Yesler Terrace Community Council v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 442 (1994)

Citation: Yesler Terrace Community Council v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 442 (1994)
Parent Document: Yesler Terrace Community Council v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 442 (1994)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 1994-09-12
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/679598/yesler-terrace-community-council... ↗

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In any event, HUD's premise is flawed. The form of the proceeding is not dispositive; what counts is its effect. See FTC v. Brigadier Indust. Corp., 613 F.2d 1110, 1117 (D.C.Cir.1979) ("[T]he focus is not on whether the particular proceeding involves trial-type devices but instead turns on the nature of the decision to be reached in the proceeding"). HUD's purported "adjudication" had no effect on the State of Washington. The sole effect of HUD's decision was to deprive a broad category of people of the right to an informal grievance hearing prior to eviction, and this effect had legal consequences for yet-to-be-identified individuals only prospectively. These are the effects of a rule, not of an adjudication. See Flagstaff Medical Center, Inc. v. Sullivan, 962 F.2d 879, 886 (9th Cir.1992) (interpretative rules "are used more for discretionary fine-tuning than for general law making"). An agency cannot avoid the requirement of notice-and-comment rulemaking simply by characterizing its decision as an adjudication. See NLRB v. Wyman-Gordan Co., 394 U.S. 759, 764, 89 S.Ct. 1426, 1429, 22 L.Ed.2d 709 (1969) (plurality opinion) (agency cannot avoid rulemaking requirements by making rule in course of adjudication). C

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