| Heckler v. Chaney | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued December 3, 1984 Decided March 20, 1985 | |
| Full case name | Margaret M. Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Larry Leon Chaney, et al. |
| Citations | 470 U.S. 821 (more) 105 S. Ct. 1649; 84 L. Ed. 2d 714; 1985 U.S. LEXIS 78; 53 U.S.L.W. 4385; 15 ELR 20335 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit |
| Holding | |
| The FDA's decision not to take the enforcement actions requested by respondents was not subject to review under the Administrative Procedure Act. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Brennan, White, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens, O'Connor |
| Concurrence | Brennan |
| Concurrence | Marshall (in judgment) |
| Laws applied | |
| Administrative Procedure Act | |
Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that a federal agency's decision to not take an enforcement action is presumptively unreviewable by the courts under section 701(a)(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The case arose out of a group of death row inmates' petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), seeking to have the agency thwart the state governments' plans to execute the inmates by lethal injection. The FDA declined to interfere, a decision the inmates appealed unsuccessfully to the District Court for the District of Columbia. On further review, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the FDA's action was reviewable and that its denial was "arbitrary and capricious". The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the appeals court and declared in an 8–1 decision that agency nonenforcement decisions were presumptively unreviewable.
The case hinged on various interpretations of sections 706 and 701(a) of the APA. Section 706 makes agency actions reviewable and empowers courts to set them aside when they are found to be "arbitrary, capricious, [or] an abuse of discretion", while section 701(a) lists two exceptions to section 706, preventing review where it is prevented by another statute or "committed to agency discretion by law". These two exceptions, fairly similar in scope, raised questions for courts attempting to interpret them. In Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe (1971), the court ruled that the section 701(a)(2) exemption applies only where "statutes are drawn in such broad terms that in a given case there is no law to apply" that might constrain the agency's discretion, a holding which provoked some criticism from lower courts and the wider legal community.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reacted to Overton Park by holding that practical considerations should be used in determining whether to grant review, rather than looking at the laws relevant to the agency in question – in Chaney, they did precisely this in overturning the district court. The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court's decision and upheld Overton Park's emphasis on statutory considerations, but the presumption of unreviewability it created in this case was largely based on practical factors rather than statutory factors. It reasoned that, in general, an agency's decision not to enforce does not easily lend itself to manageable standards of judicial review, likening such a decision to one a prosecutor might make. It highlighted, however, that the presumption of unreviewability can be rebutted where the plaintiffs provide a relevant statute ("law to apply") that limits the discretion of the agency.
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. concurred with the majority and emphasized that the court was not closing off all avenues of review for nonenforcement decisions. Justice Thurgood Marshall concurred in the judgment only, criticizing the majority's decision to create a presumption of unreviewability and instead arguing that the FDA's decision should have been held to be reviewable and upheld on the merits. Lower courts largely accepted the ruling, albeit with varying interpretations of scope; the wider legal community criticized the majority's rationale for a presumption of unreviewability while agreeing with the result immediately concerning the inmates.