Opinion ID: 1375082
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exhaustion of Administrative Procedures

Text: Plaintiff seeks to circumvent the administrative scheme and take his grievance directly to the courts of this state. It is a long established doctrine in Oklahoma that exhaustion of statutory remedies is a jurisdictional prerequisite for resort to the courts. Martin v. Harrah Indep. School Dist., 543 P.2d 1370, 1372 (Okla. 1976); Sanders v. Oklahoma Employment Sec. Comm'n, 200 Okl. 366, 195 P.2d 272 (1948); Speaker v. Board of County Comm'rs of Oklahoma County, 312 P.2d 438 (Okla. 1957). The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies is a well settled rule that aids in the administration of justice and prevents transfers to the courts of duties imposed by law on administrative agencies. Martin, 543 P.2d at 1372. There are several reasons for the rule of exhaustion of administrative remedies. These include the expertise of the agency in the subject matter area and notions of judicial efficiency. Id. at 1374 (citing McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969)). The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stated well the reasons for the exhaustion rule: 1) Carries out legislative purpose in granting authority to an agency by discouraging frequent deliberate flouting of administrative procedure; 2) protects agency autonomy by allowing the agency in the first instance to apply its expertise and correct its errors; 3) aids judicial review by allowing parties to develop material facts in agency proceedings; and 4) promotes judicial economy by avoiding repetition of judicial and administrative factfinding and perhaps the necessity for judicial involvement. Andrade v. Lauer, 729 F.2d 1475, 1484 (D.C. Cir.1984). A complaining party may be successful in vindicating his rights in the administrative process. If he is required to pursue his administrative remedies first, the courts may never have to intervene. Martin, 543 P.2d at 1374. Such is the reasoning behind the exhaustion doctrine applied by federal courts in regard to the federal statutes referenced by § 1101 of the Act. The United States Supreme Court stated in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 180-81, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2374, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989), that [i]n Title VII, Congress set up an elaborate administrative procedure ... that is designed to assist in the investigation of claims of racial discrimination .. . and to work towards the resolution of these claims through conciliation rather than litigation. The Supreme Court further stated that if a plaintiff was allowed to bring a civil suit without first resorting to the administrative scheme of Title VII, the detailed procedures of Title VII [would be] rendered a dead letter. Id. at 181, 109 S.Ct. at 2375; see also Stearns v. Consol. Management, Inc., 747 F.2d 1105, 1112 (7th Cir.1984) (stating that a fundamental objective of the federal antidiscrimination statutes is to avoid civil litigation through a statutorily mandated process of administrative conciliation).