Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial ProcedureRelease 119-102
§2112 Record on Review and Enforcement of Agency Orders
Title 28 › PART V — PROCEDURE › CHAPTER 133 — REVIEW—MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS › § 2112
Summary
Gives rules for how the record must be sent to the courts of appeals when someone asks a court to block, change, suspend, review, or enforce an agency’s order. The agency or official can file a certified list of the papers instead of sending everything at once and keep the papers until the court asks for them. A copy of a petition that the court stamps with the filing date counts as the petition. If petitions are filed in more than one court, the agency follows special timing rules: if, within 10 days after the order, petitions are filed in at least two courts, the agency must tell the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation; that panel will pick by random draw one court of appeals to handle the case and will combine the petitions. If only one court has a timely petition, the agency files the record in that court. The agency must name who gets petitions for review. Lists what goes into the record and how papers are handled. The record must include the order, the reasons or report behind it, and the pleadings, evidence, and agency proceedings or the parts required by court rules, agreed by the parties, or ordered by the court. If a factual finding is challenged, all evidence must be included unless everyone agrees some parts are irrelevant. The court can ask for extra parts later. The agency may send originals or certified copies; originals are returned after the case ends or temporarily if needed. Any appeals court where a case started may stay the order, but stays can be changed by the court chosen by the panel or by a court where the case is moved. The rules do not apply to Tax Court reviews or to agency orders that the law says must be reviewed by district courts.
Full Legal Text
Title 28, §2112
Judiciary and Judicial Procedure, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
(a)The rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of this title may provide for the time and manner of filing and the contents of the record in all proceedings instituted in the courts of appeals to enjoin, set aside, suspend, modify, or otherwise review or enforce orders of administrative agencies, boards, commissions, and officers. Such rules may authorize the agency, board, commission, or officer to file in the court a certified list of the materials comprising the record and retain and hold for the court all such materials and transmit the same or any part thereof to the court, when and as required by it, at any time prior to the final determination of the proceeding, and such filing of such certified list of the materials comprising the record and such subsequent transmittal of any such materials when and as required shall be deemed full compliance with any provision of law requiring the filing of the record in the court. The record in such proceedings shall be certified and filed in or held for and transmitted to the court of appeals by the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned within the time and in the manner prescribed by such rules. If proceedings are instituted in two or more courts of appeals with respect to the same order, the following shall apply:
(1)If within ten days after issuance of the order the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned receives, from the persons instituting the proceedings, the petition for review with respect to proceedings in at least two courts of appeals, the agency, board, commission, or officer shall proceed in accordance with paragraph (3) of this subsection. If within ten days after the issuance of the order the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned receives, from the persons instituting the proceedings, the petition for review with respect to proceedings in only one court of appeals, the agency, board, commission, or officer shall file the record in that court notwithstanding the institution in any other court of appeals of proceedings for review of that order. In all other cases in which proceedings have been instituted in two or more courts of appeals with respect to the same order, the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned shall file the record in the court in which proceedings with respect to the order were first instituted.
(2)For purposes of paragraph (1) of this subsection, a copy of the petition or other pleading which institutes proceedings in a court of appeals and which is stamped by the court with the date of filing shall constitute the petition for review. Each agency, board, commission, or officer, as the case may be, shall designate by rule the office and the officer who must receive petitions for review under paragraph (1).
(3)If an agency, board, commission, or officer receives two or more petitions for review of an order in accordance with the first sentence of paragraph (1) of this subsection, the agency, board, commission, or officer shall, promptly after the expiration of the ten-day period specified in that sentence, so notify the judicial panel on multidistrict litigation authorized by section 1407 of this title, in such form as that panel shall prescribe. The judicial panel on multidistrict litigation shall, by means of random selection, designate one court of appeals, from among the courts of appeals in which petitions for review have been filed and received within the ten-day period specified in the first sentence of paragraph (1), in which the record is to be filed, and shall issue an order consolidating the petitions for review in that court of appeals. The judicial panel on multidistrict litigation shall, after providing notice to the public and an opportunity for the submission of comments, prescribe rules with respect to the consolidation of proceedings under this paragraph. The agency, board, commission, or officer concerned shall file the record in the court of appeals designated pursuant to this paragraph.
(4)Any court of appeals in which proceedings with respect to an order of an agency, board, commission, or officer have been instituted may, to the extent authorized by law, stay the effective date of the order. Any such stay may thereafter be modified, revoked, or extended by a court of appeals designated pursuant to paragraph (3) with respect to that order or by any other court of appeals to which the proceedings are transferred.
