Opinion ID: 732422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Dismissal of the Follow-On Complaints

Text: 53 The Secretary concluded that he was not authorized to award the Follow-on Complainants relief under § 113 because they did not file their complaints within 60 days of the enactment of the statute. Final Decision at [322 U.S.App.D.C. 330] 58-60. The airlines argue that the Secretary's decision is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to the purpose of [§ 113] because it does not afford each party that has been aggrieved by the fee increase at LAX a reasonable opportunity to file a complaint under § 113. 54 The Congress enacted § 113, creating the expedited procedure under which this action was heard by the Department of Transportation, on August 23, 1994. The statute makes this expedited procedure available only to an airline that files a written complaint within 60 days of receiving notice of a landing fee increase. § 113(a)(1). 55 As we have seen, the Original Complainants filed their complaint on October 21, 1994; the Secretary accepted that complaint on January 26, 1995 and instructed the airlines to file an amended complaint within 30 days of the promulgation of the procedural rules implementing § 113. Those rules were promulgated on February 3, 1995 and the Original Complainants filed an amended complaint on March 2, 1995. 56 The procedural rules provide that, while a follow-on complaint must be filed within seven days of the filing of an initial complaint, this seven-day period for filing a follow-on complaint does not extend the 60-day statutory period for filing any complaint. 60 Fed.Reg. 6919, 6927, 14 C.F.R. § 302.603(b) (in order to be considered under § 113, all complaints ... must be filed on or before the 60th day after the carrier receives written notice of the imposition of the new fee or the imposition of the increase in the fee). Therefore, when the Department issued a scheduling notice on March 7, 1994 providing that [c]omplaints by other carriers were to be filed no later than seven calendar days after the Original Complainants had filed their amended complaint, it did not thereby extend the time for filing under § 113. 57 When, on March 9, 37 airlines filed follow-on complaints, and the Secretary accepted them even though they were not filed within 60 days of the enactment of § 113, he did not suggest that he had the authority to grant retrospective relief to the Follow-on Complainants under § 113. See Instituting Order at 19, n.14. Rather, he accepted those complaints purely as a discretionary matter under the Anti-Head Tax Act and § 511 of the Airport and Airways Improvement Act, which authorize the Secretary to rule prospectively upon the reasonableness of an airport fee: 58 We have the authority to adopt procedures for investigating the reasonableness of airport fees under our general authority to enforce the reasonableness requirement established by 49 U.S.C. 47107 and 49 U.S.C. 40116.... If we did not accept the follow-on complaints in this proceeding, those carriers would have the right to file a complaint with the FAA against the City under Part 13 of the FAA's rules. Such a result would be illogical. 59 Instituting Order at 20. In his Final Order of June 30, 1995 the Secretary reiterated that the Follow-on Complainants were entitled only to a prospective ruling upon the reasonableness of the fee increase at LAX. The Secretary explained that, although he had the discretion to hear the follow-on complaints together with the original complaints, he had the authority to award retrospective relief under § 113 only to those airlines that filed timely complaints; he could not excuse carriers from complying with the statute's requirement that complaints be filed within sixty days. Final Decision at 59. 60 The Follow-on Complainants challenge the Secretary's determination principally on the ground that this is an unreasonable interpretation of § 113 because it is not fair to all concerned. The Follow-on Complainants are silent as to how precisely they would have had the Secretary interpret § 113. It appears, however, that by their lights an interpretation would be fair to all only if it afforded equal access to the expedited procedure of § 113 for the diligent and lax alike. 61 Be that as it may, we review the Secretary's interpretation pursuant to Chevron, U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 842-844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). First, we must determine whether the Congress has spoken directly to the question of how § 113 applies to a complaint challenging a fee increase that was announced prior to the enactment of the statute. [322 U.S.App.D.C. 331] Id. If it has, then our inquiry is at an end for the court, as well as the agency, must given effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781. If it has not, however, then the Congress has implicitly delegated interpretive authority to the agency, and the court must uphold the agency's interpretation if it is consistent with the statutory scheme. Id at 844, 104 S.Ct. at 2782-83. 62 Section 113(a)(1) provides that a carrier must file a written complaint challenging a fee increase under that statute within 60 days after such carrier receives written notice of the establishment of or increase of such fee. At first glance, therefore, § 113 seems to bar the present action altogether because the Original Complainants did not (and could not, for § 113 did not then exist) file within 60 days of being notified of the proposed fee increase in late June of 1993. Upon closer inspection, however, we see that § 113(e)(3) states that the new procedure may not be used to challenge an existing fee not in dispute as of such date of enactment, which strongly suggests that an airline is permitted to file a complaint under the new procedure against a fee increase announced more than 60 days before the enactment of § 113 provided that the fee increase remained in dispute on the day of enactment. In any event, no party to this dispute maintains that the 60-day limitation period was intended to bar an airline from complaining under § 113 about a fee increase that was announced more than 60-days before the enactment of the Act. 63 It appears, moreover, that the Congress enacted § 113 in direct response to the dispute over the fee increase at LAX, see, for example, 139 Cong. Rec. H7573, H7578 (Oct. 7, 1993) (Remarks of Rep. Clinger), and that the Congress specifically intended that the airlines be able to use the newly-created procedure to challenge the LAX fee increase. See, for example, 140 Cong. Rec. S6988, S6988 (June 16, 1994) (Remarks of Sen. Feinstein, noting that the airlines would be permitted to file a 120-day administrative proceeding with respect to the fee increase at LAX and further remarking that the Act was amended with the specific purpose of ensuring that the standstill agreement between the airlines and the City would not be disturbed should the airlines file a complaint under § 113); id. (remarks of Senator Ford, describing Senator Feinstein's understanding as complete and accurate). 