When the FAA Becomes the Final Word: Inside the Federal Lawsuit Challenging Its Power Over Aviation Designees

There is a phrase embedded in Federal Aviation Administration designee policy that captures the extraordinary imbalance of power at the center of a new federal lawsuit:

Federal law gives the FAA Administrator extremely broad authority over those designations. Under 49 U.S.C. § 44702(d)(2), the Administrator may rescind a delegation “at any time for any reason the Administrator considers appropriate.”^[2]

For decades, that extraordinary grant of authority has placed aviation professionals in a peculiar position. Designees perform work the FAA itself depends upon. They examine pilots. They evaluate engineering. They perform certification and safety functions under authority delegated by the federal government. In many cases, substantial investments of time, money, reputation and professional livelihood become tied to the designation.

Yet when the designation is taken away, the government maintains that the underlying delegation ultimately belongs to the FAA.

Now three aviation professionals are asking a federal court to examine where the limits of that power actually lie.

The case is Lasky et al. v. Bedford et al.. It began in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida as Case No. 3:26-cv-00580-MMH-PDB and, following transfer, is proceeding in the District of Columbia as Case No. 1:26-cv-02187. The plaintiffs are Robbie Lasky, Joseph Puglia and Jonathon Matlach. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford is named in his official capacity along with the FAA.^[1]

Attorney John D. “Jack” Webb represents the plaintiffs.

This is not simply a lawsuit about three men who lost FAA designations.

It is a proposed class action attacking the legal and administrative structure through which the FAA exercises power over designees—and particularly what happens when the agency labels a termination “for cause.”

The Second Amended Class Action Complaint is sweeping. It traces the legal history of the designee program back to the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, attacks regulatory action taken in 1954, challenges changes to 14 C.F.R. § 13.20 that became effective in 2021, challenges the later disappearance of the FAA's administrative appeal process, and asserts property and liberty interests under the Fifth Amendment.^[1]

For anyone concerned about concentrated administrative power inside the FAA, this case deserves close attention.

Who Are the Plaintiffs?

According to the Second Amended Complaint, Robbie Lasky is a former Designated Pilot Examiner, or DPE, whose designation was terminated “for cause.” He is also alleged to be a certified flight instructor, commercial pilot and airline transport pilot.

Joseph Puglia is also a former DPE terminated “for cause.” The complaint describes Puglia as a senior pilot with more than 30 years of experience in commercial and private aviation.

Jonathon Matlach expands the case beyond pilot examiners. The complaint identifies him as a former Designated Engineering Representative, or DER, with more than 30 years of aviation-industry experience involving PMAs, Supplemental Type Certificates and major engine repairs.^[1]

That expansion matters.

This is no longer merely an argument over how one Flight Standards District Office treated one examiner. The complaint attempts to frame the controversy as an agency-wide structural problem affecting different categories of FAA designees.

The proposed class allegations reference present and former DPEs, DERs and medical designees and contend that their procedural protections have been progressively degraded through regulation and internal FAA policy.

No class has yet been certified. The allegations in the complaint remain allegations, not judicial findings.

But the legal theory deserves examination.

The Extraordinary Power Congress Gave the FAA

Any serious assessment of this case has to begin by acknowledging the FAA's strongest argument.

The agency did not invent its rescission authority out of thin air.

Congress expressly provided in 49 U.S.C. § 44702(d)(2) that the Administrator may rescind a delegation:

That is breathtakingly broad statutory language.

Federal appellate courts have taken it seriously. In cases including Bradshaw v. FAA, courts have treated the substantive merits of a designee termination as largely committed to agency discretion. The Eleventh Circuit explained that although courts can consider whether the FAA complied with applicable procedures and constitutional requirements, the underlying discretionary choice to terminate generally is not something the court can simply reconsider on the merits.^[5]

That is precisely why Lasky is more interesting than a lawsuit asking a judge to decide whether three individual terminations were “fair.”

Webb and the plaintiffs are attacking the legal architecture surrounding those decisions.

That is where this case becomes considerably larger than Lasky, Puglia or Matlach.

The Story Actually Begins Long Before the FAA Existed

One of the strongest additions in the Second Amended Complaint is its historical development of the designee system.

The plaintiffs do not simply point to a regulation from 1954 and declare it illegal. They attempt to reconstruct the legal path by which private aviation designees acquired delegated government authority—and how review of that authority was contemplated along the way.

