Administrative Law Exam Questions With Complete Solutions

Administrative Law Exam Questions With Complete Solutions Overview - Administrative law concerns the validity of the actions and decisions of government officials. In any administrative law problem the ultimate issue is: will the agency action survive judicial scrutiny? The questions is best addressed by answering the following 5 subsidiary questions: (1) What type of administrative action is involved (2) What are the plausible grounds for judicial review? (3) What are the proper scopes of review? (4) Did the agency use correct procedures? (5) Have all the conditions on obtaining judicial review been satisfied? Background and Definitions - Limited subject matter jurisdiction (always) Combination of powers (often): legislative, executive, judicial IAPA: Illinois Administrative Procedure Act ARL: Administrative Review Law OMA: Open Meetings Act Discretion means a range of free choice Expertise means expertness. Unlike courts, which have general jurisdiction, agencies are given limited SMJ, so that they encounter the same types of factual and technical issues over and over again. With repeated exposure and experience comes expertness Deference: refers to the court, on its own initiative yielding to agency decision. Courts do not defer to every agency decision; only defer if agency has expertise. Scope of Review: refers to mandatory minimum weight or respect which a court must give agency decision Contested Case - "An adjudicatory proceeding (not including ratemaking, rulemaking, or quasi-legislative, informational, or similar proceedings) in which the individual legal rights, duties, or privileges of a party are required by law to be determined by an agency only after an opportunity for a hearing." If a case is contested, 4 minimum procedural safeguards required: right to present evidence, knowledge of opposing evidence, opportunity to test and rebut opposing evidence, and the decision must be based solely on evidence produced at the hearing. Scope: Generally, the contested case procedures of the IAPA apply to all agencies. Both state agencies and local govt bodies must follow the IAPA hearing and rulemaking procedures Rulemaking - Under 5 ILCS 100/1-70, a rule is defined as "each agency statement of general applicability that implements, applies, interprets, or prescribes law or policy..." Includes amendment and repeal Exceptions: -statements concerning only the internal management of an agency and not affected private rights or procedures available to persons or entities outside the agency; -declaratory rulings issued by an agency with respect to a specific set of facts and intended to apply only to those facts (letter rulings); -intra-agency memoranda; -the prescription of standardized forms; or -documents prepared or filed or actions taken by the Legislative Reference Bureau to codify statutes in accordance with 25 ILCS 135/5.04 Plausible Grounds for judicial review - There are always four independent grounds on which a court may review and possibly set aside the agency action: Constitutional review, jurisdictional review, procedural review, merits review (aka factual or substantive review) Proper Scopes of Review: Identifying the proper scopes of review - The scope of review and level of deference accorded the bureaucratic decision depend upon which of the