Block v. Community Nutrition Institute

Supreme Court of the United States · 1984 · Administrative Law

467 U.S. 340 (1984)

Updated August 1, 2026

Administrative Lawpreclusion of reviewAPA5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(1)5 U.S.C. § 702implied preclusionjudicial reviewAgricultural Marketing Agreement Act

Facts

The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to issue milk market orders that set minimum prices handlers must pay producers and establishes a detailed administrative process involving the Secretary, handlers, and producers. The challenged orders required handlers using reconstituted milk to make compensatory payments equal to the difference between Class I and Class II prices when the milk was not used for surplus milk products. Respondents alleged that this compensatory payment made reconstituted milk uneconomical, and the individual consumer respondents sought judicial review under the APA. The Act expressly provides handlers, after exhausting administrative remedies, a route to judicial review, but it contains no comparable provision for consumers.

Issue

Whether ultimate consumers of dairy products may obtain judicial review under the APA of milk market orders issued by the Secretary under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act. More specifically, the question is whether the Act impliedly precludes judicial review at the behest of consumers even though it does not eliminate all judicial review.

Rule

Whether a statute precludes judicial review under the APA is determined not only from express language, but also from the structure of the statutory scheme, its objectives, its legislative history, and the nature of the administrative action involved. The presumption favoring judicial review is overcome when congressional intent to preclude review is fairly discernible in the statutory scheme; in particular, where a statute provides a detailed mechanism for judicial consideration of issues at the behest of particular persons, review of those issues at the behest of other persons may be impliedly precluded.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Congress creates a federal citrus-marketing program. The statute gives packers a formal administrative petition process and then district-court review after exhaustion, while growers vote on orders and participate in hearings; restaurant owners who buy orange juice are mentioned only in the statute's general policy section and sue directly in federal court under the APA to challenge a pricing order as unlawful.

Should the district court most likely permit the restaurant owners' APA suit to proceed?

Explanation. The majority held that APA review may be impliedly precluded when congressional intent is fairly discernible from the statute's structure, objectives, legislative history, and the nature of the action. A detailed review mechanism for specified parties supports an inference that review by other parties is barred. Here, the statute channels review to packers, includes growers and packers in hearings and voting, and omits purchasers from the scheme. That makes purchaser suits likely precluded even without an express bar. Because preclusion is jurisdictional in effect, the court need not reach standing first.