• 1938 Congress enacted the Civil Aeronautics Act and created the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The legislation contemplated the use of qualified private persons to perform examinations and reports that the government could accept in place of work performed directly by government personnel.
• 1946 Congress enacted the Administrative Procedure Act, establishing the broader federal framework governing agency rulemaking and adjudication.
• 1949 Congressional hearings examined how delegated aviation authority should operate and, importantly, how decisions made under delegated authority should be reviewed.
• 1950 Congress expressly authorized delegation of aviation functions to qualified private persons, while the statutory structure referenced “regulations, supervision, and review.”
• 1954 The Civil Aeronautics Administration amended its regulations and inserted broad termination language into the regulatory framework—without ordinary notice and comment, according to the plaintiffs.

The complaint makes much of the congressional discussions preceding the 1950 legislation. Lawmakers were concerned with review of decisions made under delegated authority and with ensuring that factual errors were not effectively insulated from meaningful correction before a matter reached an appellate court.^[1]

That history provides context for one of the lawsuit's most ambitious arguments.

Then There Is 1954

The plaintiffs go back 72 years.

On June 8, 1954, the Civil Aeronautics Administration amended what was then the regulatory framework governing aviation safety representatives.

According to the complaint, the agency said the amendment imposed “no additional burden on any person” and therefore could be made effective without prior notice.

But the resulting regulation included a remarkable termination provision. A designation could terminate for specified reasons—including improper performance and lack of need—and then ended with a catch-all allowing termination:

The plaintiffs contend this was the point at which the government's broad statutory rescission language was imported into the administrative rules in a way that effectively overwhelmed the more specific termination protections around it.

Their allegation is not merely that the FAA possesses too much power.

It is that the regulatory mechanism through which that power was embedded into the designee system was adopted without the notice and opportunity for public comment required by the APA.^[1]

Count I of the Second Amended Complaint asks the court to conclude that the 1954 amendments violated the APA and, on that theory, to invalidate affected “for cause” terminations occurring within the actionable period.

That question might once have appeared fatal.

Then the Supreme Court changed the landscape.

Two Supreme Court Decisions Changed the Playing Field

Jack Webb points to two Supreme Court decisions handed down only days apart in 2024 that may matter considerably to the theories being advanced in this case.

They address different legal issues.

Loper Bright: Courts, Not Agencies, Decide What Statutes Mean

On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.^[3]

For approximately four decades, the doctrine associated with Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council instructed federal courts, in certain circumstances, to defer to a reasonable agency interpretation of an ambiguous statute administered by that agency.

Loper Bright overruled Chevron.

In plain English: when a dispute turns on what Congress actually authorized in a statute, courts must exercise their own independent judgment. The agency does not win merely because its interpretation of ambiguous statutory language is reasonable.

That does not mean every FAA interpretation automatically loses. It does not erase the extremely broad language Congress actually placed in § 44702(d)(2). And it does not mean courts ignore agency expertise.

But to the extent Lasky turns on the FAA's interpretation of the statutes Congress enacted, the old Chevron framework no longer requires a court to defer simply because the FAA says its interpretation is reasonable.

Corner Post: An Old Rule Can Cause a New Injury

Three days after Loper Bright, the Supreme Court decided Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.^[4]

This case addressed something entirely different: when the clock begins running on an APA claim.

The generally applicable federal limitations statute provides a six-year period for civil actions against the United States. The government had argued for an approach that effectively tied the beginning of that period to final agency action itself.

The Supreme Court rejected that position in the context before it.

The Court held that an APA claim under that limitations provision does not accrue until the particular plaintiff has been injured by final agency action.

That does not establish that the plaintiffs' 1954 claim will succeed. There remain substantial questions involving the precise claim, standing, remedy, causation, reviewability and the relationship between the old regulation and a modern termination.

Nor does Corner Post itself decide whether anything the aviation agency did in 1954 was unlawful.

But it changes the answer to the obvious question:

Put Loper Bright and Corner Post together and the legal environment is meaningfully different from the one in which earlier designee cases were litigated.

1979: The FAA Itself Warned About Due Process

The historical record developed in the complaint does not stop in 1954.

In 1979, the FAA proposed what became a significant revision to 14 C.F.R. § 13.20.

