## Facts

- The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) Administrator issued a regulation barring any individual who had reached age 60 from serving as a pilot in air carrier operations.
- The rule was promulgated through notice-and-comment procedures and set to take effect March 15, 1960.
- Individual airline pilots, their union (Air Line Pilots Association, International), and the union’s president sued seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction against enforcement.
- Plaintiffs alleged the rule required individual, trial-type hearings under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and under statutory provisions governing amendment, suspension, or revocation of individual airman certificates.
- Plaintiffs also claimed the regulation was arbitrary and discriminatory and that it deprived them of property (their pilot certificates and ability to work) without due process.
- The district court denied a preliminary injunction after considering affidavits; plaintiffs took an interlocutory appeal from that denial.

## Issues

1. Whether a generally applicable FAA safety regulation limiting pilots in air carrier service to those under age 60 was invalid absent individual adjudicatory hearings under the APA and the Federal Aviation Act provisions governing actions against specific airman certificates.
2. Whether the age-60 rule exceeded the FAA Administrator’s safety rulemaking authority or was arbitrary or discriminatory.
3. Whether applying the rule to licensed pilots violated the Fifth Amendment by depriving them of property without due process.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction.
- The court held the age-60 regulation was a valid exercise of the Administrator’s delegated authority to issue safety rules of general applicability.
- The court held the regulation was promulgated through permissible rulemaking procedures and did not require individual adjudicatory hearings for affected pilots.
- The court concluded the rule was rationally related to aviation safety and was not arbitrary or discriminatory on its face.
- The court rejected the due process challenge, holding that even assuming a protectable interest in the certificate or its economic value, due process was satisfied by valid rulemaking within statutory authority for a safety purpose.

## Legal Principles

- An agency may adopt prospective, generally applicable safety standards through APA rulemaking (notice and opportunity for written comment) without conducting trial-type hearings for each affected licensee.
- Statutory hearing requirements tied to modification, suspension, or revocation of specific licenses do not necessarily apply to broadly applicable safety regulations that operate categorically rather than case by case.
- Courts generally defer to an expert agency’s predictive safety judgments when the regulation falls within the agency’s statutory mandate and has a rational basis.
- A generally applicable regulation that limits the use or economic value of an existing license does not, by itself, require individualized hearings if promulgated through lawful procedures for a legitimate public purpose.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that the FAA Administrator could lawfully impose an age-based categorical pilot qualification rule through notice-and-comment rulemaking, without individual adjudicatory hearings, and that the rule was within delegated safety authority, rationally related to flight safety, and not unconstitutional on due process grounds.


Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l v. Quesada, 276 F.2d 892 (2d Cir. 1960)