Rules of Evidence and Official Notice in Formal Administrative Hearings

Abstract

Twenty years have pissed since Kenneth Culp Davis reviewed how agency ingenuity reconciled fairness with efficiency in developing flexible rules of evidence for administrative hearings,I and thirty years have transpired since Walter Gellhorn proposed the concept of official notice to expand upon the judicial practice and make use of administrative knowledge and experience. In the meantime agencies have multiplied as the role of government expands into almost every segment of the economy and life in general. Benefits once considered privileges to be, dispensed or withdrawn at an administrator's unreviewable whim are now matters of right deserving procedural protection. 3 A record of experience under the Administrative Procedure Act, 4 the statute which governs most federal agency adjuducations and provides a practical model for state hearings, now fills the open contours of that act. Continuous review of federal administrative procedures and recommendations for improvement are now institutionalized through the permanent Administrative