Opinion ID: 1436710
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Implied Right of Action Analysis.

Text: We do not agree with the District's contention that Cort v. Ash, supra , provides the proper analytical framework for determining whether the Sierra Club may maintain this action. Judicial reviewability of agency action does not depend on the creation of a private right of action in the statute sought to be enforced. Japan Whaling Ass'n v. American Cetacean Soc'y, 478 U.S. 221, 230-31 n. 4, 106 S.Ct. 2860, 2866-67 n. 4, 92 L.Ed.2d 166 (1986). On the contrary, as Judge (now Justice) Breyer explained for the court in N.A.A.C.P. v. Secretary of Hous. & Urban Dev., 817 F.2d 149 (1st Cir.1987), it is difficult to understand why a court would ever hold that Congress, in enacting a statute that creates federal obligations, has implicitly created a private right of action against the federal government, for there is hardly ever any need for Congress to do so. That is because federal action is nearly always reviewable for conformity with statutory obligations without any such private right of action. Id. at 152 (emphasis in original) (citing, inter alia, Abbott Labs., supra, 387 U.S. at 140, 87 S.Ct. at 1511; McAnnulty, supra, 187 U.S. at 110, 23 S.Ct. at 39, and 5 DAVIS, supra, § 28.1, at 254-56). Given the availability of judicial review of agency action pursuant to McAnnulty and its progeny and to the federal APA, the court in N.A.A.C.P. thought it not surprising that cases discussing a private right of action implied from a federal statute do not involve a right of action against the federal government. Rather, they typically involve statutes that impose obligations upon a nonfederal person (a private entity or a nonfederal agency of government). The statute typically provides that the federal government will enforce the obligations against the nonfederal person. The private right of action issue is whether Congress meant to give an injured person a right himself to enforce the federal statute directly against the nonfederal person or whether the injured person can do no more than ask the federal government to enforce the statute. N.A.A.C.P., supra, 817 F.2d at 152 (emphasis in original). [5] Judge Breyer's reasoning in N.A.A.C.P. that no private right of action is necessary to obtain judicial review of agency action is directly applicable here. The Sierra Club alleged in its complaint that District officials violated specific statutory mandates by terminating the recycling program. It invoked the general equitable jurisdiction of the Superior Court, and sought equitable relief requiring the District to comply with the law. In this regard, this case is indistinguishable from N.A.A.C.P. [6] The District contends that Kelly v. Parents United, 641 A.2d 159 (D.C.), modified on other grounds, 648 A.2d 675 (D.C.1994), in which this court applied Cort v. Ash analysis to a suit alleging adverse and unlawful agency action, precludes this court from rejecting that analysis here. In Kelly, however, both parties assumed in their submissions that Cort v. Ash provided the correct legal framework. No party invoked, and the court did not consider, either the presumption of reviewability of agency action or the Superior Court's authority to entertain suits for equitable relief where a party has alleged that such agency action was unlawful. As we recently had occasion to reiterate in Murphy v. McCloud, 650 A.2d 202 (D.C.1994), [t]he rule of stare decisis is never properly invoked unless in the decision put forward as precedent the judicial mind has been applied to and passed upon the precise question. Id. at 205 (quoting Fletcher v. Scott, 277 N.W. 270, 272 (Minn. 1938) (citations omitted)). Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents. Id. (quoting Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511, 45 S.Ct. 148, 149, 69 L.Ed. 411 (1925)); see also Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 423 n. 14 (D.C.1988) (quoting Webster ). A point of law merely assumed in an opinion, not discussed, is not authoritative. Murphy, supra, 650 A.2d at 205 (quoting In re Stegall, 865 F.2d 140, 142 (7th Cir.1989)). This is especially true with respect to jurisdictional issues, for when questions of jurisdiction have been passed on in prior decisions sub silentio, this court has never considered itself bound when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us. Id. (quoting Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 533-35 n. 5, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1377 n. 5, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974)). At most, the question whether the mode of analysis set forth in Cort v. Ash applies to suits alleging unlawful governmental conduct lurk[ed] in the record in Parents United. The parties and the court assumed that Cort applied. Nobody challenged that assumption, and the judicial mind did not apply itself to the issue or pass upon it. Under these circumstances, Parents United is not controlling.