Court Opinion

ID: 9556982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 13:03:49.858767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:50.163963
License: Public Domain

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                 SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA
                 Case No. S22C1252, S22C1259

                                                                           August 21, 2023

      The Honorable Supreme Court met pursuant to adjournment.

The following order was passed:

SMITH v. HI-TECH PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.; and vice versa.

     The Supreme Court today denied the petition for certiorari in
these cases.

      All the Justices concur.

Court of Appeals Case No. A22A0170

                                       SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA
                                                  Clerk’s Office, Atlanta

                                         I certify that the above is a true extract from the
                                  minutes of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
                                         Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto
                                  affixed the day and year last above written.

                                                                                           , Clerk
     PINSON, J., concurring in the denial of certiorari.

     I agree with the Court’s decision to deny further review in this

case. I write separately to flag some questions about the doctrine of

primary jurisdiction.

     The doctrine of primary jurisdiction allows a court to “refer” an

issue in a case to an administrative agency and either stays or dis-

misses the case while the agency resolves the issue. See WRIGHT AND

MILLER, 33 FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 8366 (2d ed.) (quot-

ing Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 268 (113 SCt 1213, 122 LE2d 604)

(1993)); ADMINISTRATIVE LAW PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 6:10

(Aug. 2022 update). The doctrine developed in the U.S. Supreme

Court, and federal courts have applied it for well over a century, see

Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426 (27

SCt 350, 51 LEd 553) (1907), in rate-setting cases, see Great North-

ern R. Co. v. Merchants’ Elevator Co., 259 U.S. 285 (42 SCt 477, 66

LEd 943) (1922); U.S. Navigation Co. v. Cunard Steamship Co., 284

U.S. 474 (52 SCt 247, 76 LEd 408) (1932); Far East Conference v.

United States, 342 U.S. 570 (72 SCt 492, 96 LEd 576) (1952); United
States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 59 (77 SCt 161, 1 LE2d

126) (1956); labor-relations cases, see San Diego Building Trades

Council, Millmen’s Union, Local 2020 v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236 (79

SCt 773, 3 LE2d 775) (1959); Brown v. Hotel & Restaurant Employ-

ees & Bartenders Intl. Union Local 54, 468 U.S. 491 (104 SCt 3179,

82 LE2d 373) (1984); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist.

Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180 (98 SCt 1745, 56 LE2d 209)

(1978); antitrust cases, see Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exch., 409

U.S. 289 (993 SCt 573, 34 LE2d 525) (1973); Chicago Mercantile

Exch. v. Deaktor, 414 U.S. 113 (94 SCt 466, 38 LE2d 344) (1973);

food and drug-labeling cases, see Weinberger v. Bentex Pharmaceu-

tiacls, Inc., 212 U.S. 645 (93 SCt 2488, 37 LE2d 235) (1973); and

more, see Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Bureau of Land

Mgmt., 425 F3d 735 (2005) (property); Tassy v. Brunswick Hosp.

Center, Inc., 296 F3d 65 (2002) (public health).

     Over time, however, the doctrine has percolated into a number

of state courts, including ours. See Georgia Power v. Cazier, 303 Ga.

820, 825 n.5 (815 SE2d 922) (2018) (collecting state cases). That is

                                  2
where my questions arise. Our Court has often warned against “un-

critically importing” holdings of federal courts into Georgia law. See,

e.g., Elliott v. State, 305 Ga. 179, 188 (824 SE2d 265) (2019); Buck-

ner-Webb v. State, 314 Ga. 823, 834 (878 SE2d 481) (2022) (Pinson,

J., concurring). Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court’s holdings inter-

preting or applying federal law are binding on state courts. But

when is applying the doctrine of primary jurisdiction a matter of in-

terpreting or applying federal law? And if the answer is “only some-

times,” is there a basis in Georgia law for applying the doctrine when

federal law isn’t involved? I offer some preliminary thoughts on

these questions below.

