[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JUNE 17, 2009
THOMAS K. KAHN
No. 08-11102 CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 07-00310-CV-2-IPJ
GREG FANIN,
Plaintiff,
JIM HENRY PERKINS,
JESSIE FRANK QUALLS,
on their own behalf and on
behalf of all others similarly
situated,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
ERIC SHINSEKI, in his
official capacity as Secretary of
Veterans Affairs,
ROBERT T. HOWARD, in his official
capacities as Assistant Secretary
for Information and Technology and
Chief Information Officer for Veterans,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
_________________________
(June 17, 2009)
Before TJOFLAT and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and HOOD,* District Judge.
CARNES, Circuit Judge:
Someone pulled off the trick of making an object disappear from a safe in a
darkened office building over a cold and rainy weekend. Unfortunately, the
magician never completed the trick by making it reappear. The missing object is
hardly a stage prop. It is an external computer hard drive belonging to the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) containing the unencrypted names, social
security numbers, birth dates, and healthcare files of more than 198,000 living
veterans. With that treasure trove of private data the hard drive is a pocket-sized
gold mine for identity thieves. Where it is now is anybody’s guess. In the
*
Honorable Joseph M. Hood, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of
Kentucky, sitting by designation.
2
meantime, no one is applauding the trick, least of all the veterans. Some of them
have sued the VA.
I.
Among the 198,000 living veterans whose personal data was on the hard
drive that disappeared are Jim Henry Perkins and Jesse Frank Qualls. Perkins and
Qualls are Vietnam veterans with severe chronic post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). Because of their PTSD, both men participate in group therapy sessions
and receive medical benefits from the VA. Both also see a doctor four times a
year to update their prescriptions.
The VA issued press releases about the security breach on February 2 and
10, 2007. Shortly thereafter, it established a public hotline to answer veterans’
inquiries about the status of their personal information. Perkins called and was
told that individuals whose data was missing would receive a letter. In March
2007 Perkins and Qualls received letters from the VA instructing them to obtain a
free credit report and to put a “fraud alert” on their credit accounts. In late April,
the VA offered Perkins, Qualls, and the other 198,000 affected veterans one year
of free credit monitoring.
Meanwhile, the VA’s Office of the Inspector General undertook an
investigation into the contents of the equipment and the circumstances of its
3
disappearance. The missing hard drive was one of fifteen purchased in 2006 by
the Birmingham VA Medical Center. The procedure was for information
technology specialists to load data onto the hard drives and store them in safes
each night. On the morning of January 22, 2007, an IT Specialist in Birmingham
reported his external hard drive missing from the safe. The Office of the Inspector
General concluded that the VA’s security plan did not comply with the agency’s
own rules for securing data, and it improperly allowed the IT Specialist access to
databases beyond the requirements of his job and the scope of his background
check. It also concluded that the VA had failed to adequately supervise the IT
Specialist, whose actions had violated the Privacy Act as well as the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
This lawsuit was filed against the VA on February 15, 2007, just thirteen
days after the first public disclosure that the hard drive was missing. The two
current plaintiffs joined in amended complaints filed in March and April 2007.
Perkins and Qualls claim the stress caused by their fear of identity theft and arising
from their loss of trust in the VA as the provider of their medical care aggravated
their PTSD symptoms. Both men assert that the sleeplessness, isolation, anxiety,
and anger that characterize their PTSD have grown worse than before. Perkins has
4
received additional medication from his doctor, and Qualls has had his dosage
increased.
Perkins and Qualls’ second amended complaint includes two broad
categories of claims: those seeking monetary damages under the Privacy Act, 5
U.S.C. § 552a(g) and those seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under the
Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 702–06. The APA claims are
based on the VA’s alleged violations of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a; the E-
Government Act of 2002, 44 U.S.C. § 3501; the VA Claims Confidentiality
Statute, 38 U.S.C. § 5701; the Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1905; the Veterans
Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006 (VHBITA), 38
U.S.C. §§ 5721–28; and the Federal Information Security Management Act
(FISMA), 44 U.S.C. §§ 3541–48. In January 2008 the district court granted the
VA’s motion for summary judgment against all of Perkins and Qualls’ claims.
