Court Opinion

ID: 9481515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:40.137544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:22.530557
License: Public Domain

D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I write separately because my analysis of the standing issue is different from that put forward by the court. I agree, however, that the AIRA was not properly before the district court, and for that reason I decline to join the court’s obiter dicta regarding the merits.
I. Standing
My analysis of the standing issue differs from the court’s in three respects. First, I believe that in the circumstances of this case an AIRA member need not demonstrate that but for the agency’s unlawful conduct, she would be qualified for the position she seeks; the DOI has failed to promulgate separate Indian preference criteria, with the result that there are no standards against which a potential applicant can measure her qualifications. Al*60though a plaintiff whose qualifications are so meager that she could not meet any rational standard for a particular position might not have standing, at least four of the affiants here are not so clearly unqualified.
Second, I believe that, where it would be useless to do so, a potential employee need not submit an application in order to have standing to challenge an agency’s employment policy in court. The court does not hold to the contrary, but it does find that the “AIRA never offered any evidence relating to the asserted ‘futility’ of applying at OCM.” Ct.op. at 57. Since at least one affiant appears to assert without contradiction from the DOI that, absent Indian preference, it would have been futile to apply for the position she wanted, the court is mistaken in resolving the standing issue against her on this ground.
Third, I conclude that none of the affi-ants was eligible to bring suit against the DOI, because none had given the DOI notice (either individually or through the AIRA as her representative) (1) of her desire to apply for a particular position and (2) of her belief that, but for the agency’s improper failure to give an Indian preference, she would qualify for that position.
A. Eligibility under Indian Preference Criteria
The court concludes that four affiants do not have standing because they do not claim that they would have been eligible for employment even if the DOI had given Indians preference. See Ct.op. at 56 (stating that two affiants — Delphi Montoya and Fern B. Reyna — “never provided any of their own credentials or indicated whether they were otherwise qualified”); Ct.op. at 56 (stating that another affiant — Patricia Dyer — “gave no indication of whether she would have met any qualifications” for a particular position); Ct.op. at 55 (approving the district court’s finding that Perry Patron did “not suggest that he was qualified”); and Ct.op. at 56 (“affiants must state that they were, in fact, qualified for the OCM positions”).
As the Ninth Circuit recognized in a similar action, however, the DOI’s failure to promulgate Indian preference criteria for a position makes it impossible to determine whether a putative applicant would have been eligible if the agency had done so. A plaintiff cannot reasonably be required, in order to secure her standing, to demonstrate her eligibility pursuant to non-existent criteria. Preston v. Heckler, 734 F.2d 1359, 1365-66 (9th Cir.1984).
The failure to promulgate any criteria at all clearly distinguishes this case from DKT Memorial Fund, Ltd. v. Agency for International Development, 810 F.2d 1236 (D.C.Cir.1987). Where, as in that case, a plaintiff challenges the one criterion that it claims disqualifies it from receiving a benefit, it makes sense to ask whether the plaintiff is “otherwise qualified” to receive that benefit. See 810 F.2d at 1238-39. Where there are no other criteria against which a plaintiff may be measured, however, that question cannot be answered.
Even without the benefit of any specific criteria, the court might be able to determine that a particular plaintiff is so “wholly unqualified by any rational standards” that it simply cannot view the agency’s refusal to give an Indian preference as the cause of her failure to receive a position. See Preston, 734 F.2d at 1366. Consider, for example, an Indian who wants a position as a surgeon but lacks any medical training; even if the agency were to give Indians preference, it is obvious that our aspirant would not get the job. The Preston court left open the question whether a plaintiff with such meager qualifications would have standing, but cautioned that recognition of even this narrow exception
would require the court to construct job qualification requirements.... This is a far different task than evaluating job qualification requirements that have been adopted by the Secretary. It is a task that courts are not particularly well suited to, and ordinarily will decline to perform.
Id. at 1366 & n. 7.
The court here appears to state a similar, “no realistic possibility” standard in determining the affiants’ standing, see Ct.op. at 56, but in application the test seems to *61be more demanding. For example, according to her affidavit, Delphi Montoya is a “contract specialist” who would have applied for another position as “contract specialist” had Indian preference been in place. Of course, the DOI might promulgate different criteria for different “contract specialist” positions, but it is unclear upon what basis the court concludes that Montoya would have had “no realistic possibility” of obtaining the desired job. The same could be said regarding the court’s treatment of Patricia Dyer, a “GS-11 Contract Specialist,” who wanted a job “at the GS-12/13 level.” Cf. Preston, 734 F.2d at 1366 (concluding that plaintiff employed as a GS-04 medical records technician who applied for a GS-11/12 social worker position, see Preston v. Schweiker, 555 F.Supp. 886, 888 (D. Alaska 1983), had standing to challenge the DOI’s failure to apply Indian preference).
Although it is the plaintiffs burden to allege the facts that support its standing, United Presbyterian Church in the USA v. Reagan, 738 F.2d 1375, 1383 (D.C.Cir.1984), at least these two affiants (in addition to those whose affidavits the court accepts as sufficient) seem to have alleged sufficient facts to establish the mere possibility that they would have received one of the jobs in question had there been an Indian preference in hiring. Indeed, the DOI did not argue in its briefs in this court that any affiant lacks standing for this reason.
B. Futility of Applying
The DOI does argue that each affiant lacks standing because she neither (1) applied for a position, nor (2) showed that applying would surely have resulted in her rejection. The relevance of these omissions can be assessed, however, only after clarifying the nature of the injury that the plaintiff asserts.
The AIRA might be asserting either of two “injuries”:
(1) the DOI’s failure to apply Indian preference to the OCM positions; or
(2) an AIRA member’s inability to get a particular job.
There are indications throughout the AIRA’s briefs that its claim to standing is based upon an “injury” of the first type. E.g., AIRA Br. at 39-40 (§ 472 “provides a whole package of rights, and the harm caused by their denial begins at the point when the agency establishes the qualifications for the position offered.”); R.Br. at 17-18 (“whether or not any members of AIRA could have been hired in a hypothetical sense is irrelevant to the issues in this case, i.e. whether Indian preference should apply, and whether OCM positions should therefore be advertised and processed under [Indian preference].”). While the court’s discussion of the necessity of either applying or showing futility suggests that it views the asserted injury as the affiants’ inability to get jobs, it too confuses the issue when it describes the injury as the “OCM’s refusal to utilize the Indian hiring preference.” Ct.op. at 53; see also Ct.op. at 55 (injury is the “DOFs failure to apply the Indian hiring preference to OCM”).
An “injury” of the first type — manifested, for example, as an Indian’s concern that the Executive Branch is refusing to implement congressional policy that Indians should when possible govern Indian affairs — would exist even if the same person would have been selected for a job regardless of whether Indians were accorded a preference. Thus, a plaintiff would not need to show that her application had been rejected, and a non-applicant would not need to show that it would have been futile for her to have applied. For that matter, even a successful applicant could sue! Clearly, however, such an “injury” is too abstract to be cognizable in court. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 754-55, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3326, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984).
Failure to receive a job, on the other hand, is a concrete, not an abstract injury and is cognizable in court. A plaintiff could demonstrate that injury by showing that she had applied for a position and been rejected when the agency failed to accord her an Indian preference. A plaintiff normally must apply and be rejected to have standing, but that requirement can be waived where application would clearly be futile. In DKT Memorial Fund, this court *62recognized that a non-applicant has standing to challenge a “disqualifying statute or regulation.” 810 F.2d at 1238. A non-applicant would also have standing, I should think, to challenge as unlawful a policy, such as the DOI’s failure to promulgate Indian preference criteria, that has the effect of disqualifying her and rendering her application pointless.
As the court points out, the district court used such a futility theory to find standing despite the affiants’ failure to apply. And the affidavit of Frances Hayes appears to allege facts supporting that theory:
I would have applied for the Education & Facilities Program Coordinator, GM-301-14 (Announcement No. 88-128(b)), opening August 15, 1988 and closing date September 6, 1988 if the position had been advertised as a GM-301-13/14 under Indian preference. I don’t have any time-in-grade as a GS-13, so I cannot qualify for a GS-14 position.
Because one member of the AIRA appears to assert that she was not eligible for the position she wanted without the Indian preference, but “would have applied” if the preference had been available, the AIRA’s lack of standing cannot be based upon the affiant’s failure to apply.
C. Failure to Notify the DOI of Injury to any Individual
Although Hayes’ standing is not defeated by her failure to fill out an application for employment, she still should not be heard to complain in district court about the DOI’s failure to accord an Indian preference; neither she nor the AIRA gave the DOI notice, prior to instituting suit, of her desire to apply for a particular position and of her claim that, in the absence of Indian preference, she would not qualify. The AIRA did, without referring to any potential applicant, register a “formal protest” with the director of the OCM. Its letter of protest set out legal arguments to the effect that the DOI is required to apply Indian preference to the OCM, and threatened that “if any effort is made by OCM to fill any position with a non-Indian until this grievance and protest is resolved, it will be necessary for me to seek a federal court order enjoining OCM from taking such action.” It failed to state that any individual member of the AIRA (named or even unnamed) sought or was being foreclosed from a job opportunity by reason of the DOI’s failure to apply Indian preference. So far as appears from that letter, therefore, the AIRA was simply taking the opportunity, as an organization dedicated to the advocacy of Indian interests, to assert a position that could benefit one or more Indians.
In sum, I believe that the filing of an application by Hayes was neither necessary nor — assuming that an application would not by itself provide notice of her objection — sufficient to establish her right to sue. Notice that an adversely affected person objects to the agency’s policy is the important thing, not the form in which it comes. The policies supporting the congeries of related doctrines that limit judicial power to the resolution of actual disputes requires no less. For example, a plaintiff who fails to give an agency notice that application of a particular employment policy would harm her arguably has no injury, since if she had given such notice, the agency might not have applied the policy to her. Although the court errs in concluding that it would not have been futile for Hayes to apply, it is arguably correct in determining that Hayes has no injury, because requesting that the DOI apply Indian preference criteria to her might not have been futile. That this analysis would tend to fold all exhaustion arguments into standing arguments shows only that these doctrines are based upon a common understanding that litigation is a last resort for parties that have not been able to resolve their differences by means less expensive to society. Litigation tends to polarize the positions of the parties. While that may be advantageous to ideological advocacy groups in some cases, neither the courts nor society at large can count such magnification of disputes as anything but a misfortune.
A dismissal based on the lack of prior notice to the DOI might also be characterized as a dismissal based on want of equity. *63See American Jewish Congress v. Vance, 575 F.2d 939, 947-48 (D.C.Cir.1978) (McGowan, concurring separately); Reuss v. Balles, 584 F.2d 461, 465 n. 14 (D.C.Cir.1978) (“[I]f the court believes that the plaintiff has standing ..., it may, nonetheless, because of the unusual circumstances of the case, dismiss for want of equity. American Jewish Congress v. Vance (McGowan, J., concurring separately).”)
Whether we characterize this case as one in which the plaintiff lacks standing, or one in which it failed to exhaust its administrative remedies, or one in which there is a want of equity, the result and the rationale for it are the same. “The power to declare the rights of individuals and to measure the authority of governments ... ‘is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy.’ ” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 471, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (citation omitted). In calling upon the district court to issue an injunction before it had given the DOI notice that any individual was aggrieved by the agency’s failure to apply Indian preference, and an opportunity to redress that grievance, the plaintiff here has improperly treated the district court as its first, not its last, resort.
II. The Merits
As the court points out, standing and other doctrines of justiciability are “founded in concern about the proper — and properly limited — role of the courts in a democratic society.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2205, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). It is more than a little surprising, therefore, that the court, having held that the plaintiff lacks standing, nevertheless goes on to provide an extended discussion of the merits — culminating in advice to the DOI to engage in rulemaking — in a case not before us. For my part, I decline to express any view upon the merits of an issue that the plaintiff has no right to raise and the court, accordingly, no reason to resolve.