Administrative Appeals and Litigation: The Relationship Among the Prior-Appeal Requirement, Time Limits, and Rulings

Abstract

This volume asks whether the choice to go through an administrative appeal first preserves the road to litigation. Only by examining separately the optional administrative appeal and the prior-appeal requirement under special acts, the period for filing an administrative appeal and the period for filing suit, and the effect of a ruling upholding the appeal can the choice of remedy be kept from turning into a lost opportunity. The path to relief opens where the applicant applies the rules on whether a prior appeal is mandatory and the exceptions thereto, and observes each period for the administrative appeal and for litigation in accordance with the relevant facts determining its starting point, and closes where a mandatory prior appeal was not pursued and no ground for exemption exists, or where the period for filing suit has expired and no applicable exception exists. The six sections address, in turn, the prior-appeal principle and special acts, grounds for not awaiting a ruling, grounds for dispensing with the administrative appeal altogether, the period for the administrative appeal and the period for litigation, the differences among dismissal, rejection, and upholding, and which determination is litigated. The strongest counterargument is as follows. Complex exceptions to the prior-appeal requirement and time limits shift the burden onto those who challenge an administrative agency's errors. The overall procedural timeline and defects in prior notice and the submission of opinions are not addressed in this volume.