This is their appeal.
II.
We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment. Thomas
v. Cooper Lighting, Inc., 506 F.3d 1361, 1363 (11th Cir. 2007). Summary
judgment is proper if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the
moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,
5
477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 2552 (1986); see also Fed R. Civ. P. 56(c). As
the Supreme Court instructed us in Celotex, summary judgment should be granted
when there is “a complete failure of proof concerning an essential element of the
nonmoving party’s case.” 477 U.S. at 322–23, 106 S. Ct. at 2552.
A.
We will start with whether Perkins and Qualls have offered evidence
sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact as to each element of a claim for
monetary damages under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D). Congress
passed the Privacy Act in 1974 to “protect the privacy of individuals identified in
information systems maintained by Federal agencies.” Doe v. Chao, 540 U.S. 614,
618, 124 S. Ct. 1204, 1207 (2004) (quoting the Privacy Act, Pub. L. No. 93-579, §
2(a)(5), 88 Stat. 1896). In addition to creating a series of security and disclosure
rules for agencies that possess individuals’ personal information, the Act creates a
private right of action against an agency that “fails to comply with any other
provision of this section, or any rule promulgated thereunder, in such a way as to
have an adverse effect on an individual.” 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D). It specifies
that if the agency acted intentionally or willfully:
[T]he United States shall be liable to the individual in an amount equal to the
sum of— (A) actual damages sustained by the individual as a result of the
refusal or failure, but in no case shall a person entitled to recovery receive
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less than the sum of $1,000; and (B) the costs of the action together with
reasonable attorney fees as determined by the court.
5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4).
We have recently stated the elements of a claim brought under this paragraph
of the Privacy Act. The plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) the government failed
to fulfill its record-keeping obligation; (2) the agency acted intentionally or
willfully in failing to perform its obligation; (3) the failure proximately caused an
adverse effect on an individual; and (4) that individual suffered actual damages.
Perry v. Bureau of Prisons, 371 F.3d 1304, 1305 (11th Cir. 2004) (quoting Rose v.
United States, 905 F.2d 1257, 1259 (9th Cir. 1990)).
Obtaining monetary damages under § 552a(g)(4) requires proof of “actual
damages,” and in this circuit that means pecuniary losses. See Fitzpatrick v. IRS,
665 F.2d 327, 331 (11th Cir. 1982), abrogated on other grounds by Doe, 540 U.S.
614, 124 S. Ct. 1204. In Fitzpatrick the plaintiff retired from the IRS because of a
mental disability. Id. at 328. His supervisor violated the Privacy Act by willfully
disclosing Fitzpatrick’s condition to other people, which caused him to become
paranoid, deeply depressed, and withdrawn from social activities because he feared
that people knew of his mental condition. Id. at 328–29. However, Fitzpatrick
presented no evidence of pecuniary loss such as the cost of additional medication
7
or psychiatric care. As we noted, Fitzpatrick presented a fairly pure “key issue . . .
the meaning of ‘actual damages’ in subsection (g)(4)(A) of the [Privacy] Act.” Id.
at 329. After consulting the legislative history, we held “that ‘actual damages’ as
used in the Privacy Act permits recovery only for proven pecuniary losses and not
for generalized mental injuries, loss of reputation, embarrassment or other
non-quantifiable injuries.” Id. at 331.
Under Fitzpatrick, Perkins and Qualls cannot recover monetary damages
under the Privacy Act without “proven pecuniary losses.” Id. Their complaint
alleged that the men suffered pecuniary loss. Perkins’ affidavit also states that the
VA’s security breach “has caused me to spend my own personal time and money to
prevent and detect [identity theft].” (emphasis added). See generally Doe, 540 U.S.