The Second Amended Complaint quotes the FAA's own 1979 rulemaking discussion acknowledging the danger of administratively final orders being issued without basic due-process protections.

The agency also recognized another practical problem: judicial review is difficult when there is no meaningful administrative process producing an adequate record for a court to examine.

According to the complaint, the 1979 version of § 13.20 was therefore designed to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing for categories of final FAA orders not already covered by another specific statutory review process.^[1]

That history is critical because the plaintiffs say the FAA later took the position that § 13.20 did not apply to designee terminations at all.

Yet even while taking that position, the agency historically maintained a separate appeal mechanism for designees in its internal orders.

Until that appeal disappeared too.

There Used to Be an Appeal

Earlier FAA designee policy contained an actual procedure titled in substance “Appealing a Termination for Cause.”

That distinction matters because an appeal is not the same thing as simply being allowed to respond while the original decision-making process is underway.

The Eleventh Circuit's 2021 Bradshaw decision described the older process. A DPE terminated for cause could appeal to a three-member panel composed of people who had not participated in the original termination decision.^[5]

Even more importantly, the Tenth Circuit examined the subsequent appeal framework in detail in its 2024 decision in Wright-Smith v. FAA.

The court rejected the FAA's attempt to portray that appeal as merely procedural. Looking at the language and purpose of the policy, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the former process contemplated a substantive appeal: the panel could uphold the termination or overturn it.^[6]

Then the policy changed.

The Second Amended Complaint cites a January 27, 2025 FAA email produced through a public-records request. According to the pleading, the FAA described the change this way:

That is significant.

This is not merely the plaintiffs describing what they believe happened. According to the complaint, the FAA itself acknowledged that the appeal process was removed and an “ability to respond” was substituted for it.

Current FAA Order 8000.95D continues to establish a process surrounding designee management and termination. There are administrative steps, and it would therefore be inaccurate to suggest that literally nothing occurs before a designation is terminated.^[7]

But the stand-alone appeal process capable of overturning the termination is no longer what it once was.

2021: The Regulatory Change the Plaintiffs Want a Court to Examine

The complaint traces another major change to the amendment of 14 C.F.R. § 13.20 that became effective November 30, 2021.

Before the amendment, the regulation broadly referred to specified orders and “other orders” issued by the Administrator to carry out the federal aviation statute.

The revised language now includes other orders that apply § 13.20 by statute, rule, regulation or order, “or for which there is no specific administrative process provided by statute, rule, regulation, or order.”

The plaintiffs contend that this wording created the opening through which an FAA-created internal process could effectively substitute for the protections otherwise associated with § 13.20.

Their argument becomes even more pointed when the regulatory amendment is considered alongside the later elimination of the designee appeal.

According to the Second Amended Complaint, the sequence operated like this:

The plaintiffs characterize this as the progressive dismantling of meaningful review.

The FAA will undoubtedly have substantial responses—including arguments about the breadth of § 44702(d), the proper reach of § 44709, what constitutes required due process, what procedures were actually available to each plaintiff, and whether particular claims are reviewable in district court.

Those are issues the court will decide.

But the progression alleged in the complaint is now much clearer.

What FAA Counsel Allegedly Said in Wright-Smith

The Second Amended Complaint highlights something else from the Wright-Smith litigation.

According to the pleading, during oral argument before the Tenth Circuit, counsel for the FAA argued that the agency's former appeal panel was not reviewing whether the termination itself was correct but rather whether the FAA had followed its internal termination procedures.

The complaint then quotes FAA counsel as stating:

That quotation is presented here as an allegation and quotation contained in the filed complaint. P4HR has not relied upon that quotation as an independent judicial finding.

But the position attributed to the FAA captures the fundamental legal disagreement now before the courts:

The Wright-Smith Decision Should Make Everyone Pay Attention

Whatever one thinks about the constitutional arguments, Wright-Smith provides a real-world example of why procedural safeguards matter.

Elizabeth Wright-Smith was a DPE whose case arose from an FAA Safety Hotline complaint.

The Tenth Circuit ultimately denied her petition for review.

But that is only part of the story.

The court held that the FAA's stated reasons were inadequate to provide Wright-Smith the notice required for an effective appeal. It explained that generic labels and a statement that allegations had been “substantiated” did not adequately tell the designee what underlying conduct actually justified the termination.^[6]

Wright-Smith nevertheless lost because the court concluded that, based on the peculiar factual record, she already knew enough about the allegations to present an effective appeal. Therefore, the FAA's procedural failure had not prejudiced her.

