Opinion ID: 491631
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: first accrual of the cause of action

Text: 17 Appellant apparently concedes that if Sec. 2401(a) applies to FOIA actions, as we have held it does, his claim with respect to the September 20 request is time barred. He contends, however, that the claims with respect to his September 21 request are not barred because the OPIA did not dispose of his administrative appeal until August 15, 1979. Thus, he argues, the filing of the suit on July 26, 1985 fell (just barely) within the limitations period. 18 As a preliminary matter, neither appellant nor the government seems to distinguish, for purposes of this argument, between those documents responsive to appellant's September 21 request that New York withheld and those that FBI Headquarters withheld. As to the former, the OPIA disposed of appellant's appeal on January 19, 1979. Thus, even giving appellant the benefit of his argument, his cause of action was, as to those documents, filed over six months late. 19 Appellant's argument also fails to distinguish between the two theories that it comprises. The first theory, nonaccrual, is that the cause of action did not first accrue--and the statute of limitations did not begin to run--until August 15, 1979, when the administrative appeal ended. The second theory, tolling, is that the statute of limitations was tolled, presumably from the date of appellant's request (appellant is unclear) until the final disposition of the administrative appeal. While success on either of the two theories would here yield the same result, they follow different analyses. 20
21 A cause of action against an administrative agency first accrues, within the meaning of Sec. 2401(a), as soon as (but not before) the person challenging the agency action can institute and maintain a suit in court. See, e.g., Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U.S. 503, 510-11, 87 S.Ct. 1177, 1181-82, 18 L.Ed.2d 256 (1967); Impro Products, Inc. v. Block, 722 F.2d 845, 850 (D.C.Cir.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 931, 105 S.Ct. 327, 83 S.Ct. 327 (1984). 3 Tautologically, a suit cannot be maintained in court--and a cause of action does not first accrue--until a party has exhausted all administrative remedies whose exhaustion is a prerequisite to suit. See Crown Coat, 386 U.S. at 510-19, 87 S.Ct. at 1181-86. Such remedies are often curiously called mandatory remedies, even though no one has ever been penalized for failing to pursue them. Conversely (and also tautologically), where the availability or pendency of an administrative remedy does not bar suit, a suit can be maintained in court--and a cause of action can first accrue. See, e.g., Soriano v. United States, 352 U.S. 270, 274-75, 77 S.Ct. 269, 272-73, 1 L.Ed.2d 306 (1957); Hurick v. Lehman, 782 F.2d 984, 987 (Fed.Cir.1986); Walters v. Secretary of Defense, 725 F.2d at 114; White v. Secretary of the Army, 629 F.Supp. 64, 67 (D.D.C.1985). Such remedies are commonly tagged permissive. 22 Nomenclature aside, the pivotal question for application of Sec. 2401(a) to agency action is whether or not the failure to avail oneself of available administrative appeals would bar suit in court. See also Lins v. United States, 688 F.2d 784, 786-87 (Ct.Cl.1982) (using mandatory/permissive labels in construing identical language in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2501), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1147, 103 S.Ct. 788, 74 L.Ed.2d 995 (1983); Bonen v. United States, 666 F.2d 536, 539 (Ct.Cl.1981) (same), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 991, 102 S.Ct. 2273, 73 L.Ed.2d 1286 (1982). 4 23 To contradict the wealth of authority drawing that distinction, appellant quotes only this court's language in Impro Products. In that case this court applied Sec. 2401(a) to bar an action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. Sec. 702 (1982), brought more than six years after the agency's final agency action, id. Sec. 704. This court said that [i]n the agency context, the logical inference is that the cause of action accrues when all statutorily required or permitted agency review has been exhausted. 722 F.2d at 850 (emphasis added). Of course, since no formal review procedures existed at all in that case, id., any inconsistency with the settled principles discussed above would be dictum. 24 There is, however, no inconsistency. It is clear from the context that the court did not mean the terms required and permitted to be a masked reference to the mandatory/permissive nomenclature prevalent in this area. Rather, the court meant only to describe the exhaustion doctrine, under which remedies that a statute expressly require[s] and those that it permit[s] ordinarily must be exhausted before a suit can be maintained. No case quoting the permitted language in Impro Products has read it to abolish the conventional distinction for purposes of Sec. 2401(a) between mandatory and permissive administrative appeals. See White v. Secretary of the Army, 629 F.Supp. at 67, 68 (expressly reaffirming distinction); Bittner v. Secretary of Defense, 625 F.Supp. 1022, 1029 (D.D.C.1985) (quoting White ). 5
