Opinion ID: 104758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: violation of the administrative procedure act.

Text: The Administrative Procedure Act was framed against a background of rapid expansion of the administrative process as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried them to excesses not contemplated in legislation creating their offices. It created safeguards even narrower than the constitutional ones, against arbitrary official encroachment on private rights. Thus § 3 (a) of the Act requires every agency to which it applies, which includes the Federal Trade Commission, to publish in the Federal Register certain statements of its rules, organization and procedure, including the nature and requirements of all formal or informal procedures available, and adds that, No person shall in any manner be required to resort to organization or procedure not so published. In addition § 6 (b) proscribes any requirement of a report or other investigative demand in any manner or for any purpose except as authorized by law. Principally on the basis of these two sections respondents contend that the current order cannot be enforced except in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Have the respondents been ordered to comply with procedure of which they were not put on notice by publication in the Federal Register? And to the extent that the procedure had been defined and published, was it authorized by law? The pertinent provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act became effective September 11, 1946. On December 11, 1946, the Federal Trade Commission published in the Federal Register its Rules of Practice, 11 Fed. Reg. 14233-14239. The Commission's Rule XXVI, id., 14237, republished without change in 12 Fed. Reg. 5444, 5448, sets the time limit for filing initial reports of compliance with Commission orders and asserts the Commission's right to require, within its sound discretion, the filing of further compliance reports thereafter. [4] In § 7.12 of its Statement of Organization, Procedures, and Functions, 12 Fed. Reg. 5450, 5452, the Commission restated its right to require by order such supplemental reports of compliance as it considers warranted, and defined the contents of such a report. [5] We conclude that the Commission's published Rule XXVI announced the right it claims in this case to demand of a party against whom an enforcement decree has been entered that it file with the Commission, from time to time thereafter, further reports in writing, setting forth in detail the manner and form in which they are complying with said order . . . . Taken together with the Commission's Statement of Organization, Procedures, and Functions, supra, if indeed not by itself, Rule XXVI amply met the requirements of § 3 (a) of the Administrative Procedure Act. Respondents hardly challenge this conclusion. Theirs is the more subtle argument that requirement of supplemental reports following court enforcement of a Commission order is unauthorized by statute and ultra vires, so that no valid notice of Rule XXVI had been or could be given, as required by § 3 (a) of the Administrative Procedure Act. Also, it is said to be in direct violation of § 6 (b) of that Act. This leads to the question of statutory authority for the order to report, a question we must determine even apart from consideration of the Administrative Procedure Act. Accordingly we turn to the Federal Trade Commission Act itself to see whether it contains statutory authority for the Commission's Rule XXVI, as well as for its order here sought to be enforced, issued, as it was, pursuant to the procedures proclaimed in that Rule. If we find such statutory authority, we must conclude that the objections under the Administrative Procedure Act are taken in vain.