Opinion ID: 2002356
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Association's Standing to Seek Judicial Review.

Text: District court held the association possessed standing to challenge the department's rules, based on its finding the association has a specific interest as opposed to an interest of the community as a whole, and an interest as competitors of credit unions arguably injured by the rules. Appealing, the department initially argues the association failed to establish its interests are within those protected by the legislature's 1978 and 1979 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 533, urging us to recognize the zone of interest test adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153, 90 S.Ct. 827, 830, 25 L.Ed.2d 184, 188 (1970). The zone of interest inquiry urged by the department is part of a two-tier analysis comprising requirements emanating from the case or controversy provisions of United States Constitution, article III, section 2, and prudential considerations imposed by the Court itself. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United For Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471-76, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758-60, 70 L.Ed.2d 700, 708-12 (1982); Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 72, 80, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 2630, 2634, 57 L.Ed.2d 595, 610, 614-15 (1978). It is not a constitutional requirement, but rather is one of the Court's prudential limitations. Valley Forge Christian College, 454 U.S. at 474-75, 102 S.Ct. at 760, 70 L.Ed.2d at 711; Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99-100, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d 66, 77 n. 6 (1979). Section 17A.19(1) of the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act (IAPA) provides in relevant part: A person or party who has exhausted all adequate administrative remedies and who is aggrieved or adversely affected by any final agency action is entitled to judicial review under this chapter. (Emphasis added.) We have utilized a two-part test to determine whether a litigant is aggrieved or adversely affected. A party must demonstrate a specific, personal, and legal interest in the subject matter of the agency decision, and show that interest has been specially and injuriously affected. Southeast Warren Community School District v. Department of Public Instruction, 285 N.W.2d 173, 176 (Iowa 1979); City of Des Moines v. Public Employment Relations Board, 275 N.W.2d 753, 759 (Iowa 1979). The corresponding provision of the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA) renders judicial review of agency action available to persons suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action, within the meaning of a relevant statute. 5 U.S.C.A. § 702 (West 1977). The zone of interest test has been identified by federal courts as arising from the language within the meaning of a relevant statute. See Marshall & Ilsley Corp. v. Heimann, 652 F.2d 685, 696 n. 19 (7th Cir.1981), cert. denied sub nom. Marshall & Ilsley Corp. v. Conover, 455 U.S. 981, 102 S.Ct. 1489, 71 L.Ed.2d 691 (1982); Shiffler v. Schlesinger, 548 F.2d 96, 102 (3d Cir.1977); Standard Engineers and Constructors, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 483 F.Supp. 1163, 1166 (D.Conn.1980). The Supreme Court itself linked the test with the foregoing language of the federal APA: The question of standing... concerns... whether the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question. Thus the Administrative Procedure Act grants standing to a person aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute.  Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc., 397 U.S. at 153, 90 S.Ct. at 830, 25 L.Ed.2d at 188 (emphasis added); see Gladstone, Realtors, 441 U.S. at 100, 99 S.Ct. at 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d at 77 n. 6. Our statutory requirement on standing to seek judicial review of agency action does not contain the qualifying language present in the federal APA. Iowa Code § 17A.19 (1981). Interpretation of the Iowa statute is a question of law, Hamilton v. City of Urbandale, 291 N.W.2d at 19, of which this court is the final arbiter. Quaker Oats Co. v. Cedar Rapids Human Rights Commission, 268 N.W.2d 862, 866 (Iowa 1978). We decline to read into the statute an intent or meaning not expressed therein, Cedar Rapids Steel Transportation, Inc. v. Iowa State Commerce Commission, 160 N.W.2d 825, 830 (Iowa 1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 918, 89 S.Ct. 1189, 22 L.Ed.2d 451 (1969), or extend its terms under the guise of construction. City of Cedar Rapids v. Moses, 223 N.W.2d 263, 268 (Iowa 1974). Although ordinarily the primary purpose of an act is easily identified, and the objects of that purpose obviously possess standing, other purposes underlying an act often are uncertain. K. Davis, Administrative Law of the Seventies § 22.02-11, at 515 (1976); B. Schwartz, Administrative Law 466 (1976). Agency action may have impact on persons other than those who are the immediate object of the act. Schwartz, supra, at 467. We believe the legislature intended to make a judicial remedy available to any person or party who can demonstrate the requisite injury. Our holding finds support in decisions of other state courts that have addressed the issue. New Hampshire Bankers Association v. Nelson, 113 N.H. 127, 129, 302 A.2d 810, 811 (1973); Snyder's Drug Stores, Inc. v. Minnesota State Board of Pharmacy, 301 Minn. 28, 31-32, 221 N.W.2d 162, 165 (1974); Atlantic Telephone Co. v. Public Service Commission, 390 A.2d 439, 441 n. 5 (D.C.1978) (statute conferring standing on those affected by agency