Opinion ID: 184918
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Timeliness of the Licensee Petitions

Text: 16 The Commission next questions our jurisdiction to consider the claims of the Licensee Petitioners, none of whom, the agency argues, timely sought judicial review. A party aggrieved by an agency order has 60 days from the entry thereof in which to file a petition for review. 28 U.S.C. 2344. Pursuant to a regulation of the Commission, an order (or other document) is entered when the agency gives public notice thereof. 47 C.F.R. 1.4(b). When public notice occurs depends, in turn, upon the nature of the proceeding that gave rise to the order. The Commission deems the public notified of an order in [a] notice and comment rule making proceeding[ ] and in a rule making[ ] of particular applicability when it is published in the Federal Register. Id. at 1.4(b)(1), (3). For a non-rulemaking order, in contrast, notification occurs when the full text of the order becomes available to the press and public in the Commission's Office of Public Affairs. Id. at 1.4(b)(2). 17 The Commission characterizes the Implementation Order as a non-rulemaking document on the ground that it was issued in the course of an adjudicatory proceeding, namely Goodman's request for a temporary waiver of the build out rules. The Order was made available in the Office of Public Affairs on July 31, 1998; therefore, the Commission concludes, the 60 day period for review expired on September 29, 1998, almost a month before the Licensee Petitioners sought review in this court. 18 According to the Licensee Petitioners, this reasoning is flawed in two respects. First, they say that even if the Implementation Order is a non-rulemaking order, the Commission failed to provide meaningful public notice of its decision until October 9, when it released the list of those licensees it regarded as being situated similarly to the receivership licensees. This argument unjustifiably assumes that a reasonably acute licensee, upon reading the Implementation Order, would not have been able to determine whether his interests were affected. Anyone who obtained his license with the help of an application mill, however, should have realized that he was, or at least might be, affected by the Implementation Order. See Implementation Order at 9 n.50 (individuals who obtained their licenses through SMR application preparation companies similar to the Receivership Companies qualify as similarly situated licensees). Although the Implementation Order is not a model of clarity in every respect, there is nothing mysterious about the identity of the licensees to which it applies. Nor can the order be deemed unclear even if, as the Licensee Petitioners allege, the Commission's October 9 list of licensees in the similarly situated category omits some who qualify under the criterion in the Implementation Order. That the agency may have applied the Order erroneously does not retroactively import ambiguity into the Order itself. 19 The Licensee Petitioners next argue that the proceeding in question looked sufficiently like a rulemaking, as opposed to an adjudication, that the Implementation Order should not be deemed a non-rulemaking order. In this vein they point out that the Commission sought public comment before reaching its decision, as it is required to do in a rulemaking but not in an adjudication, and published the Implementation Order in the Federal Register under the heading Final Rules. The Order itself, moreover, is rule-like in that it affects the interests of a broad class of licensees. Most striking of all, the Licensee Petitioners argue, although they were not parties to the proceeding and did not have adequate notice of it, the Order determines the validity of many of their licenses. Accordingly, they say, the Order was issued in either a notice and comment rule making proceeding[ ] or in a rule making[ ] of particular applicability. Id. at 1.4(b)(1), (3). In either case the period for seeking review did not begin to run until August 27, 1998, when the Order was published in the Federal Register, making their October 26 petitions for review timely. At the very least, they argue, the Commission's failure to make clear whether the proceeding was a rulemaking or an adjudication should not now serve to insulate its decision from judicial review. 20 We think the Commission's characterization of the Implementation Order as a non-rulemaking order is proper. For one thing, Goodman never sought a changein the agency's build out rules; he consistently identified his request as one for a temporary waiver of those rules. That is a strong reason to conclude the proceeding was not a rulemaking, which is defined in the Administrative Procedure Act as an agency process for formulating, amending, or repealing a rule. 5 U.S.C. 551(5). Also like an adjudicatory decision, and unlike a rule, the Implementation Order was retrospective in that it extended the build out deadline applicable to licenses that had already been issued. A rule, in contrast, is defined in the APA as an agency statement of ... future effect. Id. at 551(4); see also Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 216-17 (1988) (central distinction between rulemaking and adjudication is that rules have legal consequences only for the future.) (Scalia, J., concurring).The manner in which the Commission conducted the proceeding revealed its adjudicatory nature as well. Recall that the agency determined Goodman lacked standing pursuant to 47 C.F.R. 1.106. See Extension Order at p p 28-34. Had the proceeding been a rulemaking, the agency's extensive discussion of the standing issue would have been inexplicable: Section 1.106 expressly provides that it does not govern in notice and comment rulemaking proceedings. See also 1 Kenneth Culp Davis & Richard J. Pierce, Jr., Administrative Law Treatise, 6.7, 266 (3rd ed. 1994) (agency rulemaking proceedings typically open to any interested member of the public). 