Opinion ID: 552329
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: exhaustion of administrative remedies under foia

Text: 15 Exhaustion of administrative remedies is generally required before filing suit in federal court so that the agency has an opportunity to exercise its discretion and expertise on the matter and to make a factual record to support its decision. See McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 194, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 1662-63, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969). The exhaustion requirement also allows the top managers of an agency to correct mistakes made at lower levels and thereby obviates unnecessary judicial review. See id. However, absent a statutory provision to the contrary, failure to exhaust is by no means an automatic bar to judicial review; courts usually look at the purposes of exhaustion and the particular administrative scheme in deciding whether they will hear a case or return it to the agency for further processing. See id. at 193; National Labor Relations Board v. Industrial Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers, 391 U.S. 418, 426, 88 S.Ct. 1717, 1722-23, 20 L.Ed.2d 706 (1968). 16 The statutory scheme in the FOIA specifically provides for an administrative appeal process following an agency's denial of a FOIA request. After receiving a FOIA request an agency is required to: 17 (i) determine within ten days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) ... whether to comply with such request and [the agency] shall immediately notify the person making such request of such determination and the reasons therefor, and of the right of such person to appeal to the head of the agency any adverse determination; and 18 (ii) make a determination with respect to any appeal within twenty days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of such appeal. If on appeal the denial of the request for records is in whole or in part upheld, the agency shall notify the person making such request of the provisions for judicial review of that determination under paragraph (4) of this subsection. 19 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(i), (ii). Courts have consistently confirmed that the FOIA requires exhaustion of this appeal process before an individual may seek relief in the courts. See Dettmann v. U.S. Department of Justice, 802 F.2d 1472, 1477 (D.C.Cir.1986); Stebbins v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 757 F.2d 364 (D.C.Cir.1985); Brumley v. U.S. Department of Labor, 767 F.2d 444, 445 (8th Cir.1985); United States v. United States District Court, 717 F.2d 478, 480 (9th Cir.1983); Hedley v. United States, 594 F.2d 1043, 1044 (5th Cir.1979). 20 Appellant does not argue that exhaustion of remedies is not required. Rather, he contends that he exhausted his administrative remedies constructively, under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C). That section provides: 21 Any person making a request to any agency for records under paragraphs (1), (2), or (3) of this subsection shall be deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to such request if the agency fails to comply with the applicable time limit provisions of this paragraph. If the Government can show exceptional circumstances exist and that the agency is exercising due diligence in responding to the request, the court may retain jurisdiction and allow the agency additional time to complete its review of the records.... 22 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C). The relevant deadlines for agency responses to FOIA requests and appeals are set out in 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A): the agency must respond to a FOIA request within ten days of receipt of the request, and must respond to an appeal within twenty days of receipt of the appeal. However, the agency may grant itself one ten-day extension of time for either the initial response or the administrative appeal, upon notice to the requester. 2 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(B). 23 If the agency has not responded within the statutory time limits, then, under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C), the requester may bring suit. At that time, the court may determine that the agency has been diligently working on a response to the request, but has been unable to meet the deadline because of exceptional circumstances, and may grant an extension of time to allow the agency to finish reviewing the request. 3 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C); see also Open America v. Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 547 F.2d 605, 610 (D.C.Cir.1976) (holding that the district court properly granted an extension of time to the agency when the agency was deluged with requests for information vastly in excess of that anticipated by Congress, and the agency was processing the requests with due diligence on a first in, first out basis). Despite this administrative appeal process set out in the FOIA, however, appellant interprets 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C) as making all claims against an agency immediately and irrevocably ripe for judicial review if the agency fails to respond within the ten-day statutory deadline. 4 24 In support of this reading, appellant chiefly relies on Spannaus v. United States Department of Justice, 824 F.2d 52 (D.C.Cir.1987). Spannaus held that actual exhaustion of the administrative appeal was not necessary to begin the statute of limitations running for a FOIA cause of action in federal court; constructive exhaustion, i.e., the passage of the ten-day period from the time of the request as set out in 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(i), was sufficient for that purpose. In that decision, we characterized actual exhaustion as permissive once the ten-day limit has expired by virtue of 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C). 25 We did not deal in Spannaus with the issue presented here of whether, once an agency responds to a request belatedly but before suit is filed, actual exhaustion must still be pursued before going to court. In Spannaus, rather, we looked to the constructive exhaustion provision only to establish when the statute of limitations in a FOIA case begins to run. 5 Id. at 56-57. Indeed, appellant overlooks the portion of Spannaus that did discuss how the statute of limitations might operate in a case where an agency has actually, but tardily, responded to a request or an appeal. Id. at 59-60. The appellant in Spannaus claimed that the statute of limitations should be tolled once an agency initially responds to a FOIA request, or an administrative appeal is taken, in order to allow the administrative process to run its course. The court carefully declined to decide this issue, however, because even if the statute of limitations had been tolled during the agency's decision on appeal, the appellant's suit would still have been time-barred. Id. at 60. Thus, the court specifically left open whether an agency's initial response (denying documents) that arrives after the 10-day deadline, but before the requester has filed suit, suspends or cuts off the right to sue. Id. In so doing, the Spannaus court explicitly attempted to reconcile its position with an earlier holding in Dettmann v. U.S. Department of Justice. See id. at 59; Dettmann, 802 F.2d at 1474. 26 In Dettmann, the FOIA requester challenged in court a FOIA disclosure procedure that she had not previously challenged in her administrative appeal. We held that because she had not exhausted her administrative remedies with respect to that challenge she could not raise it in district court. 