at 626 n.10, 124 S. Ct. at 1211 n.10 (noting that minor costs such as fees for
running a credit report or receiving a Valium prescription would, as “actual
damages,” open the door to the statutory minimum of $1,000 in damages);
Fitzpatrick, 665 F.2d at 331 n.7 (noting that “had appellant introduced evidence of
expenses for psychiatric care necessitated by the disclosure, he could have
recovered those expenses”). However, Perkins and Qualls have since abandoned
any argument that they suffered pecuniary losses. Oral Arg. Tr. at 3:10–3:30
(“Court: One of your clients at least pleaded that he had suffered some out of
8
pocket [losses]. . . but then again you didn’t argue it to [the district court], and
didn’t argue it in your blue brief to us. . . Attorney: . . . That’s right.”); United
States v. Ford, 270 F.3d 1346, 1347 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[I]ssues and contentions not
timely raised in the briefs are deemed abandoned.”); Hartsfield v. Lemacks, 50
F.3d 950, 953 (11th Cir. 1995); Marek v. Singletary, 62 F.3d 1295, 1298 n.2 (11th
Cir. 1995).
Instead of trying to meet Fitzpatrick’s requirement of actual pecuniary loss,
Perkins and Qualls attack that decision directly. They argue that Fitzpatrick is
distinguishable, that its reasoning is dicta, that it has been overruled or abrogated,
and that it is inconsistent with decisions from other circuits. We are unpersuaded.
Perkins and Qualls attempt to march around Fitzpatrick by persuading us that
it is factually distinguishable from this case. We do not think so. In that case, as in
this one, a federal agency disseminated private information about the plaintiffs. In
both cases the plaintiffs alleged and offered evidence that the information leak
caused or aggravated stress-related symptoms—depression, paranoia, and
withdrawal in Fitzpatrick and sleeplessness, anxiety, isolation and anger here. 665
F.2d at 328–29. No financial loss was shown in either case. See id. at 331 n.7.
This case and Fitzpatrick are not distinguishable; they are brothers if not twins.
9
Nor was our discussion of the meaning of “actual damages” in Fitzpatrick
dicta. See generally Aron v. United States, 291 F.3d 708, 716 (11th Cir. 2002)
(Carnes, J., concurring) (“All that is said which is not necessary to the decision of
an appeal given the facts and circumstances of the case is dicta.”). We noted in
Fitzpatrick that “the key issue, therefore, is the meaning of ‘actual damages’ in
subsection (g)(4)(A) of the [Privacy] Act.” 665 F.2d at 329 (emphasis added). We
then stated: “[W]e hold that ‘actual damages’ as used in the Privacy Act permits
recovery only for proven pecuniary losses and not for generalized mental injuries,
loss of reputation, embarrassment or other non-quantifiable injuries.” Id. at 331
(emphasis added). Our language was purposeful and fitted to the facts. We did not
over-write. The central issue in Fitzpatrick was the meaning of the statutory term
“actual damages” in the Privacy Act. See id. at 329–31. We came to a conclusion
about that meaning—that it meant pecuniary losses only—and then relied on that
meaning to hold that Fitzpatrick had failed to establish his claim. Id. at 331. The
meaning of “actual damages” was “necessary to the decision,” Aron, 291 F.3d at
716; it was the sole basis we gave for denying Fitzpatrick’s claims for monetary
damages. See Fitzpatrick, 665 F.2d at 331. It follows that our statement that
“actual damages” under the Privacy Act means only pecuniary losses is a holding,
and under the prior panel precedent rule we must follow it. See Swann v. S. Health
10
Partners, Inc., 388 F.3d 834, 837 (11th Cir. 2004) (“[W]e are bound by the holdings
of earlier panels unless and until they are clearly overruled en banc or by the
Supreme Court.”).
Unable to march around Fitzpatrick, Perkins and Qualls attempt to tunnel
under it by arguing that its holding has been “undermined to the point of
abrogation” by the Supreme Court’s decision in Doe, 540 U.S. at 616, 124 S. Ct. at
1206. The Doe decision did abrogate part of the Fitzpatrick decision, but not the
part we have been talking about. Doe changed the landscape of the Privacy Act by
holding that the statutory minimum of $1,000 in damages was not available unless
the plaintiff suffered some amount of “actual damages.” Id. at 627, 124 S. Ct. at
1212. That overruled the part of Fitzpatrick that had granted that plaintiff the
statutory $1,000 minimum even though he had failed to demonstrate actual
damages. See 665 F.2d at 331. As a result, plaintiffs in Fitzpatrick’s shoes today,
like Perkins and Qualls, are worse off than Fitzpatrick was in 1982, because after
Doe they cannot get even the $1,000 statutory minimum without showing some
actual damages.
