Opinion ID: 108089
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: reviewability

Text: When the legality of administrative action is at issue, standing alone will not entitle the plaintiff to a decision on the merits. Pertinent statutory language, legislative history, and public policy considerations must be examined to determine whether Congress precluded all judicial review, and, if not, whether Congress nevertheless foreclosed review to the class to which the plaintiff belongs. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), statutes [may] preclude judicial review or agency action [may be] committed to agency discretion by law. 5 U. S. C. § 701 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). In either case, the plaintiff is out of court, not because he had no standing to enter, but because Congress has stripped the judiciary of authority to review agency action. Review may be totally foreclosed, as in Schilling v. Rogers, 363 U. S. 666 (1960), or, if permitted, it may nonetheless be denied to the plaintiff's class. But the governing principle laid down in Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967), is that judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of Congress. The APA provides that [a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof. 5 U. S. C. § 702 (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Congressional intent that a particular plaintiff have review may be found either in express statutory language granting it to the plaintiff's class, [7] or, in the absence of such express language, in statutory indicia from which a right to review may be inferred. [8] Where, as in the instant cases, there is no express grant of review, reviewability has ordinarily been inferred from evidence that Congress intended the plaintiff's class to be a beneficiary of the statute under which the plaintiff raises his claim. See, for example, the Chicago Junction Case, 264 U. S. 258 (1924); Hardin v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 390 U. S. 1 (1968); Norwalk CORE v. Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, 395 F. 2d 920 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1968). In light of Abbott Laboratories, slight indicia that the plaintiff's class is a beneficiary will suffice to support the inference. [9]