Opinion ID: 706912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reviewability of Board Waiver Decisions

Text: 18 The district court granted the government's motions to dismiss the petitions to review these Board determinations. See Dickson v. Secretary of Defense, No. 93-952, Mem.Op. (D.D.C. May 6, 1994) (Richey, J.) (Dickson and Haire) (Mem.Op.); Hodges v. Secretary of Defense, No. 92-2426, Mem.Op. (D.D.C. June 24, 1994) (Harris, J.). 2 Specifically, the district court found that Board waiver determinations are not judicially reviewable. Relying in part on an earlier district court decision, 3 and rejecting a contrary district court decision, 4 the court found that the language of Sec. 1552(b) indicates that this statute confers exclusive discretion on the Board to make waiver determinations. See Mem.Op. at 10-11. The question of the reviewability of Board waiver determinations is subject to de novo review on appeal. 19 The government argues that the district court was correct in finding that waiver determinations are not reviewable because they involve matters committed to agency discretion under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 701(a)(2). The statute granting waiver authority to the Board, the government argues, contains no judicially manageable standards against which a court may analyze the Board's exercise of discretion, and thus does not envision review. See 10 U.S.C. Sec. 1552(b). In the alternative, the government argues that none of these decisions was arbitrary and capricious because petitioners waited from 20 to 30 years to seek relief, and did not provide adequate reasons for their delay. 20 This court has not previously decided whether waiver determinations of the Board are reviewable. See Kendall v. Army Bd. for Correction of Military Records, 996 F.2d 362, 366 (D.C.Cir.1993) (Without considering the question of the District Court's jurisdiction to review the ABCMR's decisions that it was not in the interest of justice....); Baxter v. Claytor, 652 F.2d 181, 186 (D.C.Cir.1981) (waiver determination is for the Board to make in the first instance  (emphasis supplied)). 5 21 The starting point for our analysis is the APA, which provides that final agency actions are subject to judicial review. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 704. 6 The only statutory exceptions to this rule are if a particular statute preclude[s] judicial review or if agency action is committed to agency discretion by law. Id. Sec. 701(a)(1), (2). Here, no statute precludes judicial review, so the only question is whether Sec. 1552 commits the waiver decision exclusively to agency discretion. 22 The mere fact that a statute is silent on the issue of review is not controlling. To the contrary, we begin with the strong presumption that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action. Bowen v. Michigan Acad. of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 670, 106 S.Ct. 2133, 2135-36, 90 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986). Thus, judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of Congress. Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1510-11, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967) (collecting cases). 23 In finding that waiver determinations are not reviewable, the district court placed heavy weight on the fact that Sec. 1552(b) says that the board may excuse a failure to file, and not that it shall excuse a failure to file. See Mem.Op. at 8 (emphasis supplied). We find this reasoning unpersuasive. When a statute uses a permissive term such as may rather than a mandatory term such as shall, this choice of language suggests that Congress intends to confer some discretion on the agency, and that courts should accordingly show deference to the agency's determination. However, such language does not mean the matter is committed exclusively to agency discretion. See Mulloy v. United States, 398 U.S. 410, 414, 90 S.Ct. 1766, 1770, 26 L.Ed.2d 362 (1970) (statute providing that Selective Service boards may reopen draft classifications does not permit board to elect not to reopen classification where applicant has presented prima facie case for new classification); Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 165-66, 90 S.Ct. 832, 836-38, 25 L.Ed.2d 192 (1970) (statute authorizing Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate regulations as he may deem proper does not preclude judicial review); Environmental Defense Fund v. Hardin, 428 F.2d 1093, 1098 (D.C.Cir.1970) (intent to preclude judicial review cannot be found in the mere fact that a statute is drafted in permissive rather than mandatory terms). 7 24 In Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983), the Supreme Court held that when a Board reviews the merits of a former servicemember's application under Sec. 1552(a)(1), the decision is subject to judicial review. Id. at 303, 103 S.Ct. at 2367 (Board decisions are subject to judicial review and can be set aside if they are arbitrary, capricious, or not based on substantial evidence.). It is instructive that Chappell held that Board decisions to correct or not correct a military record are reviewable despite the fact that Sec. 1552(a)(1) provides that the Secretary may correct any military record. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 1552(a)(1) (emphasis supplied). We see no reason why the use of may in Sec. 1552(b) should preclude review of waiver determinations when it does not preclude review of decisions on the merits under Sec. 1552(a)(1). 