Opinion ID: 2313322
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Request for Injunctive Relief

Text: The Tuccis ask only for injunctive relief with respect to their claim under the Litter Control Administration Act (LCA). In a case where the plaintiffs similarly sought only an injunction, we held that [t]he actions of government agencies are normally presumed to be subject to judicial review.... District of Columbia v. Sierra Club, 670 A.2d 354, 358 (D.C.1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). [3] Nevertheless, this presumption falls away in two circumstances: (1) where the legislature commits the challenged action entirely to agency discretion; and (2) where a statute precludes review, either explicitly or implicitly. Id. (citing Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 828, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985)). In Sierra Club, we acknowledged that [t]he determination whether and when to institute enforcement proceedings against a specific individual is a core executive responsibility which may reasonably be viewed as having been committed to agency discretion so as to preclude substantive judicial review. 670 A.2d at 360; see also Hall v. Williams, 738 A.2d 262, 265 (D.C.1999) (It has long been the case that prosecutorial decisions are discretionary....). Here, the Tuccis ask the courts to order more robust enforcement of the LCA against their neighbors, extending to all portions of the right-of-way. But such enforcement action is a core executive function committed to the discretion of the DPW, meaning that judicial review is precluded. See J.C. & Associates v. District of Columbia Board of Appeals & Review, 778 A.2d 296, 308 (D.C.2001) (petitioner had no legal right to require the [Building and Land Regulation Administration] to take action under the Unsafe Structures Act, even if petitioner could show before the [District of Columbia Board of Appeals and Review] that such action was objectively warranted under the circumstances [because] exercise of this enforcement authority is committed to executive discretion). The Tuccis resist this conclusion, arguing that enforcement of the LCA is not discretionary. In their view, [t]he D.C. City Council mandated that the Mayor ... enforce the Act and used the word `shall.' See D.C.Code § 8-802 (2008 Supp.) (The Mayor of the District of Columbia ... shall enforce the District of Columbia Solid Waste Management and Multi-Material Recycling Act of 1988....). But this type of language is no different in kind from that found in many provisions of criminal law. See, e.g., D.C.Code § 1-1001.08(b)(4) (2001) (prosecution of unauthorized circulators of petitions; Violations of this section shall be prosecuted in the name of the District of Columbia by the Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia.); D.C.Code § 3-608(a) (2001) (prosecution of any person who holds, engages, or participates in unlicensed boxing, wrestling, or martial arts exhibitions; Such cases shall be prosecuted by the Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.); D.C.Code § 10-503.18(c) (2001) (unlawful conduct on Capitol grounds; Violations of this part ... shall be prosecuted by the United States Attorney or his assistants in the name of the United States.). No one would seriously argue that the use of the term shall be prosecuted in these statutes requires the Attorney General for the District of Columbia (formerly the Corporation Counsel) or the United States Attorney to prosecute each and every violation of these statutes brought to his or her attention. Similarly here, the words the Mayor ... shall enforce allocate responsibility  they do not strip the Mayor of discretion in undertaking enforcement action. Alternatively, the Tuccis characterize the District's actions as ministerial because [t]he agency decided to undertake enforcement action and has proceeded, albeit incorrectly. According to appellants, the District had already exercised its discretion in favor of enforcement. From that point on, they assert, the District's actions were merely ministerial: Once it was determined that a citation should issue, it must issue in accordance with the regulatory requirements.... We previously have rejected a similar attempt to blur the distinction between discretionary and ministerial functions by isolating each component of a decision.... Aguehounde v. District of Columbia, 666 A.2d 443, 450 (D.C. 1995) (concluding that decision on timing of traffic light intervals was discretionary, not ministerial, and rejecting argument that, to establish immunity, the government must produce evidence that `social, political or economic considerations entered into the timing of the clearance interval at Wisconsin and Fessenden'); see id., quoting Smith v. Johns-Manville Corp., 795 F.2d 301, 308 (3d Cir.1986) (The position that agency decisions can be broken down into component