Caulfield v. US Department of Agriculture

• Citation: 293 F.2d 217
• Decision Date: 12 September 1961
• Docket Number: No. 18429.,18429.
• Parties: Siegent CAULFIELD, Appellant, v. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Agricultural Stabilization & Conservation Committee, Louisiana State Office and Executors of the Succession of W. T. Coats, Deceased, formerly d/b/a Wildwood Plantation, Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

293 F.2d 217 (1961)

Siegent CAULFIELD, Appellant, v. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Agricultural Stabilization & Conservation Committee, Louisiana State Office and Executors of the Succession of W. T. Coats, Deceased, formerly d/b/a Wildwood Plantation, Appellees.

No. 18429.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 31, 1961.

Rehearing Denied September 12, 1961.

J. D. DeBlieux, Baton Rouge, La., for appellant.

Kathleen Ruddell, Asst. U. S. Atty., New Orleans, La., Morton Hollander and Anthony L. Mondello, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for appellees.

Before TUTTLE, Chief Judge, HUTCHESON, RIVES, CAMERON, JONES, BROWN and WISDOM, Circuit Judges, en banc.

Rehearing Denied En Banc September 12, 1961.

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge, joined by HUTCHESON, CAMERON and JONES, Circuit Judges.

This case presents the same basic question as that in Dickson v. Edwards, 5 Cir., 1960, 293 F.2d 211, concerning the availability of judicial review under the Soil Bank Act, 7 U.S.C.A. §§ 1801-1837 (Supp.1959). After the opinion in Dickson was announced on January 13, 1961, the Court, by an order en banc, vacated that opinion and judgment and ordered the two cases resubmitted for reconsideration by the Court en banc. The Court en banc, on such reconsideration, adhered to the prior opinion in Dickson so that it has become the opinion of the Court en banc. The Dickson decision is controlling on the basic issue despite the factual differences in the two cases.

I.

The complaint here was filed by Caulfield, the Tenant, against two governmental defendants, the Department of Agriculture through the Secretary of Agriculture and the Louisiana State Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Committee. Also named as a party was the private defendant, the Executors of the succession of W. T. Coats, deceased, the Landowner. The theory of the Tenant's complaint was that in anticipation of making an Acreage Reserve Contract, the Landowner evicted the Tenant prior to the commencement of that crop year in order to avoid sharing the government grant under the ARC Contract. As this is forbidden by the Act, he sought recovery of his share of the payments later made to and received by the Landowner and a trial de novo of the adverse determination by the administrative committees.

The Government on behalf of the two governmental defendants only filed a motion for summary judgment. These papers included the administrative record before the County (Parish) Committee and the State ASC Committee. Thus the matter is broadened beyond the brief allegations of the complaint, F.R.Civ.P. 12 (c), 56, 28 U.S.C.A. These undisputed facts¹ may be briefly summarized.

For the crop year 1957 the Tenant was a sharecropper on 18.6 acres of the Wildwood Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish operated by W. T. Coats, the Landowner. Under the sharecropper agreement, the Tenant was to receive ¾ths of the revenues from farming operations. In late 1957 the Landowner advised the Tenant that the arrangement would be terminated at the end of that crop year. Thereafter in January 1958 the Landowner as the sole "producer"² made an ARC Contract withdrawing these specific 18.6 acres from cotton. Under the ARC Contract the Landowner, as sole producer, was to receive $1,655.40.³

When he belatedly learned from some friends that terminating a tenancy in anticipation of making a Soil Bank Contract was probably a violation of the law by a landowner, the Tenant complained to the Parish (County) Committee. The Landowner's contention was that the tenancy had been voluntarily relinquished when the Tenant gave up farming and sought employment in the city. On appeal the State ASC Committee reached the same conclusion. It is this basic controversy — did the Tenant leave voluntarily or was he evicted? — on which trial de novo was sought under 7 U.S.C.A. § 1831(d).

This brief recitation makes two things clear. First, even if the Tenant were actually a party to an existing ARC Contract and not merely hoped to be, there was no violation of such contract by him, nor did either the Parish (County) or State Committee so determine. Second, while the Tenant asserted that the Landowner violated the Soil Bank Act in securing the execution of this Contract, neither the County nor the State Committee determined that the Landowner had violated the Contract. On the contrary each held that there was no violation.

The result is that conceding the correctness of the Tenant's assertion that the Landlord's action was unlawful, there was no administrative determination that the "producer" — whether tenant or landowner or both — had violated the contract.

II.

For the reasons spelled out in Dickson v. Edwards, supra, that was the sole matter accorded judicial review. Cf. United States v. Maxwell, 8 Cir., 1960, 278 F.2d 206.

Section 1831 (7 U.S.C.A. § 1831) has both an affirmative and negative significance. Affirmatively, in a judicial system resting upon a statutory source for jurisdiction in the district courts, see Sheldon v. Sill, 1850, 8 How. 441, 12 L.Ed. 1147, this section opens the courthouse door as to a limited controversy and as to specified parties — the administrators of the Act. The affirmative grant of jurisdiction is lacking here. Negatively, the precision with which the Act prescribes a limited judicial review — especially when read in conjunction with the over-all finality provision of the statute⁴ — eliminates the Administrative Procedure Act as the statutory source of judicial review. The APA does not afford judicial review where the particular statute precludes it.⁵

Granting but a limited review, the inference is compelling that Congress deliberately intended to keep the practical operation of this farm program out of the courthouse. Whatever might be thought to be the shortcomings of the informal tribunals of County and State Committees made up as they would be by persons having evident self-interests, Congress purposely undertook to lodge immediate responsibility in these neighborhood tribunals. Nearness to the problem and to the people affected — or afflicted — by adjudications having decisive consequences may well have been to Congress the assurance of responsible impartiality. See Fulford v. Foreman, 5 Cir., 1957, 245 F.2d 145, 147.

Indeed, the legislative history supports the view that in effectuating the vigorous policy against the use of any devious schemes by landowners as a means of discriminating against tenants⁶ Congress looked to the County Committees as the means of positive enforcement.⁷

Congress presumably put its faith in the localized and immediate responsibility of these groups as their decisions had to pass muster in the particular community. It purposely chose this in preference to its unsuccessful effort to legislate more precise standards to protect tenants who, from ignorance or poverty or lack of resources, were looked upon as a more helpless class.⁸

This is, of course, but another instance in which Congress creating the grant of public funds may determine the basis upon which money is to be paid or distributed. This includes as well the machinery for the determination of the facts upon which statutory standards are to operate. As Congress did not permit judicial review of any decisions other than that of a violation of a contract by a producer, neither the District Court nor this Court has the power to say whether the action of the County and State Committees was correct.

III.

But this affirmance on Dickson v. Edwards relates solely to the Tenant's action against the governmental defendants. For two reasons that case does not control the disposition of Caulfield's suit against the private defendant Coats or his Succession.

First, the only appearance below and here for defendants was through the United States Attorney on behalf of the governmental parties. No appearance has yet been made on behalf of the private defendant Coats or his Succession.⁹ Obviously, the summary judgment entered for the "defendants" related solely to the governmental agents and agency. It did not undertake to pass upon the rights of Caulfield vis-a-vis the private defendant Coats.

Second, the situation is quite different from the private suit in Dickson. There the Soil Bank Act came into the case only as an anticipated defense and the tenant's claim did not therefore "arise under" the Soil Bank Act. Here, without intimating how the matter should or will ultimately be decided, it appears from the complaint as expanded that the plaintiff Caulfield is directly invoking a federal statutory right. The theory of Caulfield's claim is that contrary to the Soil Bank Act (see footnote 6, supra), the Landowner defendant ousted him in anticipation of making an ARC Contract. Thus the asserted prohibition of the Soil Bank Act seems to be the very basis for the recovery sought. The right, if it exists, comes into being from the Federal Act and the effectual enforcement of that right depends on the validity, construction or effect of that statute. If that is ultimately borne out by a proper study of the complaint this would, of course, make it a suit arising under a law of the United States, and here one regulating commerce.¹⁰ Bell v. Hood, 1946, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L. Ed. 939; Gully v. First National Bank, 1936, 299 U.S. 109, 57 S.Ct. 96, 81 L. Ed. 70. Of course, that phase is not directly before us and these tentative comments are stated merely to make certain that affirmance on the basis of Dickson v. Edwards is confined to the governmental suit, not the one against the private defendant. The ultimate decision in the private suit against Coats or his Succession must await its trial or other appropriate proceedings.

Affirmed.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge, joined by TUTTLE, Chief Judge, and RIVES, Circuit Judge (dissenting).

I respectfully dissent. I cannot believe that Congress intended the Soil Bank Act to be given the discriminatory effect denial of...