Also known as: administrative orders · agency order · administrative ruling
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
An order issued by a government agency after an adjudicatory hearing.
An agency regulation that interprets or applies a statutory provision.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
An order issued by a government agency after an adjudicatory hearing.
Alison reviewed a State A agriculture department bulletin stating that low-impact pesticides were exempt from buffer-zone rules near waterways. She sprayed within fifty feet of the river on three consecutive days and fish died on Ted's property. Alison asserts a mistake-of-law defense based on her reliance on the bulletin when charged with an environmental offense.
Citizens for a Better Environment sent notice to Steel Co. alleging failure to file required chemical inventory forms. The EPA had not commenced an administrative order or civil action to enforce the filing requirement. The citizens filed suit after the sixty-day notice period expired.
An agency regulation that interprets or applies a statutory provision.
Citizens for a Better Environment, an association of individuals interested in environmental protection, sued Steel Company, a small manufacturing company located in Chicago, alleging that Steel Company had failed since 1988 to complete and submit the annual hazardous-chemical inventory forms and toxic-chemical release forms required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986. The forms must list the name and location of the facility, the name and quantity of each specified chemical on hand, the waste-disposal method employed, and the annual quantity of toxic chemicals released into each environmental medium, with inventory forms due each March 1 and release forms due each July 1. In 1995 the association sent the required 60-day notice to Steel Company, the EPA Administrator, and Illinois authorities, accurately alleging that Steel Company had never filed the required forms. Upon receiving the notice, Steel Company filed all of the overdue forms with the appropriate agencies. The EPA took no enforcement action, and after the waiting period expired the association filed its complaint in federal district court. The complaint, brought on behalf of the association and its members, sought a declaratory judgment that Steel Company had violated EPCRA, authorization for periodic inspections of Steel Company's facility and records at Steel Company's expense, an order compelling Steel Company to provide the association with copies of all compliance reports submitted to the EPA, civil penalties of $25,000 per day for each violation, and an award of the association's investigation and litigation costs including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees. The district court agreed with Steel Company on both points and dismissed the complaint. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict with the Sixth Circuit's decision in a factually indistinguishable case.
View caseParents Involved in Community Schools challenged Seattle's student assignment plan that used race to achieve integration. The plan had been developed in part to comply with prior federal administrative orders addressing school segregation. The district court reviewed whether the plan satisfied strict scrutiny.
In the late 1990s the Seattle School District No. 1 adopted a student assignment plan for its ten regular public high schools. Incoming ninth graders ranked preferences among schools. The district applied a series of tiebreakers when schools were oversubscribed. The second tiebreaker classified students as white or nonwhite. It selected students whose race would bring an integration-positive school within ten percentage points of the district-wide balance of 41 percent white and 59 percent nonwhite. The plan affected assignments at five oversubscribed schools in the 2000-2001 school year. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools filed suit in the Western District of Washington in July 2000 alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause. Jefferson County Public Schools had been under a 1975 federal desegregation decree. The decree was dissolved in 2000 after a finding of unitary status. The district adopted a voluntary assignment plan in 2001. The plan required all nonmagnet schools to maintain black enrollment between 15 and 50 percent. The plan grouped elementary schools into clusters. It assigned kindergartners and new students within clusters according to space and racial guidelines. It denied transfer requests that would push a school outside the guidelines. Approximately 34 percent of the district's 97,000 students were black. When Crystal Meredith moved into the district in August 2002 she sought to enroll her son Joshua in kindergarten at Bloom Elementary one mile from their home. The district denied the intercluster transfer from Young Elementary because it would adversely affect desegregation compliance at Young which was then 46.8 percent black. Meredith filed suit in the Western District of Kentucky alleging an Equal Protection violation. The Seattle District Court granted summary judgment to the district in 2001. The Ninth Circuit en banc affirmed the federal constitutional ruling in 2005. The District Court found that Jefferson County had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that the assignment plan was in all relevant respects narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion relying upon the reasoning of the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases in 2006.
View caseThe Abington Township school district maintained a policy of daily Bible readings in public schools. Parents challenged the practice after the district continued it despite an administrative order from the state education agency directing compliance with Establishment Clause requirements. The Supreme Court addressed whether the readings violated the First Amendment.
