Yetman v. Garvey

The FAA's Age Sixty Rule barred commercial pilots from flying past age 60 due to elevated risk of sudden incapacitation, and despite legal authority to grant exemptions, the FAA had never granted one, later announcing exemptions required a new method of assessing incapacitation risk. Pilots (plaintiffs) sought exemptions based on a new neuropsychological screening tool, CogScreen-AE, which the FAA itself used for other medical-exemption purposes. The FAA denied their exemption requests, reasoning there wasn't enough data confirming the test's reliability and no established cutoff score for determining fitness to fly, and the pilots sought review.

Whether, under administrative law, a federal agency may develop a strict policy without exemptions.