Then the Tenth Circuit ended its decision with an unusually pointed observation:

The court further observed that all parties would be better served by transparency in termination decisions.^[6]

Think about the sequence.

A federal appellate court found that the FAA failed to give a terminated DPE sufficiently meaningful reasons for an effective appeal.

The FAA survived because the designee happened to learn enough through other circumstances to defend herself anyway.

And the substantive appeal structure that existed in Wright-Smith?

The FAA later removed it.

That does not mean Lasky, Puglia and Matlach automatically win.

It does mean the procedural concerns underlying their lawsuit are not imaginary.

The Property-Interest Argument Is More Complicated Than It First Appears

This may be one of the most legally difficult—and most interesting—parts of the case.

There is adverse precedent.

In Bradshaw v. FAA, the Eleventh Circuit joined other federal appellate courts and held that a DPE did not possess a constitutionally protected property or liberty interest in his FAA designation.^[5]

The reasoning is easy to understand. If Congress allows the Administrator to rescind a designation “at any time for any reason,” how can the designee claim a legitimate entitlement to continuation of that designation?

That precedent represents a serious obstacle for the plaintiffs.

But the Second Amended Complaint does not simply ignore it.

Instead, the plaintiffs contend that the factual relationship between today's FAA and today's DPE has materially changed.

Historically, according to the complaint, DPEs functioned much more like independent contractors. They were required to maintain full-time employment elsewhere and conducted checkrides on their own schedules and largely at their own discretion.

The complaint alleges that the modern Designee Management System changed that relationship.

It says the FAA now imposes significant administrative responsibilities upon DPEs, eliminated the prior requirement that they maintain separate full-time employment, and requires minimum levels of flight-check activity to maintain the designation.

The plaintiffs further allege that compliance requires substantial investments of uncompensated time and resources and that modern DPEs may depend upon continued designation for their livelihoods.

The Second Amended Complaint puts the argument bluntly:

That characterization is disputed legal advocacy, not an established finding that DPEs are actually FAA employees.

But the argument matters.

Constitutional property interests often turn not merely on labels, but on the nature of the claimed entitlement and the legal and factual relationship surrounding it.

The court may ultimately answer yes.

But the plaintiffs are asking it to answer that question based on the modern system rather than simply assume the factual circumstances underlying earlier cases remain unchanged forever.

The Liberty Interest: Two Words That Can Follow You

Separate from the property-interest theory is the plaintiffs' liberty-interest argument.

The key words are:

The complaint alleges that the FAA routinely identifies terminated designees in its management system as having been terminated “for cause,” even when the underlying public-facing description may not identify the specific conduct.

According to the plaintiffs, FAA policy associates “for cause” termination with categories including performance deficiencies, integrity concerns and misconduct.

The complaint further alleges that such a termination can affect future employment opportunities, qualification for other aviation positions and FAA hiring decisions.^[1]

This creates what lawyers often describe as a “stigma-plus” theory.

Reputational damage standing alone generally is not enough to create a federal due-process claim. But when government-imposed stigma is coupled with an alteration of legal status or the loss of significant employment opportunities, the analysis can become different.

The plaintiffs therefore contend that a “for cause” designation does more than end a discretionary appointment.

They say it attaches a government-created stigma that can follow the individual into future aviation employment.

Whether the evidence satisfies the constitutional standard remains for the court to decide.

The Anonymous-Complaint Problem

The Second Amended Complaint also alleges that designees have been terminated based upon anonymous complaints and false information, sometimes without meaningful access to the underlying accusation.

Again, those are allegations, and every termination has its own facts.

Anonymous aviation-safety reporting can serve an entirely legitimate purpose. People must sometimes be able to report misconduct or safety issues without fear of retaliation.

But anonymity at the front end makes procedural reliability at the back end even more important.

Wright-Smith illustrates the tension. That case involved an FAA Safety Hotline complaint, and the Tenth Circuit later concluded that the FAA's generic stated reasons did not adequately explain the basis for termination—even though Wright-Smith ultimately knew enough from other circumstances to appeal effectively.

When government action can damage a professional's reputation and livelihood, notice of the actual case against that person is not bureaucratic trivia.

