Opinion ID: 3036693
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: appellate jurisdiction: petitions for review

Text: [1] We have direct and exclusive jurisdiction over the review of FAA final orders under 49 U.S.C. § 46110, which provides in relevant part: (a) Filing and venue.— . . . [A] person disclosing a substantial interest in an order issued by . . . the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration with respect to aviation duties and powers designated to be carried out by the Administrator[ ] in whole or in part under this part, part B, or subsection (l) or (s) of section 114 may apply for review of the order by filing a petition for review in . . . the court of appeals of the United States for the circuit in which the person resides or has its principal place of business. The petition must be filed not later than 60 days after the order is issued. The court may allow the petition to be filed after the 60th day only if there are reasonable grounds for not filing by the 60th day. ... (c) Authority of court.—When the petition is sent to the Secretary, Under Secretary, or Administrator, the court has exclusive jurisdiction to affirm, amend, modify, or set aside any part of the order and may 2936 AMERICOPTERS v. FAA order the Secretary, Under Secretary, or Administrator to conduct further proceedings. . . . Although this statute has its intricacies, for the purpose of determining our jurisdiction, a single part of the statute is dispositive—§ 46110. This provision bars us from hearing petitions filed later than 60 days after the issuance of the challenged FAA final order. [2] The parties’ briefs focus on the finality or lack of finality of the FAA correspondence and whether the communications can be characterized as FAA orders. Because Jan’s and Americopters filed their petitions much later than 60 days after the purported final orders were issued, it is unnecessary for us to address whether either the Zeigler Email or the Kanae Letter are, in fact, final FAA orders. Jan’s learned of the Zeigler Email on August 9, 2002,5 and 60 days later was October 8, 2002. The Kanae Letter was sent on June 24, 2002, and 60 days later was August 23, 2002. The petitions for review were not filed until January 2004, almost one-and-a- half years after the purported FAA orders were issued. Jan’s and Americopters concede, as they must, that their petitions were untimely but argue that they had reasonable grounds for delay because they attempted to exhaust administrative remedies before filing their petitions. [3] A court of appeals “may allow the petition to be filed after the 60th day only if there are reasonable grounds for not filing by the 60th day.” 49 U.S.C. § 46110(a); see also Sierra Club v. Skinner, 885 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1989). We have sug- 5 The Zeigler Email was submitted to the Guam Airport on July 31, 2002. Jan’s did not receive notice of the email until August 9, 2002, when the Airport denied ramp access. As a result, the 60-day period was tolled until August 9, 2002. See Nat’l Air Transp. Ass’n v. McArtor, 866 F.2d 483, 485 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (holding that a defect in notice by the FAA “do[es] no more than toll the statutory time limit”). AMERICOPTERS v. FAA 2937 gested before that an attempt to exhaust remedies may be a reasonable ground for delay. See Watson v. Nat’l Transp. Safety Bd., 513 F.2d 1081, 1082 (9th Cir. 1975) (“Even if we assume that the sixty day statute of limitations . . . [is] tolled . . . when [petitioner] erroneously filed his petition with the NTSB, the filing was yet several years overdue.”). The Eighth Circuit has explicitly recognized exhaustion as a reasonable ground under § 46110(a). See Reder v. FAA, 116 F.3d 1261, 1263 (8th Cir. 1997) (holding that an “unsuccessful attempt to exhaust administrative remedies . . . was a reasonable ground for not filing [an] appeal . . . by the sixtieth day.”). Crediting the lapse of time necessary for exhaustion is all the more important when the FAA advises a petitioner to pursue administrative remedies. Id. (exercising appellate jurisdiction under § 46110 in part because “the FAA specifically told [petitioner] that appealing to the NTSB was the appropriate next step”). Here, Jan’s and Americopters requested hearings with the FAA on August 13, 2002, before their respective 60-day periods expired. On September 19, 2002, the FAA issued a “final response” and rejected the requests to convene FAA hearings under § 13.20(c). Using the generous assumption that a reasonable ground for delay re-starts the 60-day period instead of tolling it,6 Jan’s and Americopters should have filed petitions for review with this court by November 18, 2002 (60 days after September 19, 2002). They did not file their petitions for review until January 2004. The residual issue is whether the further delay—from November 2002 to January 2004—was based upon reasonable grounds. We hold that it was not. 6 Reder suggests that the “reasonable grounds” clause re-starts the 60day period instead of tolling it. See 116 F.3d at 1262-63. We need not take a definitive position here because this calculation does not affect the outcome of our analysis. 2938 AMERICOPTERS v. FAA Although a delay resulting from the exhaustion of applicable administrative remedies may be a reasonable ground for delay, see Reder, 116 F.3d at 1263, an attempt to exhaust the wrong remedy is not. That is, a delay stemming from the filing of a petition or complaint with the wrong court is not, in general, a reasonable ground for delay. See Sierra Club, 885 F.2d at 593. A delay is even less excusable when the FAA advised the petitioner of the correct remedies or procedures to follow, see id. at 593-94 (holding that no reasonable grounds for delay existed when the petitioner filed a complaint in the district court despite the FAA’s advice to file in the court of appeals), and when the petitioner’s procedural missteps were based on a misapprehension of the law. See id. at 594 (“We find it difficult to believe that someone among [petitioner’s] legal advisers did not sound a note of caution as to jurisdiction.”). At the point the FAA refused their requests for hearings under § 13.20(c)— September 19, 2002—Jan’s and Americopters had exhausted their administrative remedies. Instead of timely filing petitions for review with this court, they decided to try another administrative route. From late September 2002 until February 2003, Jan’s and Americopters awaited their pending requests before the FAA for hearings under the § 13.5 complaint procedure. The FAA explicitly warned Jan’s and Americopters that, in its view, the § 13.5 complaint procedure “does not apply to complaints against the Administrator or complaints against FAA employees acting within the scope of their employment.” In their § 13.5 complaints, Jan’s and Americopters alleged that the FAA employees acted outside the scope of their employment. [4] We need not decide whether Jan’s and Americopters were unreasonable in taking the § 13.5 route—clearly they were not required to do so—for the ultimately fatal detour took place when they filed complaints with the district court. We have held that filing in the wrong court is not a reasonable ground for delay. See Sierra Club, 885 F.2d at 593 (refusing AMERICOPTERS v. FAA 2939 jurisdiction because petitioner delayed by initially “fil[ing] for judicial review of the FAA action in the wrong court”). Only after the district court dismissed their claims in December 2003 did Jan’s and Americopters finally file petitions for review with us. [5] To be sure, idleness did not cause Jan’s and Americopters to miss their deadlines. But their quixotic pursuit of the wrong remedies was not a reasonable ground for delay. Thus, even assuming the Zeigler Email and Kanae Letter were final orders, and even granting the petitioners a generous tolling for exhausting their initial administrative challenges, their petitions were filed almost a year after their adjusted 60-day deadlines. Consequently, we have no jurisdiction to consider the petitions for review filed by Jan’s or Americopters.