Opinion ID: 411856
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction and exhaustion of remedies

Text: 22 The government presses its objection on appeal that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the courts of appeals have exclusive jurisdiction under the Federal Aviation Act to review orders of the FAA. See 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1486(a). The appellee contends that since the Administrator has delegated part of his statutory authority with respect to airman certification to the Air Surgeon, 14 C.F.R. Sec. 67.25 (1982), the Air Surgeon's decisions not to issue appellant a certificate were orders reviewable only by the courts of appeals pursuant to 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1486(a). 8 The government is concerned that appellant's assertion of FTCA jurisdiction in district court permitted him to secure a trial de novo on the Air Surgeon's determinations. Appellant's exclusive judicial remedy, the government contends, is review on the record before the Air Surgeon to see if his findings are supported by substantial evidence. 23 We reject the government's contention that there is no subject matter jurisdiction under the FTCA in this case. On its face the FTCA provides a remedy for negligent acts of government employees; none of the several explicit exceptions in the FTCA exempts negligent acts solely because the legal validity of the employee's actions is appealable on other grounds to other administrative bodies or eventually to the courts through the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). See 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1346(b), 2680. Nor does this case fall under a judicially established exemption such as the one the Supreme Court created in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135, 71 S.Ct. 153, 95 L.Ed. 152 (1950). 9 And we can find no compelling reason in the circumstances of this case to forge, on our own and at this late date, a new exception not provided for by Congress along the lines argued by the government. As the Supreme Court stated in Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 61, 68, 76 S.Ct. 122, 126, 100 L.Ed. 48 (1955), The [FTCA] was the product of nearly thirty years of congressional consideration and was drawn with numerous substantive limitations and administrative safeguards. The Court went on to specify these limitations and safeguards: 24 (For substantive limitations, see Sec. 2680(a)-(m). For administrative safeguards, see Sec. 2401(b) (statute of limitations); Sec. 2402 (denial of trial by jury); Sec. 2672 (administrative adjustment of claims ...); Sec. 2673 (reports to Congress) [later repealed]; Sec. 2674 (no liability for punitive damages or for interest prior to judgment); Sec. 2675 (disposition by federal agency as a prerequisite to suit when claim is filed); Sec. 2677 (compromise); Sec. 2679 (exclusiveness of remedy).) 25 350 U.S. at 68, 76 S.Ct. at 126 (footnote omitted). This extensive list reflects considerable care by Congress in crafting when and how the FTCA would be available to a claimant; given this detailed statutory scheme, we are disinclined to add a jurisdictional exception or, as discussed below, another exhaustion prerequisite. 26 Moreover, it is obvious that an appeal under the APA will not provide any remedy in damages, while the prime purpose of the FTCA is to compensate victims of negligent government conduct. 10 In addition, an administrative appeal determines whether the agency action was in excess of statutory jurisdiction and authority, without observance of procedure required by law, contrary to constitutional right and power, arbitrary and capricious, or otherwise not in accordance with law, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706; these determinations are distinct conceptually from a finding of negligence, the linchpin of the FTCA. For these reasons, we find no bar to subject matter jurisdiction in this case. 11 27 Our finding of jurisdiction is not necessarily the end of the government's argument. The government's objections may also be construed as assailing appellant's failure to exhaust his administrative remedies under the APA before initiating suit under the FTCA. 12 Any failure on appellant's part to exhaust the appeals process for the FAA denials would not, of course, necessarily be jurisdictional. As we stated recently, in a case under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 621-634, the exhaustion requirements are not jurisdictional in nature but rather are statutory conditions precedent to the instigation of litigation. Kennedy v. Whitehurst, 690 F.2d 951 at 961, slip op. at 21 (D.C.Cir.1982) (emphasis in original). 28 In this case we cannot find an express requirement in either statute or case law that the appellant had to appeal the FAA's denial of medical certification to the NTSB before he could initiate his FTCA action, nor any reason why we should now imply one. We acknowledge that a claim that the certification process was performed negligently might conceivably involve issues similar to those necessary to decide whether the certificate should have been denied. In addition, a successful administrative appeal would permit the appellant to return to work and so limit the extent of his damages. An administrative appeal could not, however, provide the damages remedy that appellant seeks here. It also would not address the question of negligence that appellant presses under the FTCA. Therefore, three of the standard benefits of requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies--permitting the agency to build a record on the issue for decision, to apply its expertise, and possibly to avoid judicial intervention through a finding for the complainant 13 --would have limited, if any, application here. And the problem of bypassing agencies, see McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 193-95, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 1662-63, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969), is not present because the claimant cannot receive medical certification through the FTCA action. 29 The propriety of imposing any extra exhaustion hurdle on an FTCA claimant is also placed in question by the FTCA's own exhaustion requirements. The FTCA requires claimants to notify the appropriate federal agency of their claims, and establishes a six month waiting period after notice, to provide the government time in which to make an administrative determination. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2675(a). Moreover, there is a two year statute of limitations on claims under the FTCA. Id. Sec. 2401(b). The delay necessitated by waiting for the outcome of an appeal to the NTSB might place a tort action outside the FTCA's own filing deadline. Indeed, in the one instance in this case where appellant did avail himself of the administrative process, that process took two years and four months, from the FAA's fifth denial on September 11, 1978, to the Air Surgeon's issuance of a second-class certificate on January 22, 1981. 30 There are, of course, ways in which a district court can accommodate an overlapping FTCA claim and an administrative appeal of a certification denial. If a district court believes that the results of an appeal of an adverse certification decision would be important to the FTCA action, it can stay the FTCA case pending the outcome. And the district court might well take into account a plaintiff's failure to appeal the denial in the calculation of a damage award, i.e., the district court might conclude that damages for lost salary should take account of the likelihood that the plaintiff could have received his airman certificate earlier through a timely appeal. 31 In short, an absolute requirement of exhaustion of APA administrative remedies, prior to initiating an FTCA suit, would be at odds with the FTCA's integrated statutory scheme, would not serve the purposes of exhaustion because the administrative action would focus on neither the negligence issue nor the damages remedy, and could preclude the FTCA action altogether under the FTCA's own statute of limitations. In this case, therefore, we find that appellant's failures to appeal the first four denials of a medical certificate do not affect the district court's authority to determine, nor our authority to review, the merits of his FTCA action.