In 1959 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania enacted a statute requiring that at least ten verses from the Holy Bible be read without comment at the opening of each public school on each school day. The statute included a provision allowing any child to be excused upon the written request of a parent or guardian. The Schempp family, Unitarian parents residing in Abington Township whose children attended Abington Senior High School, filed suit in federal district court seeking to enjoin enforcement of the statute. The exercises at the school involved selected students reading ten verses over the intercom system between 8:15 and 8:30 a.m., followed by recitation of the Lord's Prayer in unison by students in classrooms. The exercises were conducted daily under teacher supervision with no prefatory statements or comments. A three-judge district court held the statute unconstitutional after hearing testimony from the Schempps and expert witnesses regarding the religious character of the exercises and potential psychological effects on children. In 1905 the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City adopted a rule pursuant to Art. 77, § 202 of the Annotated Code of Maryland requiring opening exercises consisting of reading a chapter from the Holy Bible and/or recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Madalyn Murray and her son William, professed atheists living in Baltimore, filed suit in state court to compel rescission of the rule after unsuccessful attempts to have it rescinded. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the rule. The two cases were consolidated for argument before the Supreme Court because of the similarity of the issues presented. In both cases the Bible readings were conducted without comment using versions such as the King James, Douay, or Revised Standard. Students could select passages or be excused upon parental request, though the Schempps chose not to seek excusal for their children due to concerns about social stigma. Expert testimony was introduced concerning differences between Jewish and Christian scriptures and the potential for harm or divisiveness from reading certain passages without explanation. The district court in Schempp made findings that the exercises possessed a devotional and religious character and that the statute preferred the Christian religion. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in both cases following appeals from the respective lower court decisions.
View caseNorthern Pipeline Construction Co. sued Marathon Pipe Line Co. in bankruptcy court for breach of contract. The bankruptcy court entered judgment on the state-law claim under authority granted by an administrative order restructuring the bankruptcy system. Marathon challenged whether the order validly assigned Article III powers to a non-Article III tribunal.
In 1978 Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Reform Act after nearly ten years of study. The statute established a United States bankruptcy court in each judicial district as an adjunct to the district court. It granted those courts jurisdiction over all civil proceedings arising under title 11 or arising in or related to cases under title 11. Bankruptcy judges appointed under the Act served fourteen-year terms. They were subject to removal by the judicial council of the circuit for incompetence, misconduct, neglect of duty, or disability. They received salaries subject to congressional adjustment. In January 1980 Northern Pipeline Construction Co. filed a petition for reorganization under the Act in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. In March 1980 Northern filed a separate suit in the same court against Marathon Pipe Line Co. seeking damages for alleged breaches of contract and warranty as well as for misrepresentation, coercion, and duress. Marathon moved to dismiss the suit on the ground that the Act unconstitutionally conferred Article III judicial power on bankruptcy judges who lacked life tenure and salary protection. The United States intervened to defend the statute. The Bankruptcy Court denied the motion to dismiss. On appeal the District Court reversed and dismissed the suit. Northern and the United States filed notices of appeal, and the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseThe Industrial Union Department challenged an OSHA standard limiting benzene exposure in the workplace. The agency had issued the standard through an administrative order after formal rulemaking proceedings. Industry petitioners argued the order lacked sufficient evidence of significant risk.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 directed the Secretary of Labor to develop standards ensuring safe and healthful working conditions for every working man and woman. Benzene, a colorless aromatic liquid produced in quantities of approximately 11 billion pounds in 1976, was used in motor fuels, solvents, detergents, and other organic chemicals. Over one million workers faced additional low-level exposures through employment in petroleum refining, petrochemical processing, rubber manufacturing, and gasoline service stations. In 1971 the Secretary adopted a national consensus standard limiting airborne benzene to 10 parts per million as an eight-hour time-weighted average with a 25 ppm ceiling for ten-minute periods. Between 1974 and 1977 additional epidemiological studies linked benzene to leukemia. NIOSH conducted an interim study of two Pliofilm plants in Ohio that reported at least a fivefold increase in expected leukemia incidence among workers exposed from 1940 to 1949. Other studies, including one by Dow Chemical, identified leukemia deaths among workers whose exposures had not exceeded 2 to 9 ppm. In October 1976 NIOSH recommended an emergency temporary standard of 1 ppm. The Fifth Circuit temporarily restrained the emergency standard. OSHA then proposed and, after hearings that began in July 1977, promulgated a permanent standard in February 1978. The permanent standard reduced the permissible exposure limit to 1 ppm, imposed a 5 ppm ceiling for any fifteen-minute period, required initial monitoring and semiannual medical examinations when exposures exceeded 0.5 ppm, mandated engineering controls rather than respirators where feasible, and prohibited skin or eye contact with liquids containing more than 0.5 percent benzene after a three-year phase-in. The standard exempted storage, transportation, distribution, sale, or use of gasoline after discharge from bulk terminals. OSHA estimated capital costs of approximately $266 million, first-year operating costs of $187 million to $205 million, and recurring annual costs of $34 million, with the largest per-employee expenditures falling on the petroleum refining and petrochemical segments. On pre-enforcement review under 29 U.S.C. § 655(f), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held the regulation invalid in 1978. The Supreme Court reviewed the Fifth Circuit judgment.
View case1 common questions
A belief that conduct does not constitute an offense is a defense when the actor acts in reasonable reliance upon an official statement of the law contained in an administrative order or grant of permission. The defendant must prove the defense by a preponderance of the evidence. The order must come from the public officer or body charged with interpreting or enforcing the law defining the offense.