(5)All courts in which proceedings are instituted with respect to the same order, other than the court in which the record is filed pursuant to this subsection, shall transfer those proceedings to the court in which the record is so filed. For the convenience of the parties in the interest of justice, the court in which the record is filed may thereafter transfer all the proceedings with respect to that order to any other court of appeals.
(b)The record to be filed in the court of appeals in such a proceeding shall consist of the order sought to be reviewed or enforced, the findings or report upon which it is based, and the pleadings, evidence, and proceedings before the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned, or such portions thereof (1) as the rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of this title may require to be included therein, or (2) as the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned, the petitioner for review or respondent in enforcement, as the case may be, and any intervenor in the court proceeding by written stipulation filed with the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned or in the court in any such proceeding may consistently with the rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of this title designate to be included therein, or (3) as the court upon motion of a party or, after a prehearing conference, upon its own motion may by order in any such proceeding designate to be included therein. Such a stipulation or order may provide in an appropriate case that no record need be filed in the court of appeals. If, however, the correctness of a finding of fact by the agency, board, commission, or officer is in question all of the evidence before the agency, board, commission, or officer shall be included in the record except such as the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned, the petitioner for review or respondent in enforcement, as the case may be, and any intervenor in the court proceeding by written stipulation filed with the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned or in the court agree to omit as wholly immaterial to the questioned finding. If there is omitted from the record any portion of the proceedings before the agency, board, commission, or officer which the court subsequently determines to be proper for it to consider to enable it to review or enforce the order in question the court may direct that such additional portion of the proceedings be filed as a supplement to the record. The agency, board, commission, or officer concerned may, at its option and without regard to the foregoing provisions of this subsection, and if so requested by the petitioner for review or respondent in enforcement shall, file in the court the entire record of the proceedings before it without abbreviation.
(c)The agency, board, commission, or officer concerned may transmit to the court of appeals the original papers comprising the whole or any part of the record or any supplemental record, otherwise true copies of such papers certified by an authorized officer or deputy of the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned shall be transmitted. Any original papers thus transmitted to the court of appeals shall be returned to the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned upon the final determination of the review or enforcement proceeding. Pending such final determination any such papers may be returned by the court temporarily to the custody of the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned if needed for the transaction of the public business. Certified copies of any papers included in the record or any supplemental record may also be returned to the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned upon the final determination of review or enforcement proceedings.
(d)The provisions of this section are not applicable to proceedings to review decisions of the Tax Court of the United States or to proceedings to review or enforce those orders of administrative agencies, boards, commissions, or officers which are by law reviewable or enforceable by the district courts.
Legislative History
Notes & Related Subsidiaries
Editorial Notes
Amendments
1988—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 100–236 substituted “If proceedings are instituted in two or more courts of appeals with respect to the same order, the following shall apply:” and pars. (1) to (5) for “If proceedings have been instituted in two or more courts of appeals with respect to the same order the agency, board, commission, or officer concerned shall file the record in that one of such courts in which a proceeding with respect to such order was first instituted. The other courts in which such proceedings are pending shall thereupon transfer them to the court of appeals in which the record has been filed. For the convenience of the parties in the interest of justice such court may thereafter transfer all the proceedings with respect to such order to any other court of appeals.” 1966—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 89–773, § 5(a), substituted “The rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of this title may provide for the time and manner of filing” for “The several courts of appeal shall have power to adopt, with the approval of the Judicial Conference of the United States, rules, which so far as practicable shall be uniform in all such courts prescribing the time and manner of filing.” See section 2072 of this title. Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 89–773, § 5(b), substituted “the rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of this title” for “the said rules of the court of appeals” and for “the rules of such court”.
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Effective Date
of 1988 Amendment Pub. L. 100–236, § 3, Jan. 8, 1988, 101 Stat. 1732, provided that: “The
Amendments
made by this Act [amending this section and section 1369 of Title 33, Navigation and Navigable Waters] take effect 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act [Jan 8, 1988], except that the judicial panel on multidistrict litigation may issue rules pursuant to subsection (a)(3) of section 2112 of title 28, United States Code (as added by section 1), on or after such date of enactment.”
Savings Provision
Pub. L. 89–773, § 5(c), Nov. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 1323, provided that: “The
Amendments
of section 2112 of title 28 of the United States Code made by this Act shall not operate to invalidate or repeal rules adopted under the authority of that section prior to the enactment of this Act [Nov. 6, 1966], which rules shall remain in effect until superseded by rules prescribed under the authority of section 2072 of title 28 of the United States Code as amended by this Act.”
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
28 U.S.C. § 2112
Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure
Last Updated
Aug 21, 2026
Release point: 119-102