Court Opinion

ID: 9486964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:05:00.699322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:01.994917
License: Public Domain

BUCKLEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority finds that the district court abused its discretion in failing “to have dismissed the case ... in favor of the administrative process,” Majority Op. (“Maj. op.”) at 135, because the District had adopted the necessary administrative procedures “only eleven months into the pretrial period and a full year before trial commenced.” Id. The majority fails to note the amount of time that had elapsed since the vendors first tried to avail themselves of those procedures.
The vendors filed their grievance with the District of Columbia Rehabilitation Services Administration (“DCRSA”) on October 23, 1985. Twenty-two months later, they sought an indefinite continuance because of the District of Columbia Superior Court’s decision that the DCRSA could not provide effective relief due to its failure to properly adopt procedures to govern Randolph-Sheppard hearings. See Schlank v. Williams, Civ. No. 1164-85 (D.C.Sup.Ct.1987). At that point, the vendors concluded they would have to try the next level of the grievance process established by Congress. Therefore, on August 31,1987, they asked the Department of Education’s Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration (“RSA”) for a legal opinion as to whether they could file a request for arbitration with the Secretary of Education. Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Civ. No. 88-0142, Appendix I.
Over four months later, on January 19, 1988, the Acting Commissioner of the RSA responded:
[A] hearing at the State level is necessary before a complaint can be accepted for arbitration. We believe that the District of Columbia Superior Court decision [in Schlank ] correctly concludes that Federal arbitration is not available to the vendors under the unique circumstances presented in the District. The Department has no choice but to follow the dispute resolution scheme established by Congress and decline to entertain direct arbitration requests from District vendors until local hearing procedures have been duly promulgated.
Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Civ. No. 88-0142, Appendix J. Their attempts to follow the congressional scheme thus stymied by the District’s inaction, the vendors filed this lawsuit in the district court on January 21, 1988.
The District promptly moved to dismiss the complaint, citing plaintiffs’ failure to exhaust their nonexistent administrative remedies. On September 28, 1988, the district court denied the motion, invoking the futility exception to the exhaustion doctrine. Committee of Blind Vendors v. Dist. of Columbia, 695 F.Supp. 1234, 1241 (D.D.C.1988). The court noted that the District had published proposed regulations in the D.C. Register on August 19, 1988,-and that the DCRSA “esti-mat[ed] that final regulations will be issued on approximately October 14, 1988.” Id. at 1239 n. 3. Nonetheless, the court stated that it would
not require the plaintiffs to further delay resolution of their claims while defendants promulgate rules that should have been promulgated in 1974, were improperly established in 1982, and were found to be inadequate more than a year ago.

Id.

On December 18,1989, the first day of the trial, the District notified the court that the regulations had been promulgated on December 9, 1988, and again moved for dismissal. Transcript of Oral Argument at 9. Exercising its discretion, the court decided to proceed with the trial. Today, four years and two months after the district court ruled in favor of the vendors — and nine years and eight months after they first filed their grievance with the DCRSA — this court concludes that the district court abused its discretion in so deciding. As a consequence, the vendors must once again seek recourse through the administrative process, with no assurance that that will be the end of the matter.
Under the circumstances, I cannot find that the district court abused its discretion in deciding that the District had dragged its feet too long and that the vendors were *137entitled to a resolution of their grievance. To be sure, exhaustion of administrative remedies serves important purposes: It allows administrative agencies to exercise their discretion and expertise, it enables them to correct their own errors without judicial intervention, and it promotes judicial economy. McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 194-95, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 1663, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969); see also Randolph-Sheppard Vendors of America v. Weinberger, 795 F.2d 90 (D.C.Cir.1986). I agree that Congress expected the agency’s expertise to be invoked before this kind of a grievance would reach a court, Weinberger, 795 F.2d at 101-04; but it surely assumed that it would take the agency less than fourteen years to adopt the necessary procedures.
The majority believes that the subsequent promulgation of the procedures revived the vendors’ obligation to pursue their administrative remedies. Maj. op. at 134. The district court’s decision to proceed with the trial, however, will not subvert the policies undergirding the exhaustion rule. Those policies surely assume that the administrative procedures are in place, and they surely allow a court to consider the requirements of fairness to litigants who have been frustrated in their attempts to play by the rules. Because I feel the district court did not abuse its discretion in proceeding to trial, I dissent.