action did not implicate zone of interest test); cf. Basilikov v. Government of District of Columbia, 283 A.2d 816, 818 (D.C.1971) (legislative history indicated district and federal APA review provisions have same meaning despite absence of qualifying language in district APA). The department nonetheless argues we have employed the zone of interest test in prior decisions. In City of Des Moines, 275 N.W.2d at 759, the municipality's public employer status enabled it to demonstrate a specific, personal interest in the Public Employment Relations Board's authority to order binding arbitration, upon the request of an employee organization, after the employer's certified budget submission date. The impact of the board's affirmative ruling on the city's future negotiations established a special, injurious effect. In Southeast Warren Community School District, 285 N.W.2d at 175, the school district challenged a Department of Public Instruction ruling the district was precluded by statute from expelling a special education student. Because the extent of the district's statutory authority was at issue, we found it had a specific, personal interest that had been injuriously affected. 285 N.W.2d at 178-79. In Northbrook Residents Association v. Iowa State Department of Health, 298 N.W.2d 330, 331-32 (Iowa 1980), this court denied the association standing based on failure to meet its burden of proof, not because the association necessarily was required to bring itself within the definition of any statute. These cases at most demonstrate our rule a party must show some interest distinguishable from that of the general public, and injury to that interest has been or will be sustainednot that the party is the primary object of the agency action. We hold the federal zone of interest test does not apply in determining standing under Iowa Code section 17A.19. The department also contends the association failed to show a specially and injuriously affected, special, personal, and legal interest in the agency action under the test we enunciated in City of Des Moines, 275 N.W.2d at 759. Unrebutted testimony supported district court's finding that credit unions compete with banks in providing similar services. The association's competitor status distinguishes its interest from that of the community as a whole, and demonstrates the requisite specific, personal, and legal interest in the agency's rule-making. The only evidence presented regarding a special, injurious effect to the association's interest, however, was unrebutted testimony some banks have lost business as a result of credit union share-draft business. The association failed to show injury, or potential injury, as a result of the rules regarding loans secured by real estate, insolvency, small employee groups, or branch offices. This failure precludes assertion of jurisdiction with regard to these rules. Northbrook Residents Association, 298 N.W.2d at 332. The association's showing of past lost business due to credit union share-draft business is sufficient, however, to demonstrate a special, injurious effect to its competitive interest. Only a likelihood or possibility of injury need be shown. A party need not demonstrate injury will accrue with certainty, or already has accrued. See City of Des Moines, 275 N.W.2d at 759 (effect on future negotiations); Interstate Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 285 F.2d 270, 272-73 & n. 1 (D.C.Cir.1960); Hall v. Planning Commission, 181 Conn. 442, 445, 435 A.2d 975, 976 (1980). It may be true, as the department alleges, that the gravamen of the association's complaint is the legislative enactment, rather than the department's rules promulgated pursuant to those statutes. This contention goes to the merits of the association's challenge to the rules, and not to its standing to bring the challenge. The association contends the legislature has preselected trade associations with twenty-five or more members as persons always having standing to challenge agency action. It bases this argument on Iowa Code section 17A.2(6), which defines person to include associations for purposes of the IAPA, and section 17A.4, which provides in relevant part: 1. Prior to the adoption, amendment, or repeal of any rule an agency shall: .... b. Afford all interested persons not less than twenty days to submit data, views or arguments in writing. If timely requested ... by an association having not less than twenty-five members, the agency must give interested persons an opportunity to make oral presentation. Including association within the definition of person statutorily recognizes an organization's capacity to represent its members' views. It does not, however, alter the necessity to show adverse effect or aggrievement. Iowa Code section 17A.19 renders these requirements separate and distinct. Iowa Department of Revenue v. Iowa State Board of Tax Review, 267 N.W.2d 675, 678 (Iowa 1978). Neither does the automatic right to make oral presentations during the rule-making process exempt associations from demonstrating adverse effect or aggrievement. Section 17A.4(1)(b) merely grants the opportunity to be heard to literally anyone who cares enough to do so. A. Bonfield, The Iowa Administrative Procedure Act: Background, Construction, Applicability, Public Access to Agency Law, The Rulemaking Process, 60 Iowa L.Rev. 731, 852 (1975). The adverse effect or aggrievement requirement is applicable to every party to agency action. Iowa Code § 17A.19(1); Iowa Department of Revenue, 267 N.W.2d at 678. We hold the association has standing to challenge 295 Iowa Administrative Code chapter 7 (share-draft accounts), but failed to show standing to challenge the remaining rules at issue.