Court Opinion

ID: 9426696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:40.969343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:02.447871
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that Sanders cannot seek judicial review of the Secretary’s refusal to reopen a final decision *110denying social security benefits. I arrive at that conclusion, however, by a somewhat shorter route.
Section 205 (h) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 405 (h), states in full:
“The findings and decisions of the Secretary after a hearing shall be binding upon all individuals who were parties to such hearing. No findings of fact or decision of the Secretary shall be reviewed by any person, tribunal, or governmental agency except as herein provided. No action against the United States, the Secretary, or any officer or employee thereof shall be brought under [§ 1331 et seq.] of Title 28 to recover on any claim arising under this subchapter.”
It is clear that the determination not to reopen the prior decision denying benefits to Sanders was a “findin[g] of fact or decision of the Secretary.” The conclusion is thus inescapable, as I see it, that the administrative decision before us is not to “be reviewed by any person, tribunal, or governmental agency except as herein provided”—that is, except as the Social Security Act itself, specifically in § 205 (g), 42 U. S. C. § 405 (g), authorizes review. Although the apparent literal meaning of statutory language is not an unfailing guide to the meaning of a congressional enactment, I can see no reason in this case why the second sentence of § 205 (h) should not be read to mean exactly what it says—that the decision before us is reviewable under § 205 (g) or not at all.
The Court's decision in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, supports this reading of § 205 (h). Salfi held that the first two sentences of § 205 (h) “prevent review of decisions of the Secretary save as provided in the Act, which provision is made in § [2]05 (g).” 422 U. S., at 757. Although Salfi was principally concerned with an assertion of jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331, the plaintiffs there, like Sanders, also relied upon § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§ 701-706. See Brief for Appellants 17 n. 13, Brief for Ap*111pellees 42, and App. 7, in Weinberger v. Salfi, O. T. 1974, No. 74—214. Yet the Court ruled that, as to those plaintiffs who could not seek review under § 205 (g), the District Court should have dismissed the complaint because “[o]ther sources of jurisdiction [were] foreclosed by § [2] 05 (h).” 422 U. S., at 764.*
Thus, I see no reason at all in this case to consider whether § 10 of the APA in general confers subject-matter jurisdiction upon the district courts to review federal administrative action. For even if it does, § 205 (h) specifically and unequivocally limits Sanders and others in his position to whatever jurisdiction is provided under § 205 (g). And as the Court today explains, ante, at 107-109, there is clearly no jurisdiction under the latter provision to review the Secretary’s refusal to reopen the decision denying benefits to Sanders.
Accordingly, I concur in the judgment.

The Salfi Court’s treatment of the first two sentences of § 205 (h) as requiring the exhaustion of administrative remedies, 422 U. S., at 757, is in no way inconsistent with a reading of the second sentence of § 205 (h) as precluding review outside of § 205 (g). That sentence simply requires that all review take place within the confines of the procedural scheme established by § 205 (g). Section 205 (h) thus bars attempts to circumvent those procedures, whether by seeking review under § 205 (g) without having fulfilled the exhaustion requirement, or by seeking review under some other jurisdictional grant that does not prescribe the administrative steps that must first be taken.