     1. The first thing to know is that the doctrine of primary juris-

diction “is really two doctrines.” Arsberry v. Illinois, 244 F3d 558,

563 (7th Cir. 2001) (Posner, J.). See also Diana R. H. Winters, Re-

storing the Primary Jurisdiction Doctrine, 78 OHIO ST. L.J. 541, 547

(2017) (explaining that “[p]rimary jurisdiction can be separated into

two strains”). In its “central and original form,” the doctrine applies

“when, in a suit involving a regulated firm but not brought under

                                  3
the regulatory statute itself, an issue arises that is within the exclu-

sive original jurisdiction of the regulatory agency to resolve.” Ars-

berry, 244 F3d at 563. In these “exclusive agency jurisdiction” cases,

a court refers an issue to an agency because a relevant regulatory

statute requires the agency to resolve it—generally for reasons

grounded in a need for uniformity. Id. (citing Western Pacific R. Co.,

352 U.S. at 64, 77; Cahnmann v. Sprint Corp., 133 F3d 184, 487 (7th

Cir. 1998); Advance United Expressways, Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co.,

965 F2d 1347, 1352-1353 (5th Cir. 1992); City of Peoria v. General

Electric Cablevision Corp., 690 F2d 116, 121-122 (7th Cir. 1982)).

     This form of the doctrine is not so much a “doctrine” as it is

simply a species of statutory interpretation. Abilene Cotton Oil, 204

U.S. 426, long credited as the first application of the doctrine of pri-

mary jurisdiction, see Winters at 552, is a good example. There, a

shipper of cotton seed sued a rail carrier in state court for charging

an unreasonable rate in violation of an alleged common law right.

See Abilene Cotton Oil, 204 U.S. at 430-431. The U.S. Supreme

Court held that the shipper had to raise the argument that the rate

                                   4
was unreasonable before the federal Interstate Commerce Commis-

sion, with whom the charged rate had been published and filed. In

support of that conclusion, the Court did not rely on its belief that

the ICC had the experts who were better suited to resolve that ques-

tion. Instead, it marshaled arguments from the text and context of

the Interstate Commerce Act. See id. at 436-437 (explaining that the

“fundamental question” was the “scope and effect” of the Interstate

Commerce Act, and that the case “must rest upon an interpretation

of the text of the act”). After canvassing the Act in detail, the Court

reasoned that allowing courts to adjudicate whether a rate was rea-

sonable in individual cases would give rise to the potential for con-

flicting rulings and thus non-uniform and discriminatory rates, in

direct conflict with the Act’s provisions that were meant, above all,

to ensure uniform and nondiscriminatory rates. See id. at 440-441.

And even though the Act included a savings clause for common law

remedies, that clause “[could not] in reason be construed as contin-

uing in shippers a common-law right, the continued existence of

which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the

                                  5
act.” Id. at 446. Finally, the argument that funneling questions

about the reasonableness of rates to the Commission first would be

inefficient or even “harmful” “affords no justification for so interpret-

ing the statute as to destroy it.” Id. at 447. Put simply, the shipper

had to bring its argument to the ICC because the statute, as the

Court construed it, required as much. See id. at 447-448.

     Some decisions following Abilene Cotton Oil are in accord with

this statutory-construction-based approach: in cases otherwise

properly before a lower court, the Court would hold that the court

was required to refer issues to an agency for resolution first because

the governing statutory scheme put the issues within the exclusive

jurisdiction of the agency. See Cunard Steamship Co., 284 U.S. at

485 (holding that arguments in the context of an antitrust claim

about the reasonableness of rates fell “within the exclusive prelimi-

nary jurisdiction of the Shipping Board” based on “[t]he scope and

eviden[t] purpose of the Shipping Act, as in the case of the Interstate

Commerce Act”); Garmon, 359 U.S. at 246 (holding in the context of

labor relations that “since such [union] conduct is arguably within

                                   6
the compass of s 7 or s 8 of the Act, the State’s jurisdiction is dis-

placed”).

     But since Abilene Cotton Oil, the doctrine of primary jurisdic-

tion has also developed a prudential strain. Instead of sending an

issue to an agency first because a statute contemplates it, courts of-

ten ground this referral merely in a desire for the agency’s expertise.

See Arsberry, 244 F3d at 563 (“The doctrine of primary jurisdiction

is sometimes defined quite differently, as a doctrine that allows a

court to refer an issue to an agency that knows more about the issue,

even if the agency hasn’t been given exclusive jurisdiction to resolve

it.”). See, e.g., Astiana v. Hain Celestial Grp., Inc., 783 F3d 753, 762

(9th Cir. 2015) (“The purpose of referral to the FDA was not for the

agency to adjudicate Astiana’s claims, but to provide expert advice

that would be useful to the court in considering this lawsuit.”); Am.

Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Interstate Commerce Commn., 682 F2d 487,

491 (5th Cir. 1982) (“The doctrine of primary jurisdiction . . . allows

a court when faced with an issue which calls into question an area

                                   7
of special expertise of an agency to suspend proceedings pending re-

ferral of the issue to the agency for its official position.”). For in-

stance, the U.S. Supreme Court later explained the doctrine as “a

principle, now firmly established, that in cases raising issues of fact

not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring

the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Con-

gress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over.”