25 Our next step is to distinguish between those periods during which the availability of an administrative FOIA remedy bars suit and those during which it does not (i.e., the periods during which exhaustion may be characterized respectively, as mandatory and permissive). We recently reiterated the law regarding exhaustion in FOIA cases:It goes without saying that exhaustion of remedies is required in FOIA cases. As this court has recently had occasion to state in the clearest of language, [e]xhaustion of such [administrative] remedies is required under the Freedom of Information Act before a party can seek judicial review. Stebbins v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 757 F.2d 364 (D.C.Cir. [1985]; see also Crooker v. United States Secret Service, 577 F.Supp. 1218, 1219 (D.D.C.1983). 26 Dettmann v. Department of Justice, 802 F.2d 1472, 1477 (D.C.Cir.1986); see also id. at 1477 n. 8 (Exhaustion has long been required in FOIA cases.). 27 Contrary to appellant's contention, that statement stands only for the unexceptionable proposition that exhaustion is a prerequisite to suit. It does not address the manner in which exhaustion may be accomplished. By virtue of a special provision virtually unique to FOIA, 6 exhaustion is complete--for purposes of allowing recourse to the courts--on the expiration of specified deadlines: 28 Any person making a request to any agency for records ... shall be deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to such request if the agency fails to comply with the applicable time limit provisions of this paragraph. 29 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(C). By deem[ing] exhaustion to occur on expiration of the relevant time limits, the statute provides for constructive exhaustion, which permits early accrual of a cause of action in the interests of timely disclosure. Once constructive exhaustion occurs, any available administrative appeal--i.e., actual exhaustion--becomes permissive in the sense in which the term is used here; the requester may pursue it, but his failure to do so does not bar a lawsuit. See, e.g., Virginia Transformer Co. v. Department of Energy, 628 F.Supp. 944, 947 (W.D.Va.1986); Jenks v. United States Marshals Service, 514 F.Supp. 1383, 1385-87 (S.D.Ohio 1981); Information Acquisition Corp. v. Department of Justice, 444 F.Supp. 458, 462 (D.D.C.1978). 30 There are two time limit provisions that trigger constructive exhaustion. First, the agency has ten days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of any [FOIA] request within which to determine ... whether to comply with such request.... 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(i). Second, the agency has twenty days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after receipt of ... [an administrative] appeal within which to make a determination on that appeal. Id. Sec. 552(a)(6)(A)(ii). In either event, the agency can, citing one of three enumerated unusual circumstances, extend either time limit for up to 10 working days, if it notifies the requester expressly. Id. Sec. 552(a)(6)(B). 31 Appellant seems to read Dettmann 's statement that exhaustion of remedies is required as somehow altering this clear reading of the statutory scheme. But Dettmann 's reliance on both Crooker v. United States Secret Service, 577 F.Supp. 1218, 1219 (D.D.C.1983), and Stebbins v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 757 F.2d 364 (D.C.Cir.1985) (per curiam), confirms that the Dettmann court intended to break no new legal ground. Crooker explicitly analyzes both constructive and actual exhaustion. 577 F.Supp. at 1219-20. Stebbins summarily dismisses a FOIA suit for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, without recounting the circumstances of the request, 757 F.2d at 366, but cites with approval Hedley v. United States, 594 F.2d 1043, 1044 (5th Cir.1979) (per curiam), which clearly recognized the distinction. 32 Nor do the facts of Dettmann signal a departure from well-settled law. Dettmann requested the FBI to turn over copies of all documents ... which [among other things] contain my name.... 802 F.2d at 1473 (emphasis added) (citation omitted). Instead, pursuant to FBI policy regarding such see references, she was given (with some deletions) only the portions f documents that contained her name. Id. at 1473-74. Dettmann administratively appealed several deletions. But [n]ot a word was said ... in protest against the FBI's practice with respect to 'see' reference materials. Id. at 1474. The court dismissed Dettmann's subsequent lawsuit protesting the FBI's see reference policy, because of her failure to exhaust her remedies on that issue. 33 There is no indication that the FBI failed to meet the 10-day deadline for initial response, thereby triggering the constructive-exhaustion provision and obviating actual exhaustion. 7 But even if it had, the court's conclusion that Dettmann's suit was barred for want of actual exhaustion is perfectly reconcilable with the scheme described above. The court might simply have assumed that when an agency makes its initial response after the 10-day deadline but before the requester has filed suit, the administrative appeal's mandatory character is restored. Under that view of things, the requester's statutory right to sue might perhaps be either suspended (for the brief period during which an administrative appeal is available 8 plus the 20 working days within which it must be processed) or entirely cut off (if the requester never appeals the denial). We need not here discern whether the Dettmann court merely assumed that constructive exhaustion had not occurred or contemplated a revival of the actual exhaustion requirement. In either event, Dettmann did not in any way undermine the proposition that a cause of action under FOIA first accrues when the requester first exhausts his remedies, either constructively or actually. 34
35 Resolution of this case, then, turns on whether appellant, unlike Dettmann, constructively exhausted his administrative remedies some time before the OPIA disposed of his administrative appeal. He clearly did. 36 Despite the fact that appellant's September 21 request was labeled BY HAND, Joint Appendix (J.A.) at 13, the District Court gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming a one-week mailing period. See 643 F.Supp. at 701 n. 1. Thus, the FBI's New York Office had, at the very latest, until October 13 (10 working days after assumed receipt of the request) to make the determination required by Sec. 522(a)(6)(A)(i). 9 Since it failed to do so, appellant's cause of action first accrued, at the very latest, in October 1977, more than seven years and nine months before appellant filed this suit. 37