6 Dettmann, 802 F.2d at 1474. The Spannaus court reconciled its theory of constructive exhaustion with Dettmann 's requirement of actual exhaustion as follows: 27 [T]he court's conclusion that Dettmann's suit was barred for want of actual exhaustion is perfectly reconcilable with the [exhaustion] scheme [under Sec. 552(a)(6)(C) ] described above. The court might simply have assumed that when an agency makes its initial response after the 10-day deadline but before the requester has filed suit, the administrative appeal's mandatory character is restored. Under that view of things, the requester's statutory right to sue might perhaps be either suspended (for the brief period during which an administrative appeal is available plus the 20 working days within which it must be processed) or entirely cut off (if the requester never appeals the denial). 28 Spannaus, 824 F.2d at 59. 29 We agree with this interpretation of the exhaustion provision, i.e., that an administrative appeal is mandatory if the agency cures its failure to respond within the statutory period by responding to the FOIA request before suit is filed. The ten-day constructive exhaustion under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C) allows immediate recourse to the courts to compel the agency's response to a FOIA request. But once the agency responds to the FOIA request, the requester must exhaust his administrative remedies before seeking judicial review. This interpretation of the exhaustion provision of the FOIA is consistent with the structure of the statute. 30 Section 552(a)(6)(A) provides for an administrative appeal where an agency's determination is adverse; judicial review of that determination is available after the agency determination has been upheld in the administrative appeal. This section states that the agency shall immediately notify the person ... of the right ... to appeal to the head of the administrative agency any adverse determination. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(i) (emphasis added). It does not suggest that a FOIA requester has the immediate right to appeal to the court without first appealing to the head of the agency. Rather, the next paragraph provides for judicial review after the administrative appeal has taken place: if on appeal the denial of the request for records is in whole or in part upheld, the agency shall notify the person ... of the provision for judicial review of that determination. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(ii). 31 The purpose of the ten-day limit for an agency response is to allow a FOIA requester, who has not yet received a response from the agency, to seek a court order compelling the release of the requested documents. The court may then order the agency to respond to the request. See Cleaver v. Kelley, 427 F.Supp. 80, 82 (D.D.C.1976) (ordering the agency to refrain from refusing to process the plaintiff's request and to produce the requested documents or provide sufficient justification for withholding the documents). Or, the court may review the request itself under the de novo review provision. 7 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(B). Frequently, if the agency is working diligently, but exceptional circumstances have prevented it from responding on time, the court will refrain from ruling on the request itself and allow the agency to complete its determination. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C); see Open America, 547 F.2d at 610-12. 32 We believe that where a requester has chosen to wait past the ten-day period until the agency has responded, Congress intended that the administrative route be pursued to its end. 8 It did not mean for the court to take over the agency's decisionmaking role in midstream or to interrupt the agency's appeal process when the agency has already invested time, resources, and expertise into the effort of responding. 33 Allowing a FOIA requester to proceed immediately to court to challenge an agency's initial response would cut off the agency's power to correct or rethink initial misjudgments or errors. The extra several weeks consumed in processing an administrative appeal to completion must surely have been thought a tolerable price to ask from a requester who has already chosen to wait for a response from the agency. If there is to be any uniformity in FOIA interpretations within a given agency, and if agencies are to have an opportunity to revise their responses in light of intervening responses to the same FOIA request by other agencies, such uniformity can best be afforded through the administrative appeal process. Enforcing the ten-day limit by allowing requesters unhappy with the first level response to their request to go to court months or even years after the agency has responded would amount to little more than a continuing penalty on the agency for its initial delay. A requester who waits long past the ten-day deadline for the agency's response and then brings suit without administrative appeal has by his actions indicated that time cannot be of the essence. 34 In this case, only one of the six agencies met the initial statutory deadline, but all six completed their review and made their initial determinations on appellant's requests long before appellant brought suit and within weeks or months of his requests. In such circumstances, we believe that the FOIA allows the agencies to have the benefit of the full administrative process before suit is filed. Congress intended that individuals receive information from the government promptly, but it also provided a statutory administrative appeal process, allowing the agency to complete its disclosure process before courts step in. We therefore interpret 5 U.S.C. Secs. 552(a)(6)(A) and (C) as requiring the completion of the administrative appeal process before courts become involved, if the agency has responded to the request before suit is filed. 35 A response is sufficient for purposes of requiring an administrative appeal if it includes: the agency's determination of whether or not to comply with the request; the reasons for its decision; and notice of the right of the requester to appeal to the head of the agency if the initial agency decision is adverse. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(i); see Shermco Industries v. Secretary of the United States Air Force, 452 F.Supp. 306 (N.D.Tex.1978), rev'd on other grounds, 613 F.2d 1314 (5th Cir.1980). Assuming an agency's initial response complies with these requirements, the FOIA requester must appeal to the head of the agency. 9 36 Although in future cases foregoing an administrative appeal will preclude the requester from ever bringing suit on that request because the individual will not have exhausted his administrative remedies, see Spannaus, 824 F.2d at 59 (statutory right to sue might be entirely cut off if the requester never administratively appeals the denial), we think that result cannot be applied here. We acknowledge that the precise requirements of FOIA exhaustion have heretofore not been sufficiently certain that appellant should be penalized for not having discerned that an administrative appeal was mandatory; accordingly, we will allow the appellant in this case to pursue his appeals before the administrative agencies regardless of the expiration of the agencies' appeal deadlines. Where, as discussed below, appellant has not constructively exhausted his claims, he must appeal to the agencies within 60 days from the date of the district court's order on remand from this court. 10 Following his administrative appeals, or if the agencies do not respond within twenty days of the appeal, the appellant will be deemed to have fully exhausted his administrative remedies and may bring suit. 37 Under the exhaustion requirements we have just discussed, we next determine whether the six agencies properly responded to appellant's requests so as to require that he pursue administrative appeals before initiating suit in the district court. 38