Munoz-Mendoza v. Pierce, MUNOZ-MENDOZA

Decision Date20 July 1983
Docket NumberNo. 82-1706,MUNOZ-MENDOZA,82-1706
Citation711 F.2d 421
PartiesViviana, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Samuel R. PIERCE, Jr., et al., Defendants, Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Albert W. Wallis, Quincy, Mass., with whom Frank I. Smizik, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for plaintiffs, appellants.

Janet E. LaBella, Washington, D.C., with whom Rachael M. Hopp, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., was on brief, for The Nat. Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, Inc., amicus curiae.

Douglas N. Letter, Atty., Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., with whom J. Paul McGrath, Asst. Atty. Gen., William F. Weld, U.S. Atty., Boston, Mass., Michael Jay Singer, Atty., Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Gershon M. Ratner, Associate Gen. Counsel for Litigation, Howard Schmeltzer, Sp. Asst. to the Associate Gen. Counsel for Litigation, and Mier Wolf, Senior Trial Atty., Office of Gen. Counsel, Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for federal appellees.

Before BOWNES and BREYER, Circuit Judges, and WYZANSKI, * Senior District Judge.

BREYER, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs in this suit are several minority residents of Boston's South End, South Cove, and Chinatown neighborhoods, and a Chinatown neighborhood association. In essence, they seek judicial review of a "final agency action," 5 U.S.C. § 704, the decision of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to grant $19 million to the City of Boston to help develop the Copley Place commercial complex. The plaintiffs argue that the decision is unlawful because HUD failed to follow proper procedures in approving the grant. In particular, they assert that certain statutes and regulations require HUD to make a more thorough study than was performed of the grant's possible negative impact, through neighborhood upgrading and "gentrification," on residential integration in the area. They do not ask that the "agency action," the grant itself, be set aside; rather, they seek retroactive compliance with the alleged procedural obligation, namely, a proper study. And, in the event that a study bears out their contentions, they believe that HUD should be ordered to spend additional funds to keep their neighborhoods integrated or otherwise insulate them from the effects of racially unequal residential displacement.

The district court decided that plaintiffs could not show that the agency action of which they complained was likely to cause them "injury in fact." The court therefore held that they had not demonstrated the existence of the concrete "case or controversy" that Article III of the Constitution requires as a condition for the exercise of federal judicial power. See, e.g., Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982); Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). Because the plaintiffs were held to lack "standing" in this constitutional sense, the court dismissed their complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction before reaching the merits, and this appeal followed.

After reviewing the record, we conclude that the district court was correct as to the standing of certain plaintiffs and incorrect as to the standing of others. We remand this case as to those plaintiffs who have standing, so that the district court can determine: (1) whether the statutes and regulations that the plaintiffs rely on actually impose upon HUD the duty to conduct the type of "housing impact" study that the plaintiffs seek; (2) if so, whether Congress intended the courts to review the manner in which HUD carries out any such duty, see 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2); (3) if so, whether HUD violated any such mandate in this instance; and (4) if all preceding questions are answered in the plaintiffs' favor, what relief is appropriate. None of these issues is directly before us on this appeal, nor was any argued in sufficient detail to allow us to decide it. We therefore limit our decision to the question of standing.

I

The following facts are not in dispute. In April 1980, the city of Boston asked HUD for an Urban Development Action Grant ("UDAG") to help it and private developers build Copley Place. This $450 million commercial project in downtown Boston will contain three million square feet of space, and will include a 712-room luxury hotel, a 960-room convention hotel, retail facilities, office space, parking facilities, and 100 to 150 units of housing, 25 percent of which will be subsidized and reserved for low-