Once these obstacles are cleared, the court may look at one of a series of claims. The appellant might assert that the agency’s action was ultra vires (UL-truh VI-reez)—beyond the scope of its authority as set down in the statute. This attack is rarely successful. A somewhat more successful claim is that the agency did not abide by its own procedures or those imposed upon it by the Administrative Procedure Act.
In formal rulemaking, the appellant also might insist that the agency lacked substantial evidence for the determination that it made. If there is virtually no evidence to support the agency’s findings, the court may reverse. But findings of fact are not often overturned by the courts.
Likewise, there has long been a presumption that when an agency issues a regulation, it has the authority to do so: those opposing the regulation must bear a heavy burden in court to upset it. This is not a surprising rule, for otherwise courts, not administrators, would be the authors of regulations. Nevertheless, regulations cannot exceed the scope of the authority conferred by Congress on the agency. In an important 1981 case before the Supreme Court, the issue was whether the secretary of labor, acting through the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), could lawfully issue a standard limiting exposure to cotton dust in the workplace without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis. A dozen cotton textile manufacturers and the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, representing 175 companies, asserted that the cotton dust standard was unlawful because it did not rationally relate the benefits to be derived from the standard to the costs that the standard would impose. See Cases , American Textile Manufacturers Institute v. Donovan.
In summary, then, an individual or a company may (after exhaustion of administrative remedies) challenge agency action where such action is the following:
- not in accordance with the agency’s scope of authority
- not in accordance with the US Constitution or the Administrative Procedure Act
- not in accordance with the substantial evidence test
- unwarranted by the facts
- arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accord with the law
Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act sets out those standards. While it is difficult to show that an agency’s action is arbitrary and capricious, there are cases that have so held. For example, after the Reagan administration set aside a Carter administration rule from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration on passive restraints in automobiles, State Farm and other insurance companies challenged the reversal as arbitrary and capricious. Examining the record, the Supreme Court found that the agency had failed to state enough reasons for its reversal and required the agency to review the record and the rule and provide adequate reasons for its reversal. State Farm and other insurance companies thus gained a legal benefit by keeping an agency rule that placed costs on automakers for increased passenger safety and potentially reducing the number of injury claims from those it had insured. 1
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