Green v. Veneman, CIV. A. 3:00CV366LN.
| Decision Date | 02 April 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV. A. 3:00CV366LN.,CIV. A. 3:00CV366LN. |
| Parties | James D. GREEN, et al., Plaintiff, v. Ann E. VENEMAN, Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
A. Spencer Gilbert, III, James L. Robertson, Paul E. Barnes, Wise, Carter, Child & Caraway, Jackson, MS, for Plaintiff.
Rupa Bhattacharyya, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, DC, Carlton W. Reeves, Pigott, Reeves, Johnson & Minor, P.A., Robert G. Anderson, U.S. Attorney's Office Criminal Division, Jackson, MS, for Defendant.
This cause is before the court on the motion of defendant Ann E. Veneman, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture,1 to dismiss plaintiffs' amended complaint or, in the alternative, to transfer venue. Plaintiffs have responded in opposition to the motion and the court, having considered defendant's motion, concludes that plaintiffs' complaint fails to state a cognizable claim for relief and accordingly should be dismissed.
Plaintiffs in this case are 147 "non-African American farmers" who complain that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA or Department) has discriminated against them on account of their race by denying to them certain benefits that the Department has agreed to make available to similarly situated African American farmers. Plaintiffs charge that the USDA's discriminatory actions violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and § 1982; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.; and the guarantee of equal protection afforded by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In addition, plaintiffs have asserted claims under the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 551-559, 701-706, relating to applications for loans and loan servicing which they contend the USDA arbitrarily and capriciously denied.
Pigford v. Glickman:
Although plaintiffs declare in their responsive memorandum that "[i]t would be easy enough for [them] to state their claims [in this case] making no mention of a case called Pigford v. Glickman," that plainly is not the case, for Pigford v. Glickman is at the heart of this case. This case exists only because of Pigford v. Glickman and thus it is only with knowledge of what transpired in Pigford that one can understand the source of plaintiffs' claims against the USDA in this case, and likewise, only with a full understanding of Pigford is it possible to reasonably evaluate the viability of the claims of the plaintiffs herein.
Pigford was brought as a class action in the District Court for the District of Columbia by a class of certain African American farmers who alleged that they had been subjected to race discrimination in the USDA's administration of its loan programs in violation of, inter alia, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.2 Following certification of the plaintiff class in Pigford,3 the parties undertook settlement negotiations which ultimately culminated in a settlement and the entry of a consent decree by the court following a "fairness hearing" as provided by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.4 The consent decree provided for the creation of a two-track mechanism to resolve the discrimination claims of individual class members. Pigford v. Glickman, 185 F.R.D. 82 (D.D.C. 1999). Any claimant who would elect to proceed under Track A, in order to prevail, would be required to submit to a neutral adjudicator "substantial evidence" that he was the victim of race discrimination, a burden which he could meet by showing that he applied to the USDA for a loan or sought loan servicing and that the loan was denied, provided late, approved for a lesser amount than requested, encumbered by restrictive conditions, or USDA failed to provide appropriate loan service, and such treatment was less favorable than that accorded specifically identified, similarly situated white farmers, as a result of which the plaintiff suffered economic damage. Pigford, 185 F.R.D. at 94. If the adjudicator were to find that the claimant had sustained his or her burden to present "substantial evidence" of discrimination in a credit transaction, then in accordance with the terms of the consent decree, the claimant would be entitled to receive
(1) a cash payment of $52,000; (2) forgiveness of all debt owed to the USDA incurred under or affected by the program that formed the basis of the claim; (3) a tax payment directly to the IRS in the amount of 25% of the total debt forgiveness and cash payment; (4) immediate termination of any foreclosure proceedings that USDA initiated in connection with the loan(s) at issue in the claim; and (5) injunctive relief including one-time priority loan consideration and technical assistance.
Id. at 94. If the adjudicator were to find in the claimant's favor and the claim involved discrimination in a benefit program, "the claimant [would be entitled to] receive a cash payment in the amount of the benefit wrongly denied and injunctive relief including one-time priority loan consideration and technical assistance." Id.
The consent decree provided a Track B alternative for plaintiffs with more extensive documentation of discrimination. Id. at 94. For Track B claimants, after a period of time for discovery, an arbitrator "[would] hold a one day mini-trial and then decide whether the claimant ha[d] established discrimination by a preponderance of the evidence," id., and if, following that mini-trial, the arbitrator were to find that the claimant had shown by a preponderance of the evidence that he was the victim of racial discrimination and that he had suffered damages from that discrimination, the claimant would be entitled to actual damages, the return of inventory property that was foreclosed and other injunctive relief, including a one-time priority loan consideration. Id. at 97.
In the wake of the court's approval of the class action settlement in Pigford, the plaintiffs herein, 147 "non-African American farmers," filed a class-action complaint in this court charging that as a result of the settlement in Pigford, they are now the victims of unlawful race discrimination by the USDA. In a nutshell, these plaintiffs allege that from 1981 through 1996, the period of time covered by the consent decree in Pigford, they were subjected to the very same abusive treatment of which the plaintiff class of African American farmers complained in Pigford, and yet the USDA, by virtue of the Pigford settlement, has chosen to favor only African American farmers by agreeing to extend to them remedial credit opportunities which are not also being extended to "non-African American farmers" who experienced the same mistreatment. Plaintiffs contend, therefore, that because of the Department's racial discrimination in the administration of its loan and benefits programs, they are entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the USDA to provide to them access to the same benefits as have been extended to the plaintiff class in Pigford.
In its motion, defendant submits that for reasons of judicial comity, this court should dismiss plaintiffs' complaint altogether or should, alternatively, transfer the case to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the interest of justice pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) so as to avoid interference with the continuing jurisdiction and remedial authority of that court. Defendant reasons in this regard that plaintiffs' complaint is an obvious challenge to the court's decree in Pigford and that consequently, plaintiffs' claims must be, or at least should be, addressed to the court which entered the Pigford decree. Defendant urges further, though, that should the court not be inclined to divest itself of the case on comity grounds, the court should dismiss the case for a more fundamental reason, namely, that it fails to state any claim upon which relief can be granted and is thus subject to dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Because the court agrees that the complaint fails to state a viable claim for relief, the court concludes that defendant's motion is well taken.5
Discrimination:
The Pigford and Green Plaintiffs are Not Similarly Situated6
Plaintiffs allege that the defendant has denied and continues to deny them substantial and valuable credit opportunities that have been made available to other American farmers who, except for their race, are similarly situated. All of plaintiffs' claims in Counts II, V, VI, VII and VIII (which charge violations of the ECOA, Title VI, § 1981, § 1982 and the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment), in fact, are grounded on this allegation, which is in turn grounded on the same factual predicate, namely, that the USDA has discriminated against non-African American farmers on the basis of their race by not making available to them those certain credit benefits that it has agreed to provide to certain African American farmers via the Pigford settlement. That is to say, all of plaintiffs' claims of discrimination are based on the same allegedly discriminatory act, namely, the creation of the dispute resolution mechanism to resolve the individual claims of race discrimination raised by the Pigford class members and the decision to award monetary and other relief to those who succeed on their claims. According to plaintiffs, by reason of the racially preferential remedial credit opportunities that the USDA has agreed to provide to African American farmers but which it has failed and refused to provide to non-African American farmers who have suffered the same abuses by the USDA in their credit transactions, plaintiffs are the victims of race discrimination.
Plaintiffs readily acknowledge that to prove their case under any of the discrimination...
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