25 The government goes on to argue that we should infer an intent to commit waiver determinations to agency discretion in light of the further language that a Board may excuse a failure to file only if it finds it to be in the interest of justice. Id. Sec. 1552(b) (emphasis supplied). We disagree. This court recently rejected a similar linguistic argument, albeit in a different statutory context, in Marshall County Health Care Authority v. Shalala, 988 F.2d 1221 (D.C.Cir.1993). In that case, we noted that the government was placing too much weight on the fact that a statute governing medicare reimbursement allowed the Secretary to make such adjustments  'as the Secretary deems appropriate,'  id. at 1223 (quoting 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1395ww(d)(5)(C)(iii)), and determined that this language--seemingly a stronger delegation to the agency than the one involved here--did not commit the matter solely to agency discretion. We again find instructive the Supreme Court's holding in Chappell that decisions under Sec. 1552(a)(1) are reviewable despite the fact that the language there provides that the Secretary may correct a military record when the Secretary considers it necessary to correct an error or remove an injustice. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 1552(a)(1) (emphasis supplied). Just as before, if this parallel language does not suffice to commit Board determinations on the merits entirely to the Board's discretion, we fail to see why it should be sufficient to do so in the case of waiver determinations. 8 26 Nonetheless, the government suggests that Chappell and other reviewability cases are of limited precedential value in light of the Supreme Court's later decisions in Webster v. Doe, 486 U.S. 592, 108 S.Ct. 2047, 100 L.Ed.2d 632 (1988), and Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985) (finding that the committed to agency discretion clause could apply in both national security and agency enforcement situations). We have, however, already found that Webster did not alter Chappell 's holding that Board decisions on the merits under Sec. 1552(a) are reviewable. See Kreis v. Secretary of the Air Force, 866 F.2d 1508, 1513-14 (D.C.Cir.1989). 27 In Webster, the statute at issue--the National Security Act--authorized the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to terminate an employee  'whenever [he] shall deem such termination necessary or advisable in the interests of the United States.'  486 U.S. at 600, 108 S.Ct. at 2052 (quoting 50 U.S.C. Sec. 403(c)). The Supreme Court observed that Congress (through the National Security Act) gave the CIA responsibility for protecting intelligence sources and methods from disclosure, and noted that the Agency's efficacy, and the Nation's security, depend in large measure on the reliability and trustworthiness of the Agency's employees. Id. at 601, 108 S.Ct. at 2052-53. The Webster decision thus turned in part upon the context in which the statutory mandate operated. Kreis, 866 F.2d at 1513. We found, however, that the parallels between the National Security Act and Sec. 1552 were not strong enough to justify extending Webster 's limitation on review to Board decisions. For one thing, the language authorizing the Secretary to correct an error or injustice is considerably narrower than the CIA Director's broad directive to determine whether an employee's termination is necessary or advisable in the interests of the United States. Id. at 1514. Moreover, we noted that in the case of Correction Boards, the Secretary of Defense does not claim that national security concerns would constrain him in explaining his refusal to correct an error or injustice. Id. In contrast, the CIA Director might legitimately find a termination warranted for reasons that cannot safely be shared with anyone outside the Agency. Id. Thus, we found that the National Security Act was substantially different than the statute authorizing the Correction Boards, and that the normal presumption of review should not be abandoned. 28 We similarly find that Webster does not foreclose review of waiver determinations under Sec. 1552(b). Just as in Kreis, the government here offers no reason why, in the legitimate interests of national security, the Board should not disclose the reasons for its decisions. While the efficient operation of the Armed Services is, of course, important to national security, the government does not argue here that adjusting the discharge status of a former member of the armed services is a decision so imbued with national security concerns as to require bypassing regular review procedures. Surely waiver determinations can implicate no more serious national security concerns than the substantive decisions involving the record corrections themselves. 9 29 Moreover, we find Heckler v. Chaney, on which the district court principally relied, see Mem.Op. at 6, inapposite in this case. Heckler held that the Food and Drug Administration's decision not to take enforcement actions to prevent the use of drugs in lethal injections was not subject to judicial review. Because review by the Board is not an enforcement decision, Heckler is not persuasive here. Moreover, in rejecting the presumption that review is available for enforcement decisions, Heckler noted that these decisions often involve a complicated balancing of factors which are peculiarly within [the agency's] expertise. 470 U.S. at 831, 105 S.Ct. at 1655 (emphasis supplied). Here, we have been shown no sufficient reason why the determination, on a case-by-case basis, of what is in the interest of justice lies within the exclusive expertise of the Board. Courts have, in other contexts, found in the interest of justice to be a reviewable standard. See, e.g., Sims v. Department of the Navy, 711 F.2d 1578, 1581-83 (Fed.Cir.1983) (reviewing and upholding denial of attorney's fees by Merit Systems Protection Board, where Board may direct payment of such fees if warranted in the interest of justice). 10 30 In sum, neither the language of Sec. 1552(b) nor the statutory scheme in which it is embedded provide persuasive reason to believe that Congress intended that waiver determinations be committed solely to agency discretion. 11 See Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 140, 87 S.Ct. at 1510. We therefore hold that Board waiver determinations under Sec. 1552(b) are subject to judicial review.