Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth, Inc., et al. v. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, et al.

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-11052
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
SOUL QUEST CHURCH OF MOTHER EARTH,
INC.,
CHRISTOPHER YOUNG,
Petitioners,
versus
U.S. DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION,
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR OF THE U.S. DRUG
ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION,
Respondents.
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
Before J ORDAN, JILL PRYOR , and B RANCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth, Inc. (“Soul Quest”)1
seeks review of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (“DEA”)2
final decision denying it a religious exemption to the Controlled
Substances Act (“CSA”). The DEA moved to dismiss the petition,
arguing that it was untimely. We agree with the DEA. After careful
review, we grant the DEA’s motion and dismiss Soul Quest’s peti-
tion.
I. BACKGROUND
We laid out the facts relevant to Soul Quest’s failed petition
for a religious exemption to the CSA in a recent opinion, Soul Quest
Church of Mother Earth, Inc. v. Attorney General (Soul Quest I), __ F.4th
__, No. 22-11072, 2023 WL 8714320 (11th Cir. Dec. 18, 2023). Thus,
we discuss only the facts relevant to this appeal.
1 Soul Quest petitioned for review joined by Christopher Young, its spiritual
leader. For simplicity’s sake, we refer to the petitioners collectively as “Soul
Quest.”
2 Soul Quest named as respondents to its petition the DEA, the Administrator
of the DEA, and the Attorney General of the United States. For simplicity’s
sake, we refer to respondents collectively as the “DEA.”
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22-11052 Opinion of the Court 3
A. Soul Quest’s Petition for a Religious Exemption and Its
Lawsuit in District Court
On August 21, 2017, Soul Quest, through its attorney, peti-
tioned the DEA for a religious exemption to the CSA. The petition
sought an exemption to the CSA “specifically as it pertain[ed] to
the ritual use by Soul Quest of ayahuasca for its sacramental activ-
ities.” AR at 51.3
The DEA initially did not respond to Soul Quest’s petition.
After three years with no response, Soul Quest filed an action in
district court, claiming that the DEA’s failure to respond to its pe-
tition violated its right to the free exercise of religion and its rights
under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”).4 The law-
suit apparently caught the DEA’s attention, because the agency
soon communicated with Soul Quest confirming receipt of the re-
ligious exemption petition. Following negotiations with Soul
Quest, the DEA conducted the investigation necessary to evaluate
Soul Quest’s religious exemption request.
Finally, on April 16, 2021, the DEA sent a Soul Quest a letter
denying its petition for a religious exemption to the CSA. In the
3 “AR” refers to the administrative record.
4 As we summarized in Soul Quest I, “RFRA prohibits a federal agency like the
DEA from burdening an individual’s free exercise of sincerely-held religious
beliefs unless the agency can show that the burden advances a compelling gov-
ernmental interest and is carried out with the least restrictive means.” 2023
WL 8714320, at *1 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-l(b)).
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
letter, the DEA explained that the church had not met its burden
under RFRA to show that its members’ beliefs were sincerely held
and that its use of ayahuasca was part of a religious exercise. In ad-
dition, the DEA found compelling governmental interests in main-
taining public safety and preventing diversion of the controlled
substance into improper channels. And it found that the CSA’s pro-
hibitions furthered those compelling interests with the least restric-
tive means. The letter concluded “[t]his letter is a final determina-
tion under 21 U.S.C. § 877.” Id. at 9.
Instead of filing a new action, Soul Quest sought review of
the DEA’s denial by amending its complaint pending in district
court. In the amended complaint, Soul Quest challenged the merits
of the DEA’s final decision. The district court dismissed the action
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, relying on 21 U.S.C. § 877,
which requires a party aggrieved by a final decision made under the
CSA’s Control and Enforcement subchapter to obtain judicial re-
view from an appropriate federal circuit court of appeals—not a
federal district court.5
B. Procedural History
After the district court ruled, Soul Quest filed this petition
for review of the DEA’s decision in this Court on April 4, 2022.