In deciding that a plaintiff must show actual damages to receive the statutory
minimum of $1,000, the Supreme Court specifically acknowledged the circuit split
11
about the meaning of “actual damages” and declined to resolve it. Doe, 540 U.S. at
627 n.12, 124 S. Ct. at 1212 n.12. The Court noted:
The Courts of Appeals are divided on the precise definition of actual
damages. Compare Fitzpatrick v. IRS, 665 F.2d 327, 331 (11th Cir. 1982)
(actual damages are restricted to pecuniary loss), with Johnson v.
Department of Treasury, IRS, 700 F.2d 971, 972–74 (5th Cir. 1983) (actual
damages can cover adequately demonstrated mental anxiety even without
any out-of-pocket loss). That issue is not before us, however. . . .
Id. The Court’s refusal in Doe to resolve the circuit split about the definition of
“actual damages” contradicts Perkins and Qualls’ argument that the Court
overruled Fitzpatrick’s definition of that term.
Unable to undermine Fitzpatrick, Perkins and Qualls lay siege to it by
arguing that most other circuits do not restrict “actual damages” under the Privacy
Act to pecuniary losses. Admittedly, the Fifth and Tenth Circuits have stated that
mental injury alone can qualify as “actual damages.” See Johnson, 700 F.2d at
972–74; Parks v. IRS, 618 F.2d 677, 682–83 (10th Cir. 1980). But any number of
assaults from other circuits cannot overrun one binding precedent from our own
circuit. United States v. Hanna, 153 F.3d 1286, 1288 (11th Cir. 1998) (“In this
circuit, only the court of appeals sitting en banc, an overriding United States
Supreme Court decision, or a change in the statutory law can overrule a previous
panel decision.”); Swann, 388 F.3d at 837.
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In any event, Fitzpatrick is not a lonely fort in a hostile countryside. It has
allies. See Hudson v. Reno, 130 F.3d 1193, 1207 (6th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he weight of
authority suggests that actual damages under the Privacy Act do not include
recovery for ‘mental injuries, loss of reputation, embarrassment or other
non-quantifiable injuries.”), overruled in part on other grounds by Pollard v. E.I.
DuPont Nemours & Co., 532 U.S. 843, 121 S. Ct. 1946 (2000); Pope v. Bond, 641
F. Supp. 489, 501 (D.D.C. 1986); DiMura v. FBI, 823 F. Supp. 45, 48 (D. Mass.
1993).
Because none of Perkins and Qualls’ attacks on Fitzpatrick’s actual damages
holding succeeds, that decision controls their claims for monetary damages. They
have failed to show any pecuniary loss from the VA’s data security breach, and the
summary judgment against their claims for monetary damages is due to be
affirmed.
B.
We turn now to whether the grant of summary judgment against the claims
seeking declaratory and injunctive relief was proper. The second amended
complaint included nine counts alleging that the VA violated multiple statutes,
including the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a; the E-Government Act of 2002, 44
U.S.C. § 3501 note; FISMA, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3541–48; the Trade Secrets Act, 18
13
U.S.C. § 1905; and the VBHITA, 38 U.S.C. §§ 5721–28. All of these claims were
routed through the APA, 5 U.S.C. §§ 702–06.
1.
The district court granted summary judgment wholesale against all of
Perkins and Qualls’ APA claims. After listing the nine claims, the court stated:
The court finds that the above allegations do not constitute “final agency
action” as that term is defined by the APA. . . . The alleged final agency
actions are failures by the defendants to comply with various provisions of
federal statutes. There is no evidence that these failures can be attributed to
a conscious decision by the VA to violate the law or that the VA was aware
that the violations were occurring and did nothing to remedy them. In fact,
after the external hard drive was reported missing, the VA investigated the
disappearance and is now in the process of implementing new procedures to
prevent a similar disclosure in the future. Therefore, summary judgment is
due to be GRANTED on the plaintiffs’ nine claims for injunctive relief
because there is no final agency action.
