Darby v. Cisneros, 509 U.S. 137, 14 (1993)

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150

DARBY v. CISNEROS

Opinion of the Court

to be made and its granting is entirely within the discretion of the Commission, we see no reason for requiring it to be made as a condition precedent to the bringing of a suit to enjoin the enforcement of the order."

Accord, Banton v. Belt Line R. Corp., 268 U. S. 413, 416-417 (1925) ("No application to the commission for relief was required by the state law. None was necessary as a condition precedent to the suit").

Shortly before Congress adopted the APA, the Court, in Levers v. Anderson, 326 U. S. 219 (1945), held that where a federal statute provides that a district supervisor of the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue "may hear the application" for a rehearing of an order denying certain liquor permits, such an application was not a prerequisite to judicial review. Nothing "persuades us that the 'may' means must, or that the Supervisors were required to hear oral argument." Id., at 223 (emphasis added). Despite the fact that the regulations permitted a stay pending the motion for reconsideration, the Court concluded that "the motion is in its effect so much like the normal, formal type of motion for rehearing that we cannot read into the Act an intention to make it a prerequisite to the judicial review specifically provided by Congress." Id., at 224.

Respondents in effect concede that the trend in the law prior to the enactment of the APA was to require exhaustion of motions for administrative reconsideration or rehearing only when explicitly mandated by statute. Respondents argue, however, that the law governing the exhaustion of administrative appeals prior to the APA was significantly different from § 10(c) as petitioners would have us interpret it. Brief for Respondents 23. Respondents rely on United States v. Sing Tuck, 194 U. S. 161 (1904), in which the Court considered whether, under the relevant statute, an aggrieved party had to appeal an adverse decision by the Inspector of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor before

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