Among other claims, Soul Quest asserted that the DEA exceeded
5 Soul Quest timely appealed the district court’s dismissal on the same day it
filed this petition for review. In Soul Quest I, we affirmed the district court’s
dismissal. 2023 WL 8714320, at *16.
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22-11052 Opinion of the Court 5
its authority and violated Soul Quest’s constitutional rights by
denying the exemption based on the agency’s evaluation of the
church’s religious beliefs. Soul Quest also challenged the DEA’s re-
ligious exemption petition process as “arbitrary and capricious” in
violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). Pet. for
Rev. 7–8. It requested that we “hold unlawful, vacate, and enjoin
the [DEA’s] final agency decision” and mandate that the DEA “ex-
peditiously issue the requested religious exemption.”6 Id. at 10–11.
The DEA moved to dismiss Soul Quest’s petition for review
as untimely. The agency argues in its motion that its April 16, 2021
letter denying Soul Quest’s petition for a religious exemption was
a final decision, after notice of which Soul Quest had 30 days to
petition for review. Therefore, the agency contends, Soul Quest far
exceeded this time limit by petitioning this Court on April 4, 2022.
We now consider the DEA’s motion to dismiss.
II. DISCUSSION
The issue before us is whether Soul Quest’s petition for re-
view is timely. Both parties agree that the timeliness of the petition
depends on when—and whether—the DEA’s decision denying
Soul Quest a religious exemption became final.
6 Both parties briefed the merits of Soul Quest’s petition. Because we decide
that Soul Quest’s petition for review was untimely, and therefore dismiss the
petition, we do not reach the merits of Soul Quest’s claims and do not discuss
them further.
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
In Soul Quest I, we held that the DEA’s decision denying Soul
Quest a religious exemption was made under the CSA’s Control
and Enforcement subchapter and was therefore subject to 21
U.S.C. § 877. 2023 WL 8714320, at *12. Section 877 governs judicial
review of “final” decisions made under the subchapter. It provides
that:
any person aggrieved by a final decision of the Attor-
ney General may obtain review of the decision in the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Co-
lumbia or for the circuit in which his principal place
of business is located upon petition filed with the
court and delivered to the Attorney General within
thirty days after notice of the decision.
21 U.S.C. § 877.7
To determine whether a DEA decision is final under § 877,
other circuits have applied the test articulated in Bennett v. Spear,
520 U.S. 154 (1997). See Advanced Integrative Med. Sci. Inst., PLLC v.
Garland, 24 F.4th 1249, 1256–58 (9th Cir. 2022); John Doe, Inc. v.
DEA, 484 F.3d 561, 566 & n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2007). Bennett interpreted
the meaning of “final” agency action in the context of the APA and
7 Although § 877 refers to final decisions of the Attorney General, the Attorney
General has delegated his decision-making authority under the CSA to the
DEA Administrator, except in specific circumstances. See 28 C.F.R. § 0.100(b).
Here, the Attorney General has delegated to the DEA Administrator the au-
thority to decide whether to grant a religious exemption to the CSA. See id.;
Soul Quest I, 2023 WL 8714320, at *15 (noting that the CSA authorized the DEA
to decide Soul Quest’s petition for a religious exemption).
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22-11052 Opinion of the Court 7
held that “[a]s a general matter, two conditions must be satisfied
for agency action to be ‘final.’” 520 U.S. at 177. First, “the action
must mark the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking pro-
cess” and “must not be of a merely tentative or interlocutory na-
ture.” Id. at 177–78 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second,
“the action must be one by which rights or obligations have been
determined, or from which legal consequences will flow.” Id. at 178
(internal quotation marks omitted).
We are persuaded by the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning, in ap-
plying Bennett, that the word “final” in § 877 is “analytically equiv-
alent to the meaning of the same word in the APA.” Advanced Inte-
grative Med. Sci. Inst., 24 F.4th at 1257 (internal quotation marks
omitted). This reasoning honors the related-statutes canon of stat-
utory construction, which says that statutes on the same subject
should be interpreted harmoniously. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A.
