Opinion ID: 2812945
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Both 49 U.S.C. § 1153(c) and 49 U.S.C. § 44709(f) provide that the Administrator “may” petition for review of a Board order if the “Administrator decides” that the Board’s order “will have a significant adverse impact” on air safety and commerce. Id. While the Administrator filed a timely petition for review under those provisions, amicus curiae, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, argues that this court lacks jurisdiction because the Administrator lacked statutory “standing” to bring this case. Specifically, the Association contends that the Administrator erred in concluding that the Board’s application of the stale complaint rule will have the statutorily required “significant adverse impact” and that judicial concurrence in that judgment is a jurisdictional prerequisite. Ducote does not join that argument, and ordinarily this court will not entertain an amicus’s argument if not presented by a party. See, e.g., Narragansett Indian Tribe v. National 11 Indian Gaming Comm’n, 158 F.3d 1335, 1338 (D.C. Cir. 1998). But the Administrator joins the Association in characterizing the “significant adverse impact” standard as “jurisdictional,” Pet. Br. 23–24, and we labor under a perpetual and “‘independent obligation to assure ourselves of [our] jurisdiction,’” VanderKam v. VanderKam, 776 F.3d 883, 888 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Floyd v. District of Columbia, 129 F.3d 152, 155 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). Accordingly, in this narrow circumstance, we will follow the amicus’s argument only as far as necessary to assure ourselves of our jurisdiction. In this case, it is a short trip. The Association must “clear a high bar” to establish that the Administrator’s “significant adverse impact” determination is jurisdictional. See United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625, 1632 (2015). That is because the Supreme Court, of late, has “pressed a stricter distinction between truly jurisdictional rules, which govern a court’s adjudicatory authority, and nonjurisdictional claim-processing rules, which do not.” Gonzalez v. Thaler, 132 S. Ct. 641, 648 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).5 The “significant adverse impact” requirement comes nowhere near hurdling that bar. First, courts will enforce a rule as jurisdictional “[i]f the Legislature clearly states that a threshold limitation on a statute’s scope shall count as jurisdictional.” Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515 (2006); see also Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632. But nothing in Section 1153(c) (or the identical language of Section 44709(f)) “clearly”—or even unclearly—“states” that the Administrator’s 5 See also Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Ctr., 133 S. Ct. 817, 824 (2013) (warning against “profligate use of the term ‘jurisdiction’”). 12 determination is “jurisdictional.” The term “jurisdiction” appears nowhere at all in 49 U.S.C. § 44709; that Section focuses entirely on the type of administrative processing matters that the Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly held lack jurisdictional consequence. See, e.g., Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 131 S. Ct. 1197, 1204 (2011) (statutory deadline for an appeal from the Board of Veterans’ Appeals “does not speak in jurisdictional terms or refer in any way to the jurisdiction of the [Veterans Court]” (internal quotation marks omitted; alteration in original)); Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 166 (2010) (requirement that copyright holders register work before suing “imposes a precondition to filing a claim that is not clearly labeled jurisdictional, is not located in a jurisdiction-granting provision, and admits of congressionally authorized exceptions”).6 Section 1153(c) likewise is devoid of jurisdictional trappings, in sharp contrast to the express jurisdictional reference in the preceding statutory subsection, 49 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(3) (“When the petition is sent to the Board, the court has exclusive jurisdiction to affirm, amend, modify, or 6 See also Auburn Regional, 133 S. Ct. at 824 (Because “[t]he language Congress used hardly reveals a design to preclude any regulatory extension,” the statutory deadline to appeal a decision of the Provider Reimbursement Review Board is nonjurisdictional.); Vermont Dep’t of Public Service v. United States, 684 F.3d 149, 156 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Since “the language of the Hobbs Act offers no such unequivocal bar,” its administrative exhaustion requirement is nonjurisdictional.); Hidalgo v. FBI, 344 F.3d 1256, 1258 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (The Freedom of Information Act’s administrative “exhaustion requirement is not jurisdictional because the [statute] does not unequivocally make it so.”). 13 set aside any part of the order and may order the Board to conduct further proceedings.”). That omission says much because the “proximity    highlights the absence of clear jurisdictional terms in” Section 1153(c). Gonzalez, 132 S. Ct. at 651. “‘[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally[.]’” Id. at 649 (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983)). Second, the statutory structure confirms that the Administrator’s “significant adverse impact” determination is decidedly nonjurisdictional. The critical statutory language speaks entirely in terms of what an agency official—the Administrator—must “decide[]” before filing a petition for review, not what a court must find to exercise decisional authority over that petition. 49 U.S.C. §§ 1153(c), 44709(f). Nothing in the statute requires the Administrator to make that determination in any particular form or to submit it to the court.7 In the absence of a long legislative or judicial history of jurisdictional treatment, see Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205, 209–211 (2007), a statutory requirement like the Administrator’s duty to find a “significant adverse impact,” just “requires a party to take some action before filing” an appeal, Reed Elsevier, 559 U.S. at 166, and “says nothing about whether a federal court has subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate claims,” id. at 164. Here, as in Gonzalez, there 7 This case thus stands in sharp contrast to In re Sealed Case, 131 F.3d 208, 215 (D.C. Cir. 1997), in which the statute explicitly required a prosecutor to “certif[y] to the appropriate district court” that the Attorney General had found a “substantial Federal interest” in the crime’s prosecution to “warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction,” 18 U.S.C. § 5032. 14 is no tradition whatsoever of according the Administrator’s determination jurisdictional consequence. See Gonzalez, 132 S. Ct. at 649. Indeed, the nature of the “significant adverse impact” determination closely parallels the “substantial showing” of a constitutional claim requirement in Gonzalez, which was held to be nonjurisdictional. Id. at 649–650. Both are statutory mechanisms for sifting out insubstantial appeals, not limitations on judicial power. Third, the very nature of the inquiry defies jurisdictional treatment. The statutory text expressly leaves it to the “Administrator”—not a court—to “decide[]” what impact a Board order will have on “carrying out this chapter related to an aviation matter.” 49 U.S.C. § 1153(c). That type of operational assessment falls squarely within the Administrator’s area of expertise. Nothing in the relevant statutory provisions offers any meaningful guideposts for judicial second-guessing of that quintessentially administrative judgment. In short, neither the statutory text nor structure provides the type of “‘sweeping and direct’” congressional command needed to attach jurisdictional consequence to the Administrator’s “significant adverse impact” determination. Avocados Plus Inc. v. Veneman, 370 F.3d 1243, 1248 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (quoting Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 757 (1975)). As Congress did not treat the requirement as jurisdictional, neither will we. And since the issue does not concern our jurisdiction, we will not accept amicus’s invitation to review (or decide if we can review) the merits of the Secretary’s “significant adverse impact” determination as neither party pressed that argument. See Narragansett Indian Tribe, 158 F.3d at 1338. 15