Opinion ID: 2960205
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: B(i) Final Agency Action

Text: “The ‘core question’ for determining finality is ‘whether the agency has completed its decisionmaking process, and whether the result of that process is one that will directly affect the parties.’” Lunney, 319 F.3d at 554 (quoting Dalton v. Specter, 511 U.S. 462, 470 (1994)). As a general matter, two conditions must be satisfied for agency action to be final: First, the action must mark the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process--it must not be of a merely tentative or interlocutory nature. And second, the action must be one by which rights or obligations have been determined or from which legal consequences will flow. Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 177-178 (1997) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Supreme Court has “interpreted the ‘finality’ element in a pragmatic way.” FTC v. Standard Oil of Cal., 449 U.S. 232, 239 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). In a related setting, 11 To the extent the issues concern essential elements of the plaintiff’s claims for relief, we exercise our discretion to raise them sua sponte in order to determine whether there are alternative grounds in the record for granting the defendant’s unadjudicated 12(b)(6) motion. See Adeleke v. United States, 355 F.3d 144, 147 (2d Cir. 2004). 18 drawing on its APA finality jurisprudence, the Supreme Court explained that if an agency has issued a “definitive statement of its position, determining the rights and obligations of the parties,” the agency’s action is final notwithstanding “[t]he possibility of further proceedings in the agency” on related issues, so long as “judicial review at the time [would not] disrupt the administrative process.” Bell v. New Jersey, 461 U.S. 773, 779-80 (1983). Sharkey alleges that she went to the INS district office in 2002 to renew the I-551 stamp on her passport, whereupon the DAO denied her request for documentation, crossed out the I-551 stamp on her passport, and wrote “cancelled with prejudice” over the seal. Assuming the truth of Sharkey’s factual allegations, the agency’s acts clearly constituted final agency action. First, by revoking Sharkey’s (allegedly) previously granted LPR status through its inscription of “cancelled with prejudice” on her stamped passport, the agency “consummat[ed its] decisionmaking process” regarding both the revocation12 and its refusal to provide her with proof of her previously-conferred status.13 See Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Co. v. Consumer 12 To be sure, the agency contends that, as of the time Sharkey filed suit, the agency was still deliberating whether to grant her application for LPR status. But the agency’s current deliberations regarding whether to grant her LPR status are “further proceedings in the agency” on related issues, which do not defeat the finality of the agency’s decision to revoke her (allegedly) previously granted status. See Bell, 461 U.S. at 779-80. 13 Sharkey’s 706(1) claim, which challenges the agency’s failure to provide her with proof of her LPR status, challenges the agency’s failure to act. The Supreme Court has explained that when a plaintiff challenges an agency’s failure to act, the challenge is reviewable under the APA “only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take.” Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 65 (2004). Sharkey’s complaint falls within the strictures of Norton because the failed act Sharkey challenges is a discrete one that the agency is required to take, see Etuk, 936 F.2d at 1448 (the agency is statutorily required “to provide LPRs . . . with temporary proof of their legal status”). See Sierra Club v. Thomas, 828 F.2d 783, 793 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“[I]t is apparent that, if an agency is under an unequivocal statutory duty to act, failure so to act constitutes, in effect, an affirmative act that triggers ‘final agency action’ review”). 19 Prod. Safety Comm’n, 324 F.3d 726, 733-34 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (holding that an “unequivocal statement of the agency’s position” is sufficient to meet the first requisite for final agency action). Second, the revocation was clearly an action “by which rights or obligations have been determined” and which “directly affect[ed] the parties,” Bennet, 520 U.S. at 177-78.