Garner, Reading Law 252–53 (2012). We followed this rule our-
selves in a recent case, in which we cited Bennett in support of our
conclusion that an FCC action was final under the Hobbs Act, 28
USC § 2342(1). Consumers’ Rsch., Caused Based Com., Inc., 88 F.4th
917, 922–23 (11th Cir. 2023). To harmonize our interpretation of
the finality of agency action across statutes, we apply the Bennett
conditions to assess finality under § 877, too.
Applying the Bennett conditions to the DEA’s April 16, 2021
letter denying Soul Quest’s petition for a religious exemption, we
conclude that it was a final decision. First, the decision marked the
consummation of a months-long process during which the DEA
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
evaluated Soul Quest’s desired use of ayahuasca. And the decision
was not tentative or interlocutory: it finally disposed of Soul
Quest’s petition for a religious exemption. Second, the decision de-
finitively determined Soul Quest’s rights: it affirmatively denied
Soul Quest the right to use ayahuasca legally. See John Doe, Inc., 484
F.3d at 566–67 (concluding that DEA’s denial of importation permit
was final action that clearly determined permit-seeker’s rights).
Both Bennett conditions were met when the DEA’s decision was
transmitted to Soul Quest on April 16, 2021; thus, the decision was
final on that date.
We turn now to when the petition was due. Section 877 af-
fords petitioners “thirty days after notice” of a final decision to pe-
tition for review.8 21 U.S.C. § 877. We must, therefore, determine
when Soul Quest received notice of the DEA’s denial. Soul Quest
previously acknowledged that it received the DEA’s decision letter
on the same day it was sent, April 16, 2021. But even if we do not
hold Soul Quest to its acknowledgment, it undoubtedly was aware
8 The DEA argues that this time limit is jurisdictional and thus admits of no
equitable exception. But we have recognized that another statute establishing
the deadline for petitioning for review of a final agency decision was not juris-
dictional. See Corbett v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 767 F.3d 1171, 1178 (11th Cir. 2014)
(concluding that 60-day deadline to petition for review of Transportation Se-
curity Administration decision was not jurisdictional). Nevertheless, we need
not decide whether § 877’s time limit is jurisdictional because, as we explain
below, even assuming that the time limit is not jurisdictional and thus subject
to equitable tolling, Soul Quest has established no basis for equitable tolling
here.
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22-11052 Opinion of the Court 9
of the decision by May 7, 2021, when it attached the DEA’s letter
to a district court filing.
Soul Quest’s petition was due no later than 30 days after May
7, 2021—June 6, 2021. Thus, Soul Quest well exceeded the deadline
for filing its petition for review—by roughly 10 months—when it
petitioned this Court in April 2022. We conclude that the petition
is untimely and ripe for dismissal.
Soul Quest nonetheless advances two arguments why its pe-
tition for review was timely. First, it argues that the DEA’s decision
became final only when the district court dismissed its third-
amended complaint. Accepting this as the date of the final decision
would render Soul Quest’s petition for review timely. Second, Soul
Quest argues that the DEA lacks the authority to make a final de-
cision on a petition for a religious exemption; thus, there could be
no final decision. We discuss each of Soul Quest’s arguments in
turn.
First, Soul Quest argues that the DEA’s denial of its petition
for a religious exemption was not final until March 4, 2022, the day
the district court dismissed the church’s pending challenges to the
decision. Because the district court case was still pending when the
DEA issued its decision letter, Soul Quest asserts, Soul Quest’s legal
rights and obligations were not finally determined until the case’s
dismissal.