64 The Secretary acknowledged the tension between the 60-day limitation period and the apparent intent of the Congress regarding this very dispute as follows: 65 The statute expressly requires that complaints be filed within sixty days of the date that a carrier receives notice that the airport is increasing a fee or imposing a new fee. § 113(a)(1)(B). However, as shown, Congress clearly intended the statute to apply to the on-going dispute about the reasonableness of the LAX landing fees, even though those fees had been imposed well before the statute's enactment. 66 Final Decision at 59. In light of this tension, the Secretary concluded that the statute does not speak to the question of how it applies to a fee increase predating enactment of the statute and still in dispute on that date. We agree with the Secretary, as do the petitioners. 67 The disputed question is whether the Secretary's interpretation is a permissible construction of the statute. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843, 104 S.Ct. at 2782. Section 113 was enacted generally in order to provide an expedited procedure for challenging any increase in any airport landing fee in dispute then or in the future. The Congress intended specifically that the airlines be able to use this expedited procedure to challenge the 1993 landing fee increase at LAX. The Follow-on Complainants assert, therefore, that the Secretary failed to give effect to the intent of the Congress when he interpreted § 113 in a way that prevented them from using it to challenge the 1993 landing fee increase. 68 We think the Secretary adopted an interpretation of the statute that strikes a reasonable balance between two competing congressional aims. As he said at the time: 69 To reconcile Congress' intent to allow the airlines to challenge the LAX fees under [§ 113] and the express requirement of a 60 day filing deadline for complaints, we [322 U.S.App.D.C. 332] construed the statute as requiring the filing of a complaint about the LAX fees within sixty days of the statute's enactment. 70 Final Decision at 59. We cannot say that the Secretary's reconciliation of these two congressional intentions is unreasonable or based upon an impermissible construction of the statutory scheme. We cannot say even that § 113(a) did not, in and of itself, provide adequate notice to the airlines of the need to file their complaints within 60-days of enactment of the statute. We therefore hold that the Secretary's interpretation of § 113(a)(1)(B) is a permissible response to the silence of the statute, and one to which we must presumptively defer. 71 Nonetheless, the Follow-on Complainants argue that the Secretary's interpretation should be afforded little deference because he did not announce his interpretation before issuing his Final Decision on June 30, 1995. They claim that they were led to believe that their complainants would be accepted when the Secretary announced that follow-on complaints should be submitted no later than March 9, 1995. They accuse the Secretary, in short, either of having changed his interpretation of § 113 at the end of the administrative proceeding or of having concealed from the outset, for some unknown reason, his true intention to deny the Follow-on Complainants a remedy. 72 But the Secretary was neither so fickle nor so foul. He consistently maintained that compliance with the 60-day limitation period is a sine qua non for receiving relief under § 113. The procedural rules are quite clear about the force of the 60-day limitations period. 60 Fed.Reg. 6919, 6927, 14 C.F.R. § 302.603(b). The Secretary noted in his order accepting the original complaint that there was a dispute over whether the 60-day filing period should be applied to begin on the date of enactment. Order 95-1-42, 4 (January 30, 1995). The Secretary accepted the original complaint under § 113 only because the complainants filed a timely complaint by filing their initial complaint within 60 days of the statute's enactment. Order 95-4-5, 14 (April 3, 1995). At no point, moreover, did the Secretary suggest that he could accept or that he had accepted the follow-on complaints pursuant to his authority under § 113. Rather, the Secretary stated that he was accepting the follow-on complaints as an exercise of his discretion under 49 U.S.C. § 47107 and 49 U.S.C. § 40116. Id. at 19 & n. 14. Any suggestion that the Secretary somehow misled the Follow-on Complainants, or that he altered or first adopted his interpretation of § 113 only at the end of the administrative proceeding, is therefore unfounded. 73 The Follow-on Complainants also argue that the Secretary's interpretation of the 60-day limitation period constitutes a retroactive application of a substantive statutory provision that cuts off their right to a refund. The airlines here rely upon the Fifth Circuit's decision in Hartford Casualty Insurance v. FDIC, 21 F.3d 696 (1994), which involved a newly enacted statutory provision that cut off a pre-existing right. Section 113, in contrast, created a new statutory right conditioned upon meeting a set of newly adopted procedural requirements for filing a complaint. The Follow-on Complainants did not comply with these requirements. As a result, they never acquired any rights that the Secretary's interpretation could cut off. 74 The Follow-on Complainants also challenge the Secretary's interpretation and application of § 113 on the ground that it discriminates against foreign carriers, in violation of various treaties requiring that foreign airlines receive national treatment. See, for example, Convention on International Civil Aviation, opened for signature Dec. 7, 1944, art. 15, 61 stat. 1180, 15 U.N.T.S. 295, T.I.A.S. No. 1591 (ratified by the United States on August 9, 1946) (providing that every airport ... which is open to public use by ... national aircraft shall likewise ... be open under uniform conditions to the aircraft of all other contracting States). These treaties do forbid discrimination against foreign carriers, but the Secretary has done nothing to single out foreign carriers for discriminatory treatment. Every foreign carrier that filed a timely complaint, such as Varig Brazilian Airlines, received the same treatment as its domestic counterparts, while every untimely complaint, such as that of the domestic carrier [322 U.S.App.D.C. 333] Tower Air, was dismissed without regard to the national origin of the complaining airline. 75 Finally, the Follow-on Complainants maintain for the first time on appeal that the Secretary should have enforced the terms of the standstill agreement entered into between the airport and some of the airlines. That argument, however, is not properly before the Court because it was not raised before either the ALJ or the Secretary. See § 113(c)(6) (No objection ... shall be considered by the court unless [the] objection was urged before an administrative law judge or the Secretary).