Opinion ID: 556409
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Accardi Doctrine

Text: 23 We have two options in applying these regulations in a case where there was a failure to fully comply with them: one is to insist that they be scrupulously adhered to; the other is to search the record to see if petitioner was prejudiced by the failure. We consider the first option. The seeds of the Accardi doctrine are found in the long-settled principle that the rules promulgated by a federal agency, which regulate the rights and interests of others, are controlling upon the agency. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. United States, 316 U.S. 407, 422, 62 S.Ct. 1194, 1202, 86 L.Ed. 1563 (1942) (agency regulations on which individuals are entitled to rely bind agency). The doctrine was first announced in an immigration case in United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260, 74 S.Ct. 499, 98 L.Ed. 681 (1954), where the Court vacated a deportation order of the Board of Immigration Appeals because the procedure leading to the order did not conform to the relevant regulations. The failure of the Board and of the Department of Justice to follow their own established procedures was held to be reversible error. 24 The doctrine has been applied in other contexts, for example, in Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363, 77 S.Ct. 1152, 1 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1957) and Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1959), to vacate the discharges of government employees, and in Yellin v. United States, 374 U.S. 109, 83 S.Ct. 1828, 10 L.Ed.2d 778 (1963), to overturn a criminal contempt conviction. This Circuit and other circuits have also used it. See, e.g., Smith v. Resor, 406 F.2d 141, 145 (2d Cir.1969); United States v. Leahey, 434 F.2d 7, 9-11 (1st Cir.1970); United States v. Heffner, 420 F.2d 809, 812 (4th Cir.1969); Geiger v. Brown, 419 F.2d 714, 718 (D.C.Cir.1969); Pacific Molasses Co. v. FTC, 356 F.2d 386, 389-90 (5th Cir.1966). 25 The Accardi doctrine is premised on fundamental notions of fair play underlying the concept of due process. See International House v. NLRB, 676 F.2d 906, 912 (2d Cir.1982); Massachusetts Fair Share v. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 758 F.2d 708, 711 (D.C.Cir.1985); K. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush 43 (1951); Note, Violations by Agencies of Their Own Regulations, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 629, 630 (1974). Its ambit is not limited to rules attaining the status of formal regulations. As the Supreme Court noted [w]here the rights of individuals are affected, it is incumbent upon agencies to follow their own procedures. This is so even where the internal procedures are possibly more rigorous than otherwise would be required, and even though the procedural requirement has not yet been published in the federal register. Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U.S. 199, 235, 94 S.Ct. 1055, 1074, 39 L.Ed.2d 270 (1974) (declining to address constitutional issues raised by aggrieved Indians because case disposed of on this statutory ground). 26 To be sure, the cases are not uniform in requiring that every time an agency ignores its own regulation its acts must subsequently be set aside. Nonetheless, decisions contrary to the views expressed in Accardi may generally be distinguished from the instant case because in most of those cases the agency regulation that was departed from governed internal agency procedures rather than, as here, the rights or interests of the objecting party; see, e.g., United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 752-55, 99 S.Ct. 1465, 1471-73, 59 L.Ed.2d 733 (1979); American Farm Lines v. Black Ball Freight Service, 397 U.S. 532, 538-39, 90 S.Ct. 1288, 1292-93, 25 L.Ed.2d 547 (1970); United States v. Lockyer, 448 F.2d 417, 420-21 (10th Cir.1971); Modern Plastics Corp. v. McCulloch, 400 F.2d 14, 19 (6th Cir.1968); NLRB v. Monsanto Chem. Co., 205 F.2d 763, 764-65 (8th Cir.1953). Other cases may be distinguished because a court was unwilling to craft a remedy for administrative non-compliance with its own rules. See, e.g., United States v. Leonard, 524 F.2d 1076, 1089 (2d Cir.1975) (refusing to invoke the exclusionary rule as remedy to agency non-compliance with its internal procedure), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 958, 96 S.Ct. 1737, 48 L.Ed.2d 202 (1976). The doctrine has continued vitality, particularly where a petitioner's rights are affected. See Morton, 415 U.S. at 235, 94 S.Ct. at 1074.