Federal Administrative Law Research (Manual)

Dittakavi Rao

Administrative Law – Federal -Introduction

• Administrative Law is consisting of agency administrative regulations and agency administrative decisions. There are federal administrative laws and state administrative laws.

• Agencies are two types: Executive agencies (dept. of education etc.) & Independent agencies ( Security Exchange Commission, United States Postal Service etc.)

Adm. Law – Cont…

• Congress at federal level and State legislatures at state level creates agencies and empower them to make rules and regulations that is known as ‘Enabling Legislation’.

• Federal agencies are created by a statute knows as “organic act” passed by congress.

• Adm. Regulations have legal authority (force of law) once going through notices in Federal Register and hearing procedures.

Administrative Law – Contd.

• When and why do you need to research Adm. Law materials

• When the statutes mandates the promulgations in its provisions.

• When the principles and rules in the statute are too general to be implemented without further clarification and explanation.

• When administrative regulations are cited in the sources that you have consulted, e.g. cases, secondary sources.

• Just want to make sure if there are any applicable regulations in existence.

• Regulations should be researched along with the statutes.

Administrative Procedure Act (1946)

• The basic purposes of the APA (5 U.S.C § 501 et.seq.) are:

• To require agencies to keep the public informed of their organization, procedures and rules;

• To provide for public participation in the rulemaking process;

• To establish uniform standards for the conduct of formal rulemaking and adjudication;

• To define the scope of judicial review.

Federal Administrative Law

• Federal Administrative Regulations

• Authority• It is primary authority as an extension of statues binding on the courts as long

as the regulations stay within the delegated authority of the statutes.

• Regulations must be researched along with the statutes before the case law.• Case law interprets administrative regulations and rules on the authority and

constitutionality of a regulation.

Sources of Federal Regulations

• U.S. Government Manual (agency information)

• Federal Register (1936)(Daily)

• List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA)(Monthly)

• Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (1938)(Annual-not all titles are updated at the same time)

• Agency Case Reporters (GPO)

• Pike & Fischer Administrative Law (cases from 1941)

• Loose-Leaf Services (includes case law.)(BNA; CCH; RIA; PH; Lexis(Mathew Bender) etc.

Federal Register• Daily Federal Register includes:

• Rules and Regulations (proposed and permanent)

• Procedural (internal to employers) and Substantive

• Notices (hearings, meetings)

• Presidential Documents

• Proclamations

• Reorganizational Plans

• Executive Orders

Administrative Law – Contd…

• Researching and Updating the CFR information• One volume “Index and Finding Aids” provides Title and Section number (cite)

• Find on the cover when that book (Title) updated.

• Check Monthly LSA (List of CFR Sections Affected) books for any changes made to you Title and Section. If any changes it refers to page number of daily Federal Register.

• Check current issue of Federal Register for the month and look under “Reader Aids” to find any changes made to your Title and Section number.

• Need any case law refer to Loose-Leaf Services for that subject. (BNA or CCH etc.)

DAILY PUBLICATIONBY NATIONAL ARCHIVES &

RECORDS ADM. PRINTED BY G.P.O.

INFORMATION IS UPDATEDDAILY BY 6 A.M.

Authority (U.S.C. Citation)

Changes made to sections withineach Title

Changes made in the entiremonth of March from 1 to 29th.

FEDERAL REGISTER HAS A MONTHLY INDEX THAT CUMULATESINTO QUARTERLY ISSUES AND THEN AN

ANNUAL INDEX

Office of the Federal RegisterOf National Archives andRecords AdministrationCodifies the C.F.R.

Though it is AnnualPublication, Published on aQuarterly Basis:Titles 1-16 JanuaryTitles 17-27 AprilTitles 28-41 JulyTitles 42-50 October

C.F.R.

Information in CFR is organized by Chapters,Parts, Subparts, Sections, Sub-sections and paragraphs. But you cite onlyto sections e.g. 27 CFR 6.153

Statutory Authority Citation

Source Note: Citation to

Federal Register

Researching Federal Regulations (Without Loose Leafs)

• Cross reference from annotated statutes: U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S.

• Using the one volume index to C.F.R. (C.F.R. Index and Finding Aids) –Table of Parallel Authorities.

• Four volume index set published by Congressional Information Service (CIS) – indexes both CFR and Federal Register.

• This table includes:• U.S. Code Section to CFR Citation (Titles 1 – 50)

• Statutes At Large Citation to CFR Citation (7 Stat. 491 to present)

• Public Law Number to CFR Citation (P.L. 80-806 to present)

• Presidential Documents• Notices (November 12, 1993 to present)

• Presidential Proclamations (April 28, 1916 to present)

• Executive Orders (1209 to present)

• Presidential Directives (May 17, 1972 to present)

• Presidential Memorandums (November 10, 1961)

• Presidential Notices (August 3, 2000 to present)

• Reorganization Plans (1940 Plan Number 4 to present)

• List of CFR Titles, Chapters, Subchapters, and Parts

• Alphabetical List of Agencies Appearing in the CFR

CFR Index - Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules

One volume “CFR Index and Finding Aids” willHelp you to find appropriate Title and SectionNumber of your research issue.

Parallel Table of Authorities and RulesFrom U.S.C. to CFR

Updating Federal Regulations

• List of C.F.R. sections affected (L.S.A.); December (Titles 1-16), March (Titles 17-27), June (Titles 28-41), September (Titles 42-50) annual issues; most recent monthly issue of L.S.A.

• Readers’ aids within the Federal Register, the last daily issue of the month, of each month after the last available monthly issue of L.S.A.

• Shepard’s Code of Federal Regulations Citations

Reference to Federal Register

Page Number

Reference to Federal Register

Volume (year)

LSA

Incorporating Case Law

• Court opinions in Adm. Law have different names – Rulings / issuances / decisions / opinions.

• Before appealing to federal courts one has to go through administrative courts.

• Only major agencies (15 or more) publish case law reporters.

• Officially GPO publishes agency reporters.

• Shepard’s C.F.R. Citations (provides case law). Shepard’s also publishes separately for some agencies (labor, tax, ucc etc.)

• Pike & Fischer Administrative Law currently in third edition reports decisions of courts and administrative agencies in the field of administrative law.

Loose-Leaf Services

• Comprehensive primary and secondary materials that may be included in one loose leaf service on a specific subject, e.g., labor law (may include Federal and/or State Law)

• Statutes (Federal and/or State and/or Local)

• Administrative regulations and/or rules

• Administrative agency decisions

• Transfer binders are provided to house older cases

Contd…

• Court cases (may include non-reported cases) (Pike and Fisher provides administrative agency cases)

• Digests

• Citators

• Indexes

• Secondary sources, e.g. law review articles or other reference materials

• Forms

• Pending cases and/or Digests

Publishers such as BNA; CCH; RIA; PH; Mathew Bender (Lexis) etc.publish loose-leaf materials on major topics

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES CASE LAW PUBLICATIONS

State Loose leaf Materials

Contd…

• Currentness – updated daily, weekly, monthly, etc.

• Detailed Indexes and/or Digests

Presidential Documents

• Presidential documents are part of administrative law. Documents Include:

• Executive Orders (Published in Federal Register)• Numbering system began in 1862. Since then sequentially numbered.

• Proclamations (Published in Federal Register)

• Reorganizational Plans (Published in Federal Register)

• Signing Documents

• Radio Messages

• Daily/Weekly Compilations of Presidential Documents

• Use Title 3 of C.F.R. for Presidential Documents codified.