Section 80 Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies

• Library: Administrative Law 2011

In general, statutory administrative remedies must be exhausted before an aggrieved party may seek relief from the federal courts. Cornish v. Blakey, 336 F.3d 749, 753 (8^th Cir. 2003). “Where relief is available from an administrative agency, the plaintiff is ordinarily required to pursue that avenue of redress before proceeding to the courts; and until that recourse is exhausted, suit is premature and must be dismissed.” Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 269 (1993). In the absence of a constitutional challenge, courts will require that administrative remedies must be exhausted as long as the administrative remedies are adequate to provide the relief requested. See generally McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140 (1992); Bukaka, Inc. v. County of Benton, 852 F. Supp. 807 (D. Minn. 1993); JBK, Inc. v. City of Kansas City, Mo., 641 F. Supp. 893 (W.D. Mo. 1986).

While the APA requirement of “final agency action” and exhaustion serve similar interests, “the judicial doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies is conceptually distinct from the...