It is the foundation upon which any meaningful opportunity to respond depends.

There Is Also a Safety Argument

The plaintiffs make another provocative allegation.

They contend that the FAA's present termination structure may create incentives that work against aviation safety.

A DPE's job is not to make applicants happy.

A DPE's job is to determine whether applicants meet the required standard.

The complaint argues that when an examiner knows an unhappy applicant can submit a complaint and that a “for cause” termination may follow without a meaningful independent appeal, the system can create a perverse incentive to avoid failing applicants.

The plaintiffs allege that this chilling effect has contributed to lower failure rates and increased safety concerns.

That allegation has not been established by the court and will require evidence if it becomes material to the case.

But the policy question is legitimate:

What the Plaintiffs Are Actually Asking the Court to Do

The Second Amended Complaint contains five counts.

Count I challenges the 1954 administrative action under the APA.

Count II challenges the 2021 amendments to § 13.20 under the APA.

Count III asserts Fifth Amendment procedural due-process claims involving alleged property and liberty interests.

Count IV alleges procedural rulemaking violations under 5 U.S.C. § 553.

Count V seeks declaratory relief regarding the validity of the current framework as applied to designees.^[1]

Among the requested remedies are class certification, restoration of designee status, restoration of appeal rights, damages where legally available, costs and other appropriate relief.

Some requested remedies may face significant legal barriers independent of whether the plaintiffs prevail on the underlying APA theories. Sovereign immunity, the availability of monetary relief, class certification, jurisdiction and the proper remedial vehicle are all likely to matter.

This is ambitious litigation.

It is supposed to be.

Why P4HR Is Watching

P4HR's interest in this case does not depend upon whether every allegation in the Second Amended Complaint ultimately proves correct.

It is the structure of power that should concern the aviation community.

Congress unquestionably gave the Administrator enormous authority.

Aviation safety unquestionably requires a regulator capable of acting decisively when safety truly is at risk.

Neither proposition answers the central question:

That question matters whether the person facing the agency is a DPE, an engineer, a mechanic, a medical designee, a certificate holder, or an airman trapped inside an aeromedical process.

P4HR encounters the same underlying institutional problem repeatedly in the aeromedical world: enormous discretion, opaque standards, agency-controlled review and individuals whose careers can depend upon decisions made inside systems they have little ability to challenge.

An agency charged with protecting aviation safety requires substantial authority.

But authority and accountability are not opposites.

Due process is not an obstacle to aviation safety.

A reliable process is one of the mechanisms by which government ensures that the decisions it makes in the name of safety are actually correct.

Is This a Strong Case?

There is enough here that the aviation community should take the litigation seriously.

The former administrative appeal existed.

The FAA acknowledges, according to an email quoted in the complaint, that the appeal was replaced by an “ability to respond.”

A federal appellate court has already concluded in Wright-Smith that the FAA failed to provide a terminated DPE sufficiently meaningful reasons for an effective appeal—even though the petitioner ultimately lost because she could not show prejudice.

The Supreme Court has since eliminated Chevron deference for statutory interpretation and held in Corner Post that an APA claim under the generally applicable limitations statute accrues when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action, not necessarily when an old rule was first promulgated.

And the Second Amended Complaint attempts to distinguish older property-interest cases by alleging that the modern relationship between the FAA and DPEs has materially changed.

Those are meaningful arguments.

But there is no responsible basis to call this a guaranteed victory.

The FAA possesses exceptionally broad statutory rescission authority. Existing appellate precedent is unfavorable to aspects of the plaintiffs' constitutional theory. The proposed class has not been certified. Jurisdictional and remedial questions may be substantial. And the FAA has not yet been proven liable for the allegations described in the complaint.

So this will be a fight.

That is precisely why it matters.

Important administrative-law cases frequently do not arise because government clearly possesses no authority.

They arise because someone finally forces a court to decide where that authority ends.

The Case Is Now in Washington

The action was originally filed in March 2026 in the Middle District of Florida.

The Second Amended Class Action Complaint was filed May 12, 2026.

The matter was subsequently transferred and is now docketed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia as Case No. 1:26-cv-02187, Lasky et al. v. Bedford et al.

The location is fitting.

If this case ultimately asks how much unchecked discretion a federal aviation agency should possess—and what process must accompany that discretion—Washington may be exactly where that question belongs.