parts is fundamentally at odds with the [Supreme] Court's teaching in Dalehite [ v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 35-36, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953)]....). [4] This iteration of the Tuccis' argument is simply a complaint about the level or extent of enforcement activity undertaken by the District. They contend that the District should expand its field of operations to include all portions of the public right-of-way, as shown on their survey. But these are decisions about whether and when to institute enforcement proceedings against a specific individual, Sierra Club, 670 A.2d at 360, and they are committed to agency discretion. See United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense (Varig Airlines), 467 U.S. 797, 819-20, 104 S.Ct. 2755, 81 L.Ed.2d 660 (1984) (When an agency determines the extent to which it will supervise the safety procedures of private individuals, it is exercising discretionary regulatory authority of the most basic kind.); Barron v. Reich, 13 F.3d 1370, 1376 n. 3 (9th Cir.1994) ([A] decision about the extent of enforcement to be undertaken in a given case is also likely to be discretionary. (emphasis in original)); Gillis v. United States Dep't of Health & Human Services, 759 F.2d 565, 576 (6th Cir.1985) (The mechanism by and extent to which HHS `monitors' as well as `enforces' compliance fall squarely within the agency's exercise of discretion.). We similarly are unpersuaded by the Tuccis' reliance upon three decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which supposedly demonstrate that DPW's enforcement decisions are subject to judicial review. [5] In each of these cases, the court construed and applied Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985), which recognized a presumption that an agency's decision not to take enforcement action is immune from judicial review. Id. at 832, 105 S.Ct. 1649. The Tuccis focus upon some of the discussion in those opinions, but ignore their actual holdings. In New York State Department of Law v. Federal Communications Commission, the court observed that, in some circumstances, an otherwise nonreviewable decision about initiating an enforcement action becomes reviewable once the agency undertakes the action. 299 U.S.App. D.C. 371, 376, 984 F.2d 1209, 1214 (1993). But this quotation obviously does not state a categorical rule, and the present case is nothing like the circumstances described there. Moreover, when an agency has exercised coercive power over an individual, it is one thing to recognize that person's right of judicial review to test whether the agency has exceeded its statutory powers. Chaney, 470 U.S. at 832, 105 S.Ct. 1649. It is a much different proposition to allow third parties to complain that the enforcement against their neighbors has not been vigorous enough. The court's decision in New York State Department of Law actually supports the conclusion that the District's enforcement decisions are not reviewable. The court held that the FCC's decisions about the initial scope of the enforcement action and its decision to enter into the Consent Decree are committed to the agency's nonreviewable discretion.... 299 U.S.App. D.C. at 373, 984 F.2d at 1211. See also id. at 377, 984 F.2d at 1215 (Even had the FCC completed adjudication of these overcharges, it would have been free to decide, at its discretion, not to collect every dollar to which it was entitled.); id. at 379, 984 F.2d at 1217 ([W]e decline to second-guess the agency's choices concerning the scope of this enforcement action.). In Robbins v. Reagan, 250 U.S.App. D.C. 375, 780 F.2d 37 (1985), the court reviewed a decision of the federal government to close a federally-owned building which had been used as a homeless shelter. This decision rescinded a previous commitment to convert the facility into a model shelter, id. at 377, 780 F.2d at 39, and the court emphasized the difference between a decision to refrain from taking enforcement action and an agency's decision to rescind a commitment. Id. at 385, 780 F.2d at 47. Robbins does not support the Tuccis' quest for judicial review. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm'n, 346 U.S.App. D.C. 265, 252 F.3d 456 (2001), recognized the general rule that an agency's decision not to exercise its enforcement authority, or to exercise it in a particular way, is committed to its absolute discretion, id. at 268, 252 F.3d at 459, and held that FERC's decision to settle its enforcement action against Columbia was within the agency's nonreviewable discretion. Id. at 270, 252 F.3d at 461. None of these decisions, as applied to the facts of this case, rebuts the presumption against reviewability recognized in Chaney and Sierra Club. [6] For all these reasons, the Tuccis were not entitled to an injunction, and the Superior Court properly granted summary judgment on this count of their complaint.