Pros And Cons Of Judicial Exhaustion

SHOULD FLINT RESIDENTS BE REQUIRED TO EXHAUST ALL ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES BEFORE SEEKING JUDICIAL RELIEF

By:
Janell Hernandez

I. INTRODUCTION

When a party is seeking to get relief against an agency which congress has established, that party must generally file a claim with the agency first. Next, the agency will have the party exhaust all remedies available in attempts to provide relief. The agency does this by applying the doctrine of exhaustion.

The general rule for the doctrine of exhaustion is that all aggrieved individuals must exhaust the remedies available within the agency prior to seeking judicial relief. This issue of exhaustion comes up when an individual who has been aggrieved by the agency’s action, attempts

Environmental cases present convincing arguments for and against the requirement of the doctrine of exhaustion. In discussing the arguments for requiring exhaustion of remedies within the agency prior to seeking judicial relief is that Congress has specifically created these agencies to specialize and handle the specifics issues of these types of cases, whether it’s a federal level agency or state level agency as they both levels of government provide environment regulations. On the other hand, exhausting all remedies would delay the aggrieve party or parties in when a seeking an immediate and speedy

It will analyze the rationale behind the doctrine of exhaustion as well as the exceptions currently recognized by the courts. This paper will further explore how the doctrine of exhaustion works in the state of Michigan, how it’s been applied in previous cases and what exceptions to the doctrine are available. It will next apply the exceptions to the doctrine of exhaustion that are recognized in both at federal level and in the state of Michigan and provide analysis as to why each of these exceptions should have been applied to the residents of Flint. Lastly, it will provide a recommendation which may help alleviate much of the unnecessary litigation and delay in obtaining a solution in a similar situation such as the Flint Water