839 n. 7. We therefore reject the Secretary's argument. We hold that the district courts had authority to order an equitable adjustment to the release date under the Act.