Opinion ID: 368290
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: General Considerations Regarding the Reviewability of the Army's Decision

Text: 8 Whether and to what extent we may entertain the plaintiffs' challenges to the Army's decision is controlled by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 4 which contemplates that judicial review be available at the behest of any person adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action 5 except to the extent that (1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law. 6 9 The Supreme Court has emphasized repeatedly that the APA's  'generous review provisions' must be given a 'hospitable' interpretation, 7 and that only upon a showing of 'clear and convincing evidence' of a contrary legislative intent should the courts restrict access to judicial review. 8 Thus, in the absence of a specific statutory preclusion of review, agency action may be determined to be committed to agency discretion by law only when a fair appraisal of the entire legislative scheme, including a weighing of the practical and policy implications of reviewability, persuasively indicates that judicial review should be circumscribed. 9 Examination of those cases in which matters have been held nonreviewable yields a number of criteria that bear upon the reviewability of the Army's decision in the present case. 10 A predicate to nonreviewability is that the agency have Broad discretionary powers, not merely that its action involve Some discretion. For, as the Ninth Circuit put it, (a)lmost every agency action involves some degree of discretion of judgment. Yet it cannot be said that, for this reason, every agency action is unreviewable. 10 In the same vein, the legislative history of the APA, referred to in Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 410, 91 S.Ct. 814, 821, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971), indicates that the committed to agency discretion exception to judicial review is intended to be applicable in those rare instances where 'statutes are drawn in such broad terms that in a given case there is no law to apply.' S.Rep.No.752, 79th Cong. 1st Sess., 26 (1945). 11 The existence of broad discretionary power in an agency often suggests that the challenged decision is the product of political, military, economic, or managerial choices that are not really susceptible to judicial review. Indeed, given the separation of powers between the judiciary and the other branches of government, it would appear unseemly in such circumstances for a court to substitute its judgment for that of an executive or agency official. 11 Judge Hastie summed up the lesson of earlier cases in this regard in the following manner: 12 A mere difference of judgment between a person disadvantageously affected by agency action and the responsible head of the agency over the merits of particular administration action as a means of achieving a legislative objective, when Congress has assigned authority to make and act upon such determinations to the agency, is not judicially reviewable. (Citations omitted) . . . (This is so when) the statutory standard is expressed in such general concepts that it requires and must contemplate the exercise of discretion in choice among various rational alternatives none of which can fully satisfy all demands of competing interests. (Citation omitted). Moreover, the absence of any provision in the (pertinent statute) for judicial review of the Secretary's determination suggests that Congress recognized that the (agency head) is at least as competent as a court to achieve such an accommodation of diverse and often conflicting social and economic interests as must be made . . . . We are concerned here with a type of determination that does not present questions of an essentially legal nature in the sense that legal education and lawyers' learning afford peculiar competence for their adjustment. Frankfurter, J., concurring in Driscoll v. Edison Light & Power Co., 1939, 307 U.S. 104, 122, 59 S.Ct. 715, 724, 83 L.Ed. 1134. 12 13 In addition, we note that courts have been especially inclined to regard as unreviewable those aspects of agency decisions that involve a considerable degree of expertise or experience, or that are based upon economic projections and cost analyses, at least when the agency has broad leeway to devise the formula to be applied in any particular situation and when there are no discernible guidelines against which the agency decision may be measured. Thus, in Panama Canal Co. v. Grace Line, Inc., 356 U.S. 309, 78 S.Ct. 752, 2 L.Ed.2d 788 (1958), the Supreme Court held that the ratemaking procedure and the tolls established for the Panama Canal fell within the committed to agency discretion exception to judicial review. The Court explained: 14 As we have seen, the present conflict rages over questions that at heart involve problems of statutory construction and cost accounting: whether an operating deficit in the auxiliary or supporting activities is a legitimate cost in maintaining and operating the Canal for purpose of the toll formula. These are matters on which experts may disagree; they involve nice issues of judgment and choice, (State of) New York v. United States, 331 U.S. 284, 335, (67 S.Ct. 1207, 1234, 91 L.Ed. 1492,) which require the exercise of informed discretion. Cf. United States ex rel. McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U.S. 414 (, 51 S.Ct. 502, 75 L.Ed. 1148); Interstate Commerce Commission v. Humboldt S.S. Co., 224 U.S. 474, 484-85 (, 32 S.Ct. 556, 559, 56 L.Ed. 849.) 13 15 Determination that a matter is unreviewable because it is committed to agency discretion does not, however, slam(s) the door to the courthouse airtight. 14 Even when a court ascertains that a matter has been committed to agency discretion by law, it may entertain charges that the agency lacked jurisdiction, that the agency's decision was occasioned by impermissible influences, such as fraud or bribery, or that the decision violates a constitutional, statutory or regulatory command. 15 For the APA circumscribes judicial review only To the extent that . . . agency action is committed to agency discretion by law; it does not foreclose judicial inquiry altogether. 16