The gist of the district court’s reasoning was that the APA claims could not survive
summary judgment because there was no evidence that the VA had consciously
decided to violate the law and the procedures were being corrected.
The language of the APA does not state or imply, however, that an agency
must consciously violate the law before a meritorious claim can arise. 5 U.S.C. §
706(1) (stating that a court may “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or
unreasonably delayed”). Under Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S.
55, 64, 124 S. Ct. 2373, 2379 (2004), a claim may proceed “where a plaintiff
14
asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to
take.” See also Nat’l Parks Conservation Ass’n v. Norton, 324 F.3d 1229, 1239
(11th Cir. 2003) (“[W]here an agency is under an unequivocal statutory duty to act,
failure so to act constitutes, in effect, an affirmative act that triggers ‘final agency
action’ review.”); Sierra Club v. Thomas, 828 F.2d 783, 793 (D.C. Cir. 1987)
(explaining that an agency’s failure to act when required by law to do so, either by
an implicit refusal to act or simply by an unreasonable bureaucratic delay, is
reviewable under the APA). Thus, whether the VA consciously decided to violate
the law is not a necessary consideration in evaluating whether it did violate the law.
Nor do current efforts by the VA to remedy its many alleged violations of
various statutes matter if it has not yet achieved full compliance. Of course, if the
VA were fully compliant with all of the statutes it has allegedly violated, the APA
claims would be moot. See S. Utah, 542 U.S. at 67–68, 124 S. Ct. at 2381–82
(holding two of the plaintiffs’ claims moot because they sought the creation of
Bureau of Land Management plans, which were later created); Friends of the Wild
Swan, Inc. v. EPA, 130 F. Supp. 2d 1184, 1192 (D. Mont. 1999) (holding an APA
claim moot when the EPA, thirteen years after its alleged duty arose, cured its
failure to act by finally acting); Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. v. Herman,
15
976 F. Supp. 1, 8 (D.D.C. 1997) (holding an APA claim challenging an agency’s
delay moot because the agency had finally acted).
But the VA has never argued that this case has become moot, and the sparse
record gives us no reason to think that all of the alleged violations have been
remedied since the second amended complaint was filed. And there is a wide gulf
between the VA being “in the process” of implementing new procedures and it
having those new procedures fully in place. Almost moot is not actually moot. See
Buono v. Norton, 371 F.3d 543, 545 (9th Cir. 2004) (“Defendants urge that, given
the impending mootness of this case, the Court should avoid deciding the
constitutional issues raised here. . . . We are not convinced. This case is not yet
moot and may not be for a significant time. . . .”) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Summary judgment should not have been granted wholesale on the APA
claims either because any violation was not the result of a conscious decision to
violate the law or because relief supposedly was on the way.1
1
This matters as to eight of the nine claims in the second amended complaint. Count 9
asserted that the VA failed to provide information security protections in violation of FISMA, 44
U.S.C. § 3541–48, but Perkins and Qualls have abandoned that claim by not pressing it before
us. See Smith v. Allen, 502 F.3d 1255, 1263 n.3 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[I]ssues not raised on appeal
are considered abandoned.”); United States v. Mesa, 247 F.3d 1165, 1171 n.6 (11th Cir. 2001)
(noting that an issue not raised during the defendant’s initial appeal had been abandoned and was
not part of the remand).
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2.
Not wanting to have to respond to the claims retail, the VA argues that
wholesale summary judgment should be affirmed on the ground that Perkins and
Qualls requested broad and programmatic relief against the VA’s entire
information technology security system. Broad programmatic attacks against
agencies are not permissible under the APA. Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497
U.S. 871, 891, 893–94, 110 S. Ct. 3177, 3190–91 (1990).
In Lujan environmentalists challenged the Bureau of Land Management’s
entire “land withdrawal review program.” 497 U.S. at 890, 110 S. Ct. at 3189. The
plaintiffs alleged that the program was rife with violations of the law—that the
agency had failed to revise land use plans properly, to submit recommendations to
Congress, to evaluate multiple uses of the land, to give required public notice, and
to issue adequate environmental impact statements. Id. at 891, 110 S. Ct. at 3190.