Far East Conference, 342 U.S. at 494.1 The Court goes on to explain

that agencies should get the first crack at those kinds of issues be-

cause “they are better equipped than courts by specialization, by in-

sight gained through experience, and by more flexible procedure.”

Id. And in Ricci, 409 U.S. 289, the Court offered largely prudential

reasons for applying the doctrine rather than addressing whether

the relevant statutory scheme required first resort to the agency.

      1 Oddly enough, this was the Court’s description of Cunard, 284 U.S. 474,

a decision that mentions agency expertise only in passing and quite plainly (in
my view) applies the exclusive-agency-jurisdiction, statutory-construction-
based form of the doctrine. See id. (holding that arguments in the context of an
antitrust claim about the reasonableness of rates fell “within the exclusive pre-
liminary jurisdiction of the Shipping Board” based on “[t]he scope and eviden[t]
purpose of the Shipping Act, as in the case of the Interstate Commerce Act”).
                                       8
See id. at 302-304 (in antitrust case, referring issues about whether

certain conduct violated rules of commodity exchange to Commodity

Exchange Commission because answering that question was neces-

sary for resolving the underlying antitrust suit, “some facets of the

dispute . . . are within the statutory jurisdiction of the Commodity

Exchange Commission,” and “adjudication of that dispute by the

Commission promises to be of material aid in resolving the immun-

ity question” that was part of the antitrust case). Over time, lower

federal courts have incorporated this and similar agency-expertise-

focused language into a variety of multi-factor balancing tests for

applying the doctrine. See Winters at 568 (collecting circuit tests).

     2. Teasing out these two different forms the doctrine of primary

jurisdiction may help answer the questions about whether and to

what extent the doctrine is a part of Georgia law.

     Start with the first, core form of the doctrine. As I mentioned

above, the core doctrine requires courts to send to agencies issues

that the governing statutes contemplate the agencies must first re-

solve. Put simply, this is just statutory interpretation. And of course,

                                   9
Georgia courts too interpret statutes as needed to resolve cases. So

if a litigant argues in a given case before our courts that a statutory

scheme—federal or state—requires referral to an agency to resolve

some issue material to the litigation at hand, Georgia courts will

necessarily “apply the doctrine of primary jurisdiction,” i.e., inter-

pret the statute, to see whether that’s so. If the statute in question

is federal and the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted it, Georgia

courts are bound by the Court’s holdings with respect to that statute,

including any conclusions about whether particular issues are

within the “exclusive primary jurisdiction” of the agency in question.

If the relevant statute is a state law, Georgia courts will do their

own interpretive work to determine whether the statute requires an

agency to resolve any particular issues in the suit. In short, there

can be little doubt that the core form of the doctrine of primary ju-

risdiction, being merely an exercise in statutory interpretation, is

equally applicable in federal and Georgia courts.

                                  10
     The prudential form of the doctrine seems to me a different

beast. The decisions in this camp do not purport to ground the refer-

ral of issues to agencies in the relevant statutory scheme, but rather

in the desire to draw on an agency’s special expertise to decide com-

plex technical issues that judges may know little about. See, e.g.,

Weinberger, 412 U.S. at 654 (approving referral to the FDA for the

determination whether a drug was “safe and effective” within the

meaning of a statute because that question “necessarily implicates

complex chemical and pharmacological considerations,” and

“[t]hreshold questions within the peculiar expertise of an adminis-

trative agency are appropriately routed to the agency, while the

court stays its hand”); Far East Conference, 342 U.S. at 573-575. Nor

does that basis for seeking the agency’s advice on such issues appear

to be rooted in positive law, like a statute or a constitution. Rather,

it seems to be a reflection of the Court’s judgment that federal courts

have the power and discretion to “accommodat[e] the complemen-

tary roles of courts and administrative agencies in the enforcement

of law” when they have concurrent jurisdiction over an issue, Far

                                  11
East Conference, 342 U.S. at 574. See also id. (calling the creation of

the doctrine “one of those creative judicial labors whereby modern

administrative law is being developed as part of our traditional sys-

tem of law”). Indeed, the Court has said before that the doctrine al-

lows courts to “allocat[e] the law-making power over certain aspect

of commercial relations” between courts and agencies. Western Pa-

cific R. Co., 352 U.S. at 65 (citing Louis L. Jaffe, Primary Jurisdic-

tion Reconsidered. The Anti-Trust Laws, 102 UNIV. PA. L. REV. 577,

583-584 (1954)).

