Opinion ID: 597106
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Availability Requirement of the APA

Text: 6 The NTSB contends that a sanctions guideline such as Bulletin 86-2 should not be deemed to affect a member of the public within the meaning of the APA because the severity of a sanction ... is not a proper basis for deciding whether to commit unlawful conduct. The NTSB relies upon a dictum to this effect in Capuano v. National Transportation Safety Board, 843 F.2d 56, 58 (1st Cir.1988). 7 We need not decide today the normative question whether one should consider the severity of the sanction when deciding whether to engage in conduct prohibited by regulation. The statute plainly requires each agency to make available and to index staff manuals et cetera that affect the public, and the legislative history makes clear that the Congress thereby meant for the agency to disclose all the documents having precedential significance. See H.R.Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., at 8 (1966). That certainly includes a manual setting out the sanctions policy by which the agency will henceforth be governed in deciding particular cases. 8 The purpose of the APA availability requirement is obviously to give the public notice of what the law is so that each individual can act accordingly. Usually that means conforming to the law, but sometimes it means violating the law (or coming close and risking a violation) and accepting the known consequences of doing so--especially where a regulatory rather than a moral or criminal norm is concerned. 9 While some agency manuals and instructions to staff may have effects too indirect or attenuated materially to affect an individual's conduct, the severity of a sanction certainly does affect the public in the sense that it alters the public's behavior, at least at the margin. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 HARV. L. REV. 457, 459 (1897) (A man who cares nothing for an ethical rule which is believed and practiced by his neighbors is likely nevertheless to care a good deal to avoid being made to pay money, and will want to keep out of jail if he can). Indeed, our legal system is in large parts premised upon the notion that as the cost associated with a particular type of behavior increases, the quantity of such behavior will decrease. See RICHARD A. POSNER, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW 5 (4th ed. 1992) (an increase in either the severity of the punishment or the likelihood of its imposition will raise the price of crime and therefore reduce its incidence). See also A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines, 69 AM. ECON. REV. 880 (1979); Gary S. Becker, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, 76 J. POL. ECON. 169 (1968). 10 Bulletin 86-2 itself reflects this basic behavioral assumption: it reports that the FAA increased the sanction for a TCA violation because the agency's prior policy had not provided an effective deterrent. That is to say, the prior policy had not affected the public to the extent that the agency intended the new policy to affect the public. 11 In further support of its position, the NTSB suggests that the modifier administrative before the term staff manual in § 552(a)(2)(C) limits the disclosure requirement of that provision to administrative matters rather than to law enforcement matters.... See S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., at 2 (1965). Thus, it says, an agency need not disclose guidelines used in the selection or handling of cases, such as operational tactics, allowable tolerances, or criteria for defense, prosecution, or settlement of cases. See H.R.Rep. No. 1497, supra, at 7-8. 12 The disclosure of those sorts of guidelines could, of course, compromise enforcement [299 U.S.App.D.C. 127] of the law or facilitate the circumvention of an agency's regulations. The disclosure of a minimum-sanction rule, such as that adopted in Bulletin 86-2, poses no such threat, however. See Stokes v. Brennan, 476 F.2d 699, 702 (5th Cir.1973) (agency secrecy justified only to the extent that it protects policies governing enforcement methods which, if disclosed, would tend to ... reveal[ ] classes or types of violations which must be left undetected or unremedied because of limited resources). See also Cox v. Dept. of Justice, 576 F.2d 1302, 1306-08 (8th Cir.1978); Hawkes v. I.R.S., 467 F.2d 787, 795 (6th Cir.1972). On the contrary, publicizing the increased severity of the FAA's new sanctions policy was essential to achieving its stated aim of enhanced deterrence. See POSNER, supra, at 242-43 (Viewed in an economic perspective as a system for altering incentives and thus regulating behavior, law must also be public). That is no doubt why the agency did in fact publish it. 13 Because we conclude that the new sanctions policy affected the public within the meaning of the APA, we hold that the FAA could not rely upon this policy in Smith's case. Bulletin 86-2 was made available to the public only after Smith had run afoul of the underlying substantive rule and the APA therefore precludes its use against him.