## Facts

- Telecommunications Research & Action Center (TRAC) and other public-interest organizations filed a petition at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1979 challenging AT&T’s rates as unlawful overcharges.
- The FCC opened proceedings but did not resolve key issues for years, including AT&T’s 1978 interstate and foreign services rate of return and the treatment of certain Western Electric costs related to customer premises equipment (1980–1982).
- Members of Congress repeatedly questioned the FCC’s delay; the FCC provided projected decision dates but missed them.
- TRAC filed in the D.C. Circuit both a petition for review and a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to compel the FCC to decide the pending matters.
- AT&T and GTE intervened in support of the FCC’s position.
- During the litigation, the FCC represented it planned to resolve the matter by a date certain (November 30, 1984).

## Issues

1. Whether claims that an agency has unreasonably delayed action in a matter for which final agency action is reviewable exclusively in the court of appeals must be brought in the court of appeals rather than the district court.
2. What standard governs whether a court of appeals should issue mandamus to remedy “unreasonable delay” under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), including 5 U.S.C. §§ 555(b) and 706(1), and whether the FCC’s delay met that standard.

## Decision

- The court held that when Congress channels review of final agency action to the court of appeals, that court has exclusive jurisdiction over suits seeking relief that could affect its future statutory review authority, including claims of unreasonable agency delay.
- The court recognized that unreasonable-delay claims fall within a narrow class of interlocutory matters appropriate for appellate-court intervention because, absent agency action, judicial review may never occur.
- The court declined to issue mandamus immediately on the existing record, but treated mandamus as available for sufficiently egregious delay and retained authority to act if the FCC did not comply with its stated schedule.
- The court articulated a structured framework for evaluating whether delay is so egregious as to justify mandamus, later applied as the “TRAC factors.”

## Legal Principles

- Where a statute commits review of final agency action to a court of appeals, that court’s jurisdiction is exclusive over related claims for relief—such as unreasonable-delay claims—that could interfere with or determine the scope of that future review.
- APA § 555(b) requires agencies to conclude matters presented to them within a reasonable time; APA § 706(1) authorizes reviewing courts to compel action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.
- Mandamus may issue to remedy unreasonable agency delay when the delay is so egregious as to warrant extraordinary relief.
- In assessing unreasonable delay, courts consider (among other considerations) a “rule of reason,” any statutory timetable, the interests harmed by delay, the effect of expediting action on competing agency priorities, and that proof of bad faith is not required.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that unreasonable-delay claims connected to matters reviewable exclusively in the court of appeals must be brought there, not in district court, and it set a multi-factor approach for determining when delay justifies mandamus, while declining to compel immediate FCC action but maintaining oversight tied to the agency’s promised decision date.


Telecommunications Research & Action Ctr. v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70 (D.C. Cir. 1984)