Court Opinion

ID: 9470228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:00:02.567648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:47.682091
License: Public Domain

SCALIA, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join Part II C of the Court’s opinion, which affirms dismissal of Community Nutrition Institute for lack of standing. I concur in the result of Part III, affirming the dismissal of Oberweis, but would rest dismissal upon the ground assigned by the district court: the failure to exhaust administrative remedies. I dissent from the Court’s action in reversing the district court’s dismissal of the individual consumers, who in my view were correctly found to lack standing.
*1256The Individual Consumers
This suit challenging federal agency action invokes the “generous review provisions”1 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706 (1976), which have “greatly expanded the availability of judicial review,” 2 conferring standing where preexisting “prudential limitations” would exclude it.3 The zone of interest test was originally formulated to describe the application of these statutory provisions.4 Although it has subsequently been used in non-APA cases, to describe one of the prudential limitations upon standing in general,5 its application in that context is not likely the same. The Supreme Court’s most recent recitation of the “arguably within the zone of interests” formula in a non-APA case omits the word “arguably.”6
In a suit such as this, however, seeking review of action by a federal agency, the original formulation in all its liberality applies. When interpreting its meaning, one must bear in mind that the test represents not an independent judicial prescription, but a judicial attempt to ascertain legislative intent. It is supposed to indicate when Congress intended to make a particular litigant “a proper party to request an adjudication of a particular issue.”7 In the context of suits challenging agency action it is meant to determine whether Congress intended the plaintiff to serve as a “private attorney general,”8 “to bring to the attention of the appellate court errors of law” by the Executive branch.9
The test becomes a progressively weaker indication of such intent as the breadth of the zone of interests within which the plaintiff claims his interests lies is increased. Thus, in Data Processing, supra note 4, it was eminently reasonable to conclude that Congress intended a proscription against the Comptroller General’s allowance of competition to be enforceable in the courts by one of the injured competitors. It would be less reasonable, however, to conclude that a legislative directive to the Comptroller General to audit all banking institutions displays a congressional intent to permit suit by all bank depositors. The reason for the difference is the same as the reason underlying the “generalized grievance” thread of judicially imposed limitations upon standing10: Governmental mischief whose effects are widely distributed is more readily remedied through the political process, and does not call into play the distinctive function of the courts as guardians against oppression of the few by the many. Thus, for such matters it is less likely that Congress intended the creation of private attorneys general to supplement, through the courts, the President’s primary responsi*1257bility to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” U.S. Const, art. II, § 3.
Even so, where the statute in question seeks to protect nothing but generalized interests, a “hospitable” interpretation of the APA may justify placing that entire class within its expanded prescription of standing. That was the case, for example, with the National Environmental Policy Act, which was directed not to the protection of any narrow group or class, but to the preservation of the environment for the benefit of the entire country. The Supreme Court found that anyone who used the natural resources assertedly affected by disregard of the Act had standing to sue.11 It is quite another matter, however, when a statutory provision benefits generalized interests through the protection of more particularized interests to which it is immediately directed. Almost any statute has generalized indirect benefits; ultimate improvement of the society at large is the whole theoretical justification for heeding the requests of “special interests.” But where there is a direct and immediate beneficiary class which can be relied upon to challenge agency disregard of the law, the claim of the indirect general beneficiaries to be congressionally designated “private attorneys general” is weak indeed. In such circumstances the whole premise of the liberalized standing provisions no longer applies:
The right of judicial review is ordinarily inferred where congressional intent to protect the interests of the class of which the plaintiff is a member can be found; in such cases, unless members of the protected class may have judicial review the statutory objectives might not be realized.12
The consumer plaintiffs in the present case are indirect general beneficiaries. The direct beneficiaries of milk marketing orders under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act (AMAA) are milk producers. Even before adoption of the APA, the courts found a congressional intent to permit them to sue.13 On the other side of the ledger, the direct beneficiaries of any limitations upon the Secretary’s authority with regard to milk marketing orders are the milk handlers who pay the artificially established prices. Congress expressly gave them standing to obtain judicial review in the AMAA itself. 7 U.S.C. § 608c(15)(B) (1976). In such a situation, where the narrow class immediately affected by both agency excess and agency omission is readily identifiable, I do not believe that a more remote beneficiary class as generalized as the one here (viz., all consumers of fluid milk products — which cannot exclude many of the nation’s households) can be found to meet the zone of interests test.
Consumer interests with regard to milk marketing orders can be consequential to either milk handlers’ interests (as in the present case) or producers’ interests. The latter would be the situation if not high prices (or, what ultimately amounts to the same, the unavailability of a ready substitute to augment fluid milk supplies at the retail level) but rather inadequacy of production were the gravamen of the complaint. In my view, consumers would have standing in neither situation, but their case is particularly weak in the former, where the primary vindicator of the generalized interest in question is specifically designated by judicial review provisions of the statute itself. It is true enough, as Stark v. Wickard, supra note 13, amply demonstrates,14 that explicit provision for review by one class of interests does not necessarily imply an absence of intent to provide review to other interests whose grievance is quite distinct. But where, as in the present case, the second grievance is entirely derivative of the first — where consumers complain that they will have to pay more be*1258cause milk handlers will have to pay more— then the statutory review provision does suggest that the more remote group was not meant to have standing to sue.
My conclusion is unaffected by the allusions to consumer interests in the general purpose section of the act, 7 U.S.C. § 602(2), (4) (1976). With regard to an interest so generalized, they seem to me to represent, if not (as the Ninth Circuit said in a case contradicting the majority’s holding here) “pious platitudes,”15 then at least no more than a recital of the ultimate purpose of the statutory scheme which has no real bearing upon who was expected to enforce it.
Appellant Oberweis
I concur in affirming the district court’s dismissal of the milk handler’s suit. I would base the affirmance, however, upon the ground used by the district court: failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Before us and the district court, Oberweis makes the same claim as the other appellants, that the milk marketing order was invalid. He does not seek to appeal denial of the 1979 petition for rulemaking, in which he joined the other appellants in alleging, among other things, invalidity of the order; but he asserts that the filing and denial of that petition satisfied the requirement that he exhaust his § 608c(15)(A) remedies — a requirement that does not apply to the other appellants. If I understand the majority opinion correctly, its dismissal of Oberweis’s complaint is based upon the proposition that when a requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies exists, appeal must be taken from the agency denial that constitutes the exhaustion, and the grievance cannot be brought to court in any other fashion. That may be correct, but I have some doubt, since it seems a most rigid application of a doctrine that is generally quite flexible — so that, for example, exhaustion is excused entirely when it would obviously be unavailing.16 I prefer, therefore, to rest my disposition of this aspect of the case upon what seems to me surer ground: that Oberweis’s petition could not in any event comply with the exhaustion requirement.
As the majority opinion notes, Oberweis is forced to admit that he “has not meticulously followed the statutory procedures for filing a ‘handler petition’.” (Maj. Op. at 1254.) That admission is an understatement. The real problem is not how Oberweis framed his demand, but what he demanded and was provided. He was entitled to ask for and receive a formal adjudicatory hearing that would produce a ruling on the legality of the challenged order. That proceeding would be conducted before an administrative law judge, and the relative merits of Oberweis's assertions and the Secretary’s position would be tested and reviewed on the basis of record evidence.17 What Oberweis sought, however, was a hearing of quite a different sort inquiring into quite a different question — an informal rulemaking proceeding to decide whether the order should be revised. There the decisionmaker would not be limited to record evidence, assertions would not be tested by cross-examination, and (evidently of some importance to those with whom Oberweis made common cause) persons other than producers and handlers would be permitted full participation. In fact, to be entirely accurate Oberweis sought even less than this — namely, merely consideration of whether such a rulemaking proceeding would be desirable. The situation is thus quite different from that in cases such as Joseph v. FCC, 404 F.2d 207 (D.C.Cir.1968), in which a belated request for public hearing was held to be the equivalent of a motion for reconsideration. There the nature of the consideration which the agency would be compelled to give the two re*1259quests was substantially identical; here it is not.
The Secretary gave Oberweis no more than the type of consideration and the scope of determination he requested — which was less than he was required to seek before applying to this court. One can hardly blame the Secretary for not treating the request as (what it clearly was not) a demand for a § 608c(15)(A) proceeding. The first sentence of the petition stated that it was filed “pursuant to” 5 U.S.C. § 553, the general rulemaking provision of the APA and 7 C.F.R. § 1.28, the provision of the agency regulations addressing the filing of petitions for rulemaking. Moreover, the petition was joined by the consumer plaintiffs who had no standing to participate in a § 608c(15)(A) proceeding. Oberweis was not misled regarding the agency’s treatment of the petition, since his attorney was advised that, insofar as claims of illegality were concerned, “§ 608c(15)(A) and (B), provides the means through which any handler ... may seek legal recourse.”18
It might be asserted, I suppose, that the agency was too generous in entertaining Oberweis’s petition; and that if it did not insist upon the exclusiveness of his § 608c(15)(A) remedy in the administrative proceedings it cannot now do so before the courts. In fact, however, the agency is not asserting that his § 608c(15)(A) remedy is exclusive — only that it must be pursued before an attack upon the marketing order itself may be taken to the courts. Nothing prohibits a handler from petitioning for a rulemaking if he wishes, but that petition may, within what has hitherto been considered the broadest discretion, be denied. What the doctrine of exhaustion requires is that in order to challenge the substance of the marketing order the handler must resort — before or after the denial of this discretionary relief — to the much more categorical claim he has upon the agency’s attention, namely his right to obtain a full-dress adjudicatory hearing resulting in a ruling on the validity of the order. No such hearing has been requested or held,19 and no such ruling has issued.20
The situation might be different if the denial of the petition for rulemaking were clear indication that the adjudicatory hearing could be of no avail. It is not. Different procedures are prescribed not for their own sake, but for the different effects which they are likely to have upon the outcome. Even if the Secretary’s action in denying Oberweis’s petition at the conclusion of the informal proceeding could properly be regarded as a determination that the marketing order is valid, it is not certain that the same determination would have been made in the formal proceeding which Oberweis should have demanded.
For the above reasons, I would affirm in all respects the decision of the district court.

. Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U.S. 48, 51, 75 S.Ct. 591, 594, 99 L.Ed. 868 (1955).

. Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U.S. 229, 232, 73 S.Ct. 603, 604, 97 L.Ed. 972 (1953).

. See Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 733, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1365, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972).

. See id. (citing Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970), and Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 90 S.Ct. 832, 25 L.Ed.2d 192 (1970)).

. See, e.g., Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 100 n. 6, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608 n. 6, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979); Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, 429 U.S. 318, 320-21 n. 3, 97 S.Ct. 599, 602-03 n. 3, 50 L.Ed.2d 514 (1977).

. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 475, 102 S.Ct. 752, 760, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

. Sierra Club v. Morton, supra note 3, 405 U.S. at 732 n. 3, 92 S.Ct. at 1364 n. 3 (quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 100, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1952, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968)).

. Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp, supra note 4, 396 U.S. at 154, 90 S.Ct. at 830.

. FCC v. Sanders Brothers Radio Station, 309 U.S. 470, 477, 60 S.Ct. 693, 698, 84 L.Ed. 869 (1940).

. See, e.g., Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 217-20, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 2930-31, 41 L.Ed.2d 706 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 176-80, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 2946-48, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974); Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633, 634, 58 S.Ct. 1, 82 L.Ed. 493 (1937).

. United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), 412 U.S. 669, 93 S.Ct. 2405, 37 L.Ed.2d 254 (1973).

. Barlow v. Collins, supra note 4, 397 U.S. at 167. 90 S.Ct. at 838.

. Stark v. Wickard, 321 U.S. 288, 64 S.Ct. 559, 88 L.Ed. 733 (1944).

. See the dissent of Frankfurter, J, 321 U.S. at 317, 64 S.Ct. at 574.

. Rasmussen v. Hardin, 461 F.2d 595, 599 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 933, 93 S.Ct. 230, 34 L.Ed.2d 188 (1972).

. See American Federation of Government Employees v. Aeree, 475 F.2d 1289 (D.C.Cir.1973); Wolff v. Selective Service Local Board, 372 F.2d 817 (2d Cir.1967).

. 7 U.S.C. § 608c(15)(A) (1976); 7 C.F.R. § 900.50-900.71 (1982). See 5 U.S.C. §§ 554, 556-557 (1976 & Supp. IV 1980).

. Letter from Sec. Bergland to Ronald L. Plesser (Aug. 11, 1980), reprinted in Jt.App. at 60.

. Indeed, not even an informal public hearing was held, though that was requested and considered. See Letter from Ronald L. Plesser (appellants’ attorney) to Sec. Bergland (July 1, 1980), reprinted in Jt.App. at 57; Letter from William T. Manley, Dep. Administrator, Marketing Program Operations, to Ellen Haas and Thomas B. Smith (CNI) (Apr. 7, 1981), reprinted in Jt.App. at 170.

. The agency’s final response denying the petition specified that “in reviewing the petition for rulemaking purposes, we have not directed our attention” to “[cjlaims that the present regulatory treatment of reconstituted milk is not in accordance with law.” Letter from William T. Manley, supra note 19, at 175.