21 Such aspects of the proceeding as gave it any semblance of a rulemaking were, we think, comparatively superficial. That the Implementation Order appeared under the heading Final Rules may reveal something about the care taken in writing headings when documents are published in the Federal Register but does not alter the clearly adjudicatory nature of the Order itself. Cf. Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 331 U.S. 519, 528-29 (1947) (headings of sections in U.S. Code can resolve, but not create, ambiguity in text). The Commission's solicitation of public comment before deciding whether to grant the waiver Goodman was seeking is still less probative for, as the petitioners concede, the agency may seek comment in either a rulemaking or an adjudicatory proceeding. In fact, we have gone so far as to suggest that notice and comment is sometimes required in an adjudication. See Independent U.S. Tanker Owners Comm. v. Lewis, 690 F.2d 908, 922-23 (1982) (The distinct and steady trend of the courts has been to demand in informal adjudications procedures similar to those already required in informal rulemaking.... [namely,] notice, comment, and a statement of reasons). Neither does the petitioners' observation that the Implementation Order affected a large number of licensees carry much weight: Just as a class action can encompass the claims of a large group of plaintiffs without thereby becoming a legislative proceeding, an adjudication can affect a large group of individuals without becoming a rulemaking. See NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267, 292 (1974) (agency may in an adjudication promulgate a new standard that would govern future conduct of non-parties). 22 As for the petitioners' complaint that the Implementation Order affected the rights of licensees who were not parties to the proceeding--and it would be more accurate to say that the Order gave relief to some licensees who had not appeared before the agency to ask for it--the nature of adjudication is that similarly situated non-parties may be affected by the policy or precedent applied, or even merely announced in dicta, to those before the tribunal. See NLRB v. Wyman Gordon Co., 394 U.S. 759, 765-66 (1969) (Adjudicated cases may ... serve as vehicles for the formulation of agency policies, which are applied and announced therein. They generally provide a guide to action that the agency may be expected to take in future cases). Even assuming that the proceeding was somehow an imperfect exemplar of adjudication, however, it was not thereby transformed into a rulemaking. Particularly in view of the deference we afford an agency's interpretation of its own regulations, see Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. v. Herman, 166 F.3d 1248, 1254 (1999), we think the Commission's decision to treat the Implementation Order as a non-rulemaking document within the meaning of 1.4(b)(2) was justified. 23 Falling back to their last line of defense, the petitioners protest that it is not enough for the Commission's interpretation of 1.4(b)(2) to be reasonable ex post; if it is to cut off a party's right to seek judicial review, then the agency must have made its characterization of the Implementation Order reasonably apparent ex ante. We agree with this statement of the law. See Adams Telcom, Inc. v. FCC, 997 F.2d 955, 956-57 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (although petition would have been untimely under agency's reasonable conclusion that order at issue was non-rulemaking document, court had jurisdiction because petitioner reasonably believed that longer limitation period provided by 1.4(b)(1) would apply). We disagree, however, that in this instance the agency failed to make the nature of the proceeding sufficiently manifest. 24 A comparison with Adams, the case upon which the petitioners principally rely, is instructive. The Commission there had denied an application for a pioneer's preference in obtaining licenses. The agency moved to dismiss the applicants' petition for review as untimely, claiming that its order denying the application was a non-rulemaking document under 1.4(b)(2). The applicants, pointing out that the Commission released the order in the course of what it conceded was a rulemaking, argued that the order was actually a document[ ] in ... [a] rule making proceeding[ ] under 1.4(b)(1), and therefore that they had sought review in time. The court acknowledged that the Commission's interpretation of 1.4(b)(2) was reasonable. Because the applicants' reading was equally reasonable, however, and because the proper classification of the order would not have been clear to them even upon [a] careful reading of the Commission's regulations, id. at 957, the court refused to bind the applicants to the agency's interpretation. 25 Here, as we have discussed, a reasonably careful reader of the Implementation Order and the Commission's regulations would have readily discerned the adjudicatory nature of the proceeding. Although bearing some superficial resemblance to a rule, the Implementation Order addressed a proposal made on behalf of certain licensees only for a temporary, remedial waiver of the agency's build out rules--not for their general, prospective amendment. Furthermore, in the Order the agency applied a regulation on standing that by its terms applies only in an adjudication. Unlike the complaining licensees in Adams, therefore, the petitioners here had no reasonable expectation that they would enjoy the longer period for review provided by 1.4(b)(1) or (3).