Opinion ID: 485228
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: jurisdiction of the district court under trac

Text: 50 Because I would hold that the appellants' constitutional claim may not be raised in federal court until the appellants have exhausted their administrative remedies, I need not reach an issue considered at some length by the District Court; namely, whether the District Court would have had jurisdiction under the general federal question statute, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 (1982), to entertain a constitutional challenge to the exercise of law enforcement powers by the FTC. The Commission argues that our decision in Telecommunications Research & Action Center v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70 (D.C.Cir.1984) (TRAC ), in which we held that where a statute commits review of agency action to the Court of Appeals [as it does in the case of FTC cease and desist orders], any suit seeking relief that might affect the Circuit Court's future jurisdiction is subject to the exclusive review of the Court of Appeals, id. at 75 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in opinion), establishes that jurisdiction over such constitutional challenges lies exclusively in the court of appeals, and not in the district court under section 1331. 51 Although I need not pass on this contention, I do note that TRAC itself did not raise the situation presented by the instant case. In TRAC, we dealt specifically with a mandamus action to compel agency action unlawfully withheld; we did not consider whether district courts could properly assert jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to agency authority brought under section 1331. In the course of our TRAC opinion, we did consider briefly a small class of cases in which a litigant brought a constitutional challenge under section 1331 alleging agency bias and prejudgment, see, e.g., Association of Nat'l Advertisers v. FTC, 627 F.2d 1151 (D.C.Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 921, 100 S.Ct. 3011, 65 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1980), and we held that such challenges, like challenges to agency action unlawfully withheld, were subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the court of appeals. However, that limited holding was based on the fact that the challenges to agency bias and prejudgment were of the sort that a court of appeals would routinely consider on an appeal from final agency action. I need not stop to consider here whether a constitutional challenge could ever be so separate from the underlying agency proceedings that the district court would have jurisdiction under section 1331. 21 Under the principles articulated in the opinions issued today, it is doubtful in any event that such a separate constitutional challenge would be subject to review prior to the conclusion of the agency proceedings. Once the constitutional claim was subject to review, it would of course be brought before the court of appeals in conjunction with any nonconstitutional defenses to the final agency action. 52 Because the District Court's discussion of TRAC was unnecessary in light of our disposition of this appeal, I would vacate that portion of the District Court's opinion. See Flynt v. Weinberger, 762 F.2d 134 (D.C.Cir.1985) (vacating District Court's opinion on a mooted issue in order to clear the path for future relitigation of that issue).