Instead of describing specific failings and arguing that each one was a “final
agency action,” the plaintiffs sought to have the entire program declared illegal.
The Supreme Court did not allow that:
[R]espondent cannot seek wholesale improvement of this program by court
decree, rather than in the offices of the Department or the halls of Congress,
where programmatic improvements are normally made. Under the terms of
the APA, respondent must direct its attack against some particular “agency
action” that causes it harm.
17
Id., 110 S. Ct. at 3190. While it conceded that successful challenges to specific
final agency actions might “have the effect of requiring a regulation, a series of
regulations, or even a whole ‘program’ to be revised by the agency,” the Court
refused to allow generalized attacks. Id. at 894, 110 S. Ct. at 3191. Systemic
improvement and sweeping actions are for the other branches, not for the courts
under the APA. Id.; see also S. Utah, 542 U.S. at 64, 124 S. Ct. at 2379.
At first glance, Perkins and Qualls’ APA challenges seem broad and
programmatic, and thus foreclosed by Lujan. Their second amended complaint, in
its prayer for relief, does ask for sweeping changes to VA security procedures.
However, as the Supreme Court implied in Lujan, the ban on generalized attacks
does not prevent a plaintiff from bringing a handful of specialized challenges to
specific “final agency actions” that, if successful, would have a broad impact on
the agency’s program. A proper analysis must go claim by claim, identifying each
one and determining whether it is based on a “final agency action.”
3.
While we might launch into that analysis ourselves, we think that the better
course in this case is for the district court to perform the retail level, claim-by-claim
analysis of the APA claims in the first instance. That will allow a more thorough
and hierarchical approach to the decision making. Accordingly, we remand this
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part of the case to the district court to determine whether each one of Perkins and
Qualls’ eight remaining claims seeking declaratory and injunctive relief is proper
under the APA.
In making that determination the district court should keep in mind that any
valid APA claim must challenge “agency action,” which is defined as “includ[ing]
the whole or a part of an agency rule, order, license, sanction, relief or the
equivalent or denial thereof, or failure to act.” 5 U.S.C. § 551(13). The terms
“rule,” “order,” “license,” “sanction,” and “relief” are individually defined by the
APA. See 5 U.S.C. § 551(4–11). The phrase “or the equivalent” must be read
cautiously because any agency step that is the “equivalent” of a narrow included
term must also be narrow. S. Utah, 542 U.S. at 62, 124 S. Ct. at 2379.
If the claim attacks an agency’s action, instead of its failure to act, and the
statute allegedly violated does not provide a private right of action, then the
“agency action” must also be a “final agency action.” 5 U.S.C. § 704; see also S.
Utah, 542 U.S. at 61–62, 124 S. Ct. at 2379; Norton, 324 F.3d at 1236 (“[F]ederal
jurisdiction is similarly lacking when the administrative action in question is not
‘final’ within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 704.”). “To be considered ‘final,’ an
agency’s action: (1) must mark the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking
process—it must not be of a merely tentative or interlocutory nature; and (2) must
19
be one by which rights or obligations have been determined, or from which legal
consequences will flow.” U.S. Steel Corp. v. Astrue, 495 F.3d 1272, 1280 (11th
Cir. 2007) (quoting Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 177–78, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1168
(1997)).
If the claim challenges a failure to act, see 5 U.S.C. § 551(13), it falls under
5 U.S.C. § 706(1), which allows courts to compel agency action “unlawfully
withheld or unreasonably delayed.” In that case the claim may proceed only
“where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that
it is required to take.” S. Utah, 542 U.S. at 64, 124 S. Ct. at 2380. “The important
point is that a ‘failure to act’ is properly understood to be limited, as are the other
items in § 551(13), to a discrete action.” Id. at 63, 124 S. Ct. at 2379.
On remand the district court should perform the required analysis for each of
the eight remaining APA claims.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED as to Count 9 of the second
amended complaint and as to Counts 1 through 5 insofar as they seek monetary
damages, but it is REVERSED and REMANDED as to Counts 1 through 8, insofar
as they seek declaratory and injunctive relief under the APA, for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
20