Darby v. Cisneros, 509 U.S. 137, 17 (1993)

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Cite as: 509 U. S. 137 (1993)

Opinion of the Court

Putting to one side the obvious problems with relying on postenactment legislative history, see, e. g., United States v. Texas, 507 U. S. 529, 535, n. 4 (1993); Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633, 650 (1990), the proviso was added in 1976 simply to make clear that "[a]ll other than the law of sovereign immunity remain unchanged," S. Rep. No. 94-996, at 11. The elimination of the defense of sovereign immunity did not affect any other limitation on judicial review that would otherwise apply under the APA. As already discussed, the exhaustion doctrine continues to exist under the APA to the extent that it is required by statute or by agency rule as a prerequisite to judicial review. Therefore, there is nothing inconsistent between the 1976 amendments to the APA and our reading of § 10(c).

IV

We noted just last Term in a non-APA case that

"appropriate deference to Congress' power to prescribe the basic procedural scheme under which a claim may be heard in a federal court requires fashioning of exhaustion principles in a manner consistent with congressional intent and any applicable statutory scheme." McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U. S., at 144.

Appropriate deference in this case requires the recognition that, with respect to actions brought under the APA, Congress effectively codified the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies in § 10(c). Of course, the exhaustion

have been decided the same way on other legal grounds such as the failure to exhaust administrative remedies. S. Rep. No. 94-996, pp. 25-26 (1976). See also 1 Recommendations and Reports of the Administrative Conference of the United States 222 (1968-1970) (urging Congress to adopt the very language that was eventually incorporated verbatim into the 1976 amendment so that "the abolition of sovereign immunity will not result in undue judicial interference with governmental operations or a flood of burdensome litigation").

153

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