Opinion ID: 485228
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hastings and Andrade Precedents

Text: 5 On two recent occasions, this circuit has considered whether to require litigants to pursue available remedies on nonconstitutional claims where the litigant has brought a constitutional challenge to the very authority of the government to take action against him. Most recently, in Hastings v. Judicial Conference of the United States, 770 F.2d 1093 (D.C.Cir.1985), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3272, 91 L.Ed.2d 562 (1986), we considered whether a United States District Court judge should be allowed to challenge the facial constitutionality of the Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 331-332, 372, 604 (1982), which establishes an elaborate mechanism by which federal judges may be investigated and disciplined by their fellow judges for conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts. Id. Sec. 371(c)(1). In Hastings, we held that we should postpone review of the constitutional question until the procedures outlined in the statute had actually been applied to Judge Hastings. We reasoned that we were ill-equipped to pass judgment on the facial validity of the statute without better knowledge of the precise nature of the powers to be exercised by the judicial tribunals under the statutory scheme. We thus assumed that exhaustion of the statutory procedures would refine the constitutional issues for subsequent judicial review. 770 F.2d at 1099-1101. 6 In a separate portion of the opinion, however, we considered whether to pass on the constitutionality of certain informal fact-gathering powers that had been exercised under the statute. Again, we declined to reach the constitutional issue, reasoning that to do so would contravene another aspect of avoidance--the policy [against] rendering judgment on the constitutionality of proceedings while the proceedings themselves are going on. Id. at 1102 (emphasis in opinion). We found that disruption of the ongoing proceedings would be justified only if the plaintiff could demonstrate that he would suffer serious and irremediable injury in the absence of immediate judicial review. Id. We concluded that Judge Hastings had not made a showing of irreparable injury because the proceedings to which he was subject might terminate at any number of points before sanctions were imposed against him. The effect of our holding was to require Judge Hastings to defend himself in the statutory proceedings before bringing his constitutional challenge to the facial validity of the statute in federal court. 7 Two years before the decision in Hastings, a different panel of the court issued an opinion in Andrade v. Lauer, 729 F.2d 1475 (D.C.Cir.1984). Andrade is significant because it is not easily reconciled with the judgment in Hastings. In Andrade, employees of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)--an agency within the Department of Justice--challenged the implementation of a reduction in force (RIF), pursuant to which they were removed or demoted from their positions at the agency. The employees challenged the RIF on three grounds. First, they argued that the procedures used in implementing the RIF violated federal personnel regulations. Second, they argued that the RIF violated certain statutory proscriptions. Third, they maintained that the officials responsible for implementing the RIF were without authority to do so, because they held office in violation of the Appointments Clause, U.S. CONST. art. II, Sec. 2, cl. 2. 8 The first issue addressed in Andrade was whether the employees were required to pursue their nonconstitutional and constitutional claims through the statutory and contractual grievance procedure contained in their union's contract with the Department of Justice. 729 F.2d at 1484-91. Congress had mandated that public sector collective bargaining agreements contain a procedure for resolving grievances in cases involving RIFs, 5 and had defined a grievance, in part, as any complaint by an employee concerning any claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of any law, rule, or regulation affecting conditions of employment. 6 Accordingly, the union and the Department of Justice had negotiated a grievance provision conforming to the requirements prescribed by Congress. Under the parties' negotiated grievance provision, a grievance concerning a RIF could be pursued in several steps. First, the individual employee affected by the RIF could appeal the adverse employment action to certain high level management officials. Second, if the grievance was not resolved at this level, the union could refer the matter to arbitration. Finally, either party could appeal the arbitrator's award to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Id. at 1485. 9 Because Congress had defined a grievance to include any complaint regarding a claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of any law, rule, or regulation affecting conditions of employment, and because the parties' contractual grievance provision had tracked this statutory language, we held that the employees were required to pursue their personnel and statutory claims through the available steps of the grievance procedure before bringing them in federal court. Id. at 1484-90. We held, however, that the employees were not required to pursue their constitutional claim through the grievance procedure before raising that claim in federal court, because the grievance procedure was not the appropriate forum in which to adjudicate a constitutional challenge. The decisionmakers in that forum, we reasoned, had neither the qualifications nor the expertise to articulate or develop the separation of powers principles implicated by the Appointments Clause. Id. at 1491. 10 Having found that the constitutional question was to be decided by the court rather than by the decisionmakers in the grievance procedure, we turned our attention to whether we should nevertheless postpone judicial review until the employees had submitted their nonconstitutional claims through the grievance procedure. We held that exhaustion of remedies on the nonconstitutional claims was unnecessary, despite the fact that a favorable decision on the employees' nonconstitutional claims would moot their constitutional claims. Id. at 1492. First, we reasoned that there was a complete divergence between the issues presented by the constitutional and nonconstitutional claims, so that none of the factual or legal issues resolved in the grievance proceedings would aid the court in deciding the constitutional question. Id. at 1492-93. Second, we reasoned that the constitutional violation alleged by the plaintiffs was a continuing one; even if the employees prevailed on nonconstitutional grounds, the officials responsible for implementing the RIF would continue to hold their offices in alleged violation of the Appointments Clause. Therefore, there was a significant public interest in reaching a final determination of the constitutional issue. Id. at 1493. Given the added fact that the employees faced an extremely long and burdensome administrative remedy, we held that the exhaustion doctrine--in general a prerequisite to obtaining judicial relief for an actual or threatened injury 7 --should not be applied under the circumstances presented.