We reject this argument. As an initial matter, the operative
decision from which § 877’s time limit runs is “a final decision of
the [DEA],” not any subsequent challenge to that decision. 21
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10 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
U.S.C. § 877. The finality of an agency decision is assessed when
the decision was issued and does not change as the result of judicial
review. See Biden v. Texas, 597 U.S. 785, 808–10 (2022); Data Market-
ing P’ship, LP v. U.S. Dep’t of Lab. 45 F.4th 846, 854 (5th Cir. 2022)
(“An [agency] action is either final or not.”). And we have already
concluded that the DEA’s decision was final. Even if Soul Quest’s
district court challenge had been successful and the court had al-
lowed the church to use ayahuasca, the DEA’s April 16, 2021 letter
still would have been the final decision for purposes of a petition
for review under 21 U.S.C. § 877.
In addition, there is no equitable reason to toll the time limit
to accommodate Soul Quest’s foray into district court. We have
said that “dogged prosecution of [a] petition in the district court is
not a reasonable ground to excuse [a] failure to file [a] petition on
time in this Court.” Corbett v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 767 F.3d 1171,
1178–79 (2014). Soul Quest chose to pursue its claims in district
court and wait to file this petition for review until after the district
court dismissed its case.9 When a petitioner chooses this course of
action, we generally do not excuse delay based on a
9 We note that Soul Quest disputes the DEA’s contention that it “knowingly
and intentionally chose to pursue a district court civil action in lieu of timely
petitioning for review under 21 U.S.C. § 877.” Resp. to Mot. to Dismiss 12 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted). But what Soul Quest admits to doing is not
meaningfully different. The church acknowledges that it waited until the dis-
trict court ruled before filing the instant petition for review, erroneously rea-
soning that the DEA’s decision was not final until then. Whatever Soul Quest’s
reasons for waiting to file the petition, its conscious choice caused the delay.
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22-11052 Opinion of the Court 11
“misapprehension of the law” unless the petitioner claims that the
agency caused its confusion. Id. at 1179 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Soul Quest has not argued any such confusion here. We
cannot toll § 877’s time limit for Soul Quest’s “quixotic pursuit of
the wrong remed[y].” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Second, Soul Quest argues that the DEA lacked the author-
ity to make a final decision on its petition for a religious exemption,
and, therefore, the DEA’s decision was not final. We reject this ar-
gument, too. Although Soul Quest styles this argument as one re-
garding finality, it in fact addresses the merits of the DEA’s deci-
sion. The conditions that we consider when determining whether
an agency decision is final, discussed above, do not include the
agency’s authority to make the decision.
To the extent we consider Soul Quest’s argument that the
DEA exceeded its authority, we conclude that it is foreclosed by
Soul Quest I, in which we determined that the DEA’s decision was
“well within” the agency’s authority. 2023 WL 8714320, at *12; see
also id. at *15 (“[T]he DEA’s authority to decide Soul Quest’s peti-
tion for a religious exemption came from the CSA because the CSA
is the source of the DEA’s authority both to prohibit Soul Quest
from handling ayahuasca and to allow it to do so under the CSA’s
registration provisions.”).
The DEA’s denial of Soul Quest’s petition for a religious ex-
emption to the CSA became final no later than April 16, 2021. Be-
cause Soul Quest failed to petition for review within 30 days after
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12 Opinion of the Court 22-11052
it received notice of that decision, its petition was untimely. We
therefore grant the DEA’s motion to dismiss.10
III. CONCLUSION
The DEA’s motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and this appeal
is DISMISSED.
10 Soul Quest has asked that, if we find its petition untimely, we transfer the
petition to another court to review under 28 U.S.C. § 1631. But we cannot
transfer the petition, specifically because it was untimely. Section 1631 provides
for the transfer of actions filed in the wrong court, dictating that when a peti-
tion for review is filed in a court that does not have jurisdiction to review it,
that “court shall, if it is in the interest of justice, transfer [the petition] to any
other such court . . . in which the [petition] could have been brought at the
time it was filed or noticed.” 28 U.S.C. § 1631. Thus, the plain language of
§ 1631 does not permit the transfer of an untimely petition for review such as
Soul Quest’s because the petition could not have been brought in another
court “at the time it was filed or noticed.” Id.; see De Ping Wang v. Dep’t of Home-
land Sec., 484 F.3d 615, 616–18 (2d Cir. 2007).
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