     If that’s right—if this prudential, discretionary aspect of the

doctrine is built on a judgment about the power and discretion of

federal courts to allocate decision-making in certain kinds of cases

between courts and federal agencies—then the extent to which this

form of the doctrine is necessarily or properly a part of Georgia law

is far less clear. It seems to me that the question whether the courts

of our State have this kind of broad power to allocate or sequence

decision-making between agencies and courts has to be answered by

reference to Georgia law, not federal law. And outside of a state law

                                  12
that requires our courts to play that role in a specific context, it is

not readily apparent to me where in our law such a power would

come from. But in any event, this judgment about whether our law

gives Georgia courts that kind of authority is one that would require

careful deliberation. Cf. Buckner-Webb, 314 Ga. at 836-837 (Pinson,

J., concurring) (questioning Georgia courts’ adoption of the federal

collateral order doctrine and explaining that “[i]t is an especially

troubling kind of error to arrogate to ourselves as appellate courts

the authority to bend the limits of our own power to review cases”

(citing Duke v. State, 306 Ga. 171, 182, 186-187 (829 SE2d 348)

(2019) (acknowledging “core separation of powers principle” that

prevents courts from claiming authority to allow appeals outside of

statutory scheme); Gable v. State, 290 Ga. 81, 85 (720 SE2d 170)

(2011) (explaining that “courts have no authority to create equitable

exceptions to jurisdictional requirements imposed by statute” (cita-

tion and punctuation omitted)); Cook v. State, 313 Ga. 471, 479 (870

SE2d 758) (2022) (overruling “judicially creat[ed]” trial court out-of-

time appeal procedure)).

                                  13
      (c) This prompts the question: what have our courts done with

the doctrine of primary jurisdiction? Our Court and the Court of Ap-

peals have addressed or applied the doctrine in only a few decisions. 2

By and large, those decisions have applied the first, core form of the

doctrine. In a handful, we simply applied Abilene Cotton Oil, the

seminal exclusive-jurisdiction decision. We applied that decision in

      2 On occasion our courts have used the terms “primary jurisdiction” or

“exclusive jurisdiction” in addressing arguments that seem to be about admin-
istrative exhaustion. See, e.g., Hunnicutt v. Ga. Power Co., 168 Ga. App. 525
(309 SE2d 862) (1983); Bailey v. Wilkes, 162 Ga. App. 410 (291 SE2d 418)
(1982). These doctrines are related but distinct. A conclusion that “exhaustion”
is required means that the litigant must bring the claim in the first instance
to the agency, usually because the litigant is challenging some agency action.
See, e.g., Shelley v. Town of Tyrone, 302 Ga. 297, 303 (806 SE2d 535) (2017)
(requiring land owners to “exhaust[] the administrative remedies provided by
law” before raising a zoning claim in court); Ga. Dept. of Community Health v.
Ga. Society of Ambulatory Surgery Ctrs., 290 Ga. 628, 629 (724 SE2d 386)
(2012) (“This Court has consistently held that as long as there is an effective
and available administrative remedy, a party is required to pursue that rem-
edy before seeking equitable relief in superior court” under the Georgia Admin-
istrative Procedure Act. (citation and punctuation omitted)). The doctrine of
primary jurisdiction applies where a case is “originally cognizable” in the
courts, but an issue in the case must (or in the doctrine’s prudential form,
should) go to the agency first for resolution. See Western Pacific R. Co., 352
U.S. at 63-64. See also Arsberry, 244 F3d at 564 (“In [prudential primary-ju-
risdiction] cases, either court and agency have concurrent jurisdiction to decide
an issue, or only the court has the power to decide it, and seeks merely the
agency’s advice. (In the core of the doctrine, in contrast, the court has jurisdic-
tion of the case, but the agency of the issue.)”).
                                        14
affirming a referral to the ICC in Belk-Mathews Co. v. Great South-

ern Trucking Co., 218 Ga. 610 (129 SE2d 765) (1963), and we distin-

guished Abilene Cotton Oil in other decisions after concluding that

no issue within the ICC’s primary jurisdiction was present, see W.

& A.R. Co. v. White Provision Co., 142 Ga. 246 (82 SE 644) (1914);

Beck & Gregg Hardware Co. v. Cook, 210 Ga. 608 (82 SE2d 4) (1954).

The Court of Appeals also appears to have applied Abilene Cotton

Oil’s version of the doctrine. See Delta Traffic Serv., Inc. v. Snider,

197 Ga. App. 377 (398 SE2d 430) (1990). And in Central Georgia

Railway Co. v. Culpepper, 209 Ga. 844 (76 SE2d 482) (1953), we ad-

dressed whether the National Railroad Adjustment Board had “ex-

clusive primary jurisdiction” over a dispute between a carrier and

its employees by reviewing U.S. Supreme Court precedent interpret-

ing the National Railway Labor Act. See id. (declining to apply the

doctrine based on the conclusion that the Board lacked exclusive pri-

mary jurisdiction over the question). In each of these cases, our

courts applied the doctrine by asking whether the relevant statutory

scheme required referral of an issue to the agency. As I noted above,

                                  15
that strikes me as an appropriate exercise in statutory interpreta-

tion well grounded in Georgia law.

     But then there is Cazier, 303 Ga. 820. Cazier involved a class

action against Georgia Power that alleged that the power company

had been collecting municipal franchise fees from customers in

amounts greater than the rates set by the Public Service Commis-

sion. In granting certiorari review, this Court asked the parties to

address questions about whether the plaintiffs were required to ex-

haust their administrative remedies before bringing the suit. The

Court ultimately held that exhaustion was not required because the

plaintiffs were not seeking relief from any order of the Commission,

and the case wasn’t “one in which the merits are committed by law

to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commission.” Id. at 823-824.

     After that holding, however, the Court invoked the doctrine of

primary jurisdiction. Noting the possibility that the trial court could

“misconstrue the applicable orders of the Commission,” which would

create a conflict with the Commission’s policy determinations, the

Court offered the doctrine of primary jurisdiction as a “mechanism”

                                  16
that could prevent the further litigation of the case from “undercut-

ting the rate structure approved by the Commission.” Id. at 824. Cit-

ing federal Court of Appeals decisions, the Court described this doc-

trine as a “prudential” and “discretionary” doctrine that would allow

the trial court to “permit the Commission to construe its own or-

ders.” Id. at 824. The Court then explained the doctrine’s operation:

when “an agency order is at issue in a judicially cognizable dispute,

the trial court properly may refer especially difficult or technical is-

sues within the specialized competence of an administrative agency

to the agency itself,” as long as “the disputed words ‘are used in a

peculiar or technical sense, and where extrinsic evidence is neces-

sary to determine their meaning or proper application, so that the

inquiry is essentially one of fact and of discretion in technical mat-

ters.’” Id. at 826 (quoting Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. at 65-66).

And the Court directed the trial court to consider on remand

whether the questions of construction at issue were sufficiently tech-

nical that it should refer them to the Commission under the doctrine

of primary jurisdiction. See id. at 826.

                                  17
      This passage in Cazier sounds very much like the prudential

strain of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction that federal courts have

applied for some time. 3 And the Court appears to have imported (or

at least approved of) that form of the doctrine without identifying

where in Georgia law our courts get the broad power to allocate de-

cision-making authority between courts and agencies in this way.

Instead, the Court simply “note[d] that, although the doctrine of pri-

mary jurisdiction developed principally in the federal courts, it has

been recognized by the courts of last resort in a number of our sister

states.” Cazier, 303 Ga. at 825 n.5 (collecting cases). This passing

footnote reference to the use of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction

in federal courts and courts in other states is not, in my view, a

proper or sufficient basis for recognizing this new aspect of the doc-

trine as a part of Georgia law for the first time. This is not to say

      3 Certainly the Court’s language in Cazier lines up with the prudential

form of the doctrine. That said, there might have been an argument for apply-
ing the core form of the doctrine in that case given the Court’s concern that
getting the answer to the questions of construction wrong could “undercut[] the
rate structure approved by the Commission.” Id. at 826. See Abilene Cotton Oil,
204 U.S. at 440-441 (relying on the potential for conflicting rulings in conclud-
ing that the Interstate Commerce Act required courts to refer questions bear-
ing on the reasonableness of rates to the ICC).
                                       18
that the prudential form of the doctrine is not properly a part of

Georgia law—only that we should take a closer look in an appropri-

ate case to consider that question.

                                  *

     The parties in this case have not presented these questions

about the extent to which the doctrine of primary jurisdiction is

properly a part of Georgia law. Moreover, the unusual posture of this

case—a challenge under D.C. law, in Georgia courts, dealing with

issues related to the jurisdiction of a federal agency—could compli-

cate any inquiry into the scope of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction

in our courts. But review of these questions may well be warranted

in an appropriate case.

     I am authorized to state that Justice Warren and Justice

McMillian join in this concurrence.

                                  19