Administrative Law Outline
INTRODUCTION
Overview of the Work and Place of Administrative Agencies in Our System of Government
i. Admin Law: commissions, zoning boards, etc…
ii. Two types of power exercises:
1. Promulgate rules and regulations
2. Adjudicate disputes
iii. What agencies do is defined by statute. The organic act is the law that created the agency.
iv. Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati and Pacific Railway: RRs had set their own fare terms. There were great abuses in RR management and transportation. How did Congress decide it should be handled? The question debated is whether Congress vested in the commission the power and duty to fix rates, and the fact that this is a debatable question is very persuasive that it did not. The power is not expressly given. The argument that no other tribunal has been provided the power to determine what just and reasonable rates are does not mean that Congress intended the ICC to have this power.
v. Pennsylvania v. West Virginia: Brandeis dissent: in order for the Court to invalidate a WV statute that restricted the ability of pipeline communities to sell natural gas produced in the state to consumers out of state, it would have to determine the demand that each state asked for, pursue this aim continuously, and make judgments that are better left to experts. The Court cannot make these determinations; thus, it should leave them to others. Call to set up agencies.
vi. NBC v. U.S.: Reviewed the legality of chain broadcasting regulations adopted by the FCC. They governed the treatment to be accorded agreements with national networks in the licensing of broadcast situations. Hundreds of stations, need regulations. There had existed chaos and confusion. The general purpose of the act is to make available to all the people of the U.S. a rapid, efficient, nationwide and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.” While the Act does not explicitly say that the Commission shall have power to deal with network practices found inimical to the public interest, Congress was acting in a new field of regulation. Generalities unrelated to the living problems of radio communication cannot justify exercises of power by the Commission. However, Congress did leave it broad. Thus, the Communications Act authorized he FCC to promulgate regulations designed to correct the abuses disclosed by its investigation of chain broadcasting.
vii. U.S. v. Southwestern Cable Co.: People tried to say that Communications Act does not permit regulation of CATV systems. Ct: the section applies to all interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio. We may not, in the absence of compelling evidence that such was Congress’ intention, prohibit administrative action imperative for the achievement of an agency’s ultimate purposes. Therefore, CATV can be regulated.
viii. FDA v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco: FACTS: FDA asserted that it had jurisdiction to regulate tobacco products because nicotine is a drug and cigarettes are drug delivery devices. COURT: Applying Chevron I, The FDA had no authority to regulate tobacco. The FDA is required to ban unsafe drugs but tobacco products can never be safe. If nicotine were a drug, the FDA would be required to ban it. Congress did not contemplate that tobacco products would be banned entirely, given numerous statutes (such as cigarette labeling laws) that contemplate the sale of tobacco products. It is simply unimaginable that Congress had explicitly delegated to the FDA such an extraordinary power.
Adjudication and Rulemaking
i. Adjudication
1. Londoner: But where the legislature of a state, instead of fixing the tax itself, commits to some subordinate body the duty of determining whether, in what amount, and upon whom it shall be levied, and of making its assessment and apportionment, due process of law requires that at some stage of the proceedings before the tax becomes irrevocably fixed, the taxpayer shall have an opportunity to be heard, of which he must have notice, either personal, by publication, or by a law fixing the time and place of the hearing. A hearing in its very essence demands that he who is entitled to it shall have the right to support his allegations by argument however brief and, if need by, by proof, however informal.
2. Hearing may be required for adjudication. There need be no hearing on issues of law or policy or generalized facts. But, on individualized facts about individual private parties (and not large groups) there needs to be a hearing.
3. The division of costs between particular owners did require a hearing because there was a question of how much each piece or property had benefited.
ii. Rulemaking
1. Bi-Metallic: Where a rule of conduct applies to more than a few people it is impracticable that every one should have a direct voice in its adoption. Their power is over those who make the rule. The Constitution does not require all public acts to be done in town meeting or an assembly of the whole. Due process protections o
service job is a form of property and thus jobholder cannot be terminated without appropriate procedure, if the holder of a government job can be fired at the discretion of the employer (an untenured teacher), the job is not property and is not protected by due process. Property interests are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law—rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits. If the holder of an unprotected job is fired for reasons that impose a stigma, the discharge is an invasion of liberty and entitles the victim to a name-clearing hearing.
3. Perry v. Sindermann: Even if a state law provides that teachers or professors have no tenure and can be discharged without cause at the end of a school year, a discharged professor may be able to prove that the state has de facto tenure. This is a right arising out of implied contract that protects professors against discharge. If de facto tenure exists, a professor is entitled to a hearing to establish grounds for non-retention. He relied on the faculty guide: “wishes the faculty member to feel he has permanent tenure as long as…”
iv. Liberty Interests
1. includes the right to contract, engage in common occupations, marry, establish a home, bring up children, worship freely, and right to enjoy the qualities of life recognized as essential to the pursuit of happiness.
2. Stigma
· If the government action imposes a stigma that would make it difficult for the person to be employed in the future, the action is a deprivation of liberty.
· Paul v. Davis: flyers with pictures and names given to local businesses, identifying the people on them as subjects known to be involved in shoplifting. COURT: not a liberty interest (harms future employment) because it is a slippery slope. Reputation alone, apart from some more tangible interests such as employment, is neither liberty nor property sufficient to invoke the procedural protection of the Due Process Clause. Mere defamation alone is not enough to invoke due process protections.
