McKinney v. U.S. Dept. of Treasury

• Decision Date: 08 August 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-2806,85-2806
• Citation: 799 F.2d 1544
• Parties: , 4 Fed. Cir. (T) 103 Representative Stewart B. McKINNEY, et al., * Appellants, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF the TREASURY; John M. Walker, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Enforcement and Operations); United States Customs Service; and William Von Raab, Commissioner of Customs, Appellees. Appeal
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

Page 1544

799 F.2d 1544

8 ITRD 1001, 4 Fed. Cir. (T) 103 Representative Stewart B. McKINNEY, et al., ^* Appellants, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF the TREASURY; John M. Walker Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Enforcement and Operations); United States Customs Service; and William Von Raab, Commissioner of Customs, Appellees.

Appeal No. 85-2806.

United States Court of Appeals Federal Circuit.

Aug. 8, 1986.

Paul D. Kamenar, Washington Legal Foundation, Washington, D.C., argued for appellants. With him on brief was Daniel J. Pepeo.

David M. Cohen, Director, Commercial Litigation Branch, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., argued for appellees. With him on brief were Richard K. Willard, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Velta A. Melnbrencis. Terry Thiele, Atty.-Advisor, Office of General Counsel, Dept. of the Treasury, of counsel.

Before BISSELL and ARCHER, Circuit Judges, and RE, Chief Judge. ^**

ARCHER, Circuit Judge.

Appellants appeal from the judgment entered in Representative Stewart B. McKinney, et al. v. United States Department of the Treasury, et al., 614 F.Supp. 1226 (Ct.Int'l Trade 1985), ¹ wherein Judge Dominick L. DiCarlo of the Court of International Trade dismissed appellants' complaint for lack of standing and mootness. We affirm on the basis of lack of standing.

Background

Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, ² provides that:

All goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labor or/and forced labor or/and indentured labor under penal sanctions shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, and the importation thereof is hereby prohibited, and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to prescribe such regulations as may be necessary for the enforcement of this provision. The provisions of this section relating to goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured by forced labor or/and indentured labor, shall take effect on January 1, 1932; but in no case shall such provisions be applicable to goods, wares, articles, or merchandise so mined, produced, or manufactured which are not mined, produced, or manufactured in such quantities in the United States as to meet the consumptive demands of the United States.

"Forced labor", as herein used, shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily.

The United States Department of State, in February 1983, furnished the Congress with a report entitled "Report on Forced Labor in the U.S.S.R." Accompanying this report was a letter of the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs which stated that forced labor ³ was used to produce large amounts of primary and manufactured Soviet goods for both domestic and export markets. ⁴

In September 1983, the Commissioner of Customs sought approval from the Secretary of the Treasury to publish ⁵ in the Thereafter in May 1984, eighty-four members of Congress and several associations petitioned the United States Customs Service ⁷ to bar importation of goods produced in the U.S.S.R. wholly or in part by forced labor. ⁸ The Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Operations of the Treasury subsequently notified these petitioners that the Department of the Treasury would not act on their petition until such time as additional evidence became available.

Federal Register his findings that certain products from the U.S.S.R. may have been produced by forced labor, which would have the effect of prohibiting the entry of such products into the United States. See 19 CFR 12.42(g). In May 1984, the Secretary of the Treasury notified the Commissioner that such a determination was not warranted at that time, but should be deferred pending a study by the International Trade Commission. ⁶

In January 1985, the Secretary of the Treasury, on the available evidence, ⁹ determined that there was no reasonable basis upon which to establish a nexus between Soviet forced labor practices and specific imports from the U.S.S.R. or to bar importation of any goods produced in the U.S.S.R. In doing so, the Secretary declined to adopt the Commissioner's proposed findings of late 1983. ¹⁰

Appellants filed the present action on September 26, 1984 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and filed an amended complaint on February 20, 1985. They alleged that the denial of their May 1984 petition constituted a final agency action, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 704 (1982), which was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706(2)(A), (D) (1982). The appellants further alleged that agency action on their petition was unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706(1).

The court concluded that, with the exception of the congressional appellants in their capacities as workers and producers, none of the appellants possessed standing. ¹¹ 614 F.Supp. at 1238-1241.

The court also concluded that the action must be dismissed as moot. Id. at 1241. It determined that the decision by the Secretary of the Treasury in 1985 superseded the 1983 findings of the Commissioner of Customs, and that the relief sought by appellants--a declaration that the Commissioner made findings pursuant to 37 C.F.R. Sec. 12.42(e), a mandatory injunction implementing these findings in accordance with Sec. 12.42(e), and a determination that the Commissioner improperly denied the appellant's May 1984 petition--was mooted by the Secretary's decision.

On appeal it is argued that all of the appellants in the capacities now asserted have standing, viz., that, either directly or as a representative of their members or constituency, all have suffered injury. As consumers, the injury is that they do not wish to purchase these illegal products and subsidize Soviet human rights violations. They also claim injury "as stockholders in U.S. companies which compete with the illegal imports, as members of the International Longshoremen's Association which are forced to handle these products; as public interest organizations which have a specialized interest in this area; and as Congressmen who are affected by the defendants' actions in their personal, representative and legislative capacities." Appellants also argue that the court committed error in holding that the present case is moot.

OPINION

I

Fundamentally, the question of standing involves the determination of whether a particular litigant is entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court to decide the merits of a dispute or of particular issues. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). The focus is on the qualifications and status of the party seeking to bring his complaint before a federal court and not on the issues he wishes to have resolved. Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 38, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1924, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976).

When the standing of a litigant is placed in issue, the court must undertake a two-step analysis which involves both the constitutional limitations and the prudential limitations that circumscribe standing. Warth, 422 U.S. at 498, 95 S.Ct. at 2204. As a threshold matter the court must ensure that the litigant satisfies the requirements of Article III of the Constitution. Simon, 426 U.S. at 39, 96 S.Ct. at 1924. Once the court determines that the litigant satisfies the constitutional aspects, it must consider whether any prudential limitations restrain the court from exercising its judicial power. Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1607, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979).

Article III confines the role of the federal courts to adjudication of actual "cases" and "controversies." Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 151, 90 S.Ct. 827, 829, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970). Standing, in the constitutional dimension, is one of the doctrines that clusters about Article III, ¹² to define further the case-or-controversy requirement that limits the federal judicial power in our system of government. Allen, 468 U.S. at 750, 104 S.Ct. at 3324. Those who do not possess Article III standing may not litigate in the courts of the United States. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 475-76, 102 S.Ct. 752, 760-61, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

The principal limitation imposed by Article III is that a litigant seeking to invoke the court's authority must "show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant." Gladstone, Realtors, 441 U.S. at 98, 99 S.Ct. at 1607; see also Allen, 468 U.S. at 751, 104 S.Ct. at 3325; Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 472, 102 S.Ct. at 758; Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 72, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 2630, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978); Warth, 422 U.S. at 501, 95 S.Ct. at 2206. In addition, Article III requires the litigant to establish that there is a causal connection between the litigant's injury and the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant, and that this injury is likely to be redressed should the court grant the relief requested. Allen, 468 U.S. at 751, 104 S.Ct. at 3325; Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 472, 102 S.Ct. at 758; Simon, 426 U.S. at 38, 41-42, 96 S.Ct. at 1924, 1925-26.

The nature of the actual or threatened injury that must be established by the litigant has been described by the Supreme Court variously as: a "judicially cognizable" injury, Allen, 468 U.S. at 754, 104 S.Ct. at 3326; a "personal" injury, Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 485, 102 S.Ct. at 765; a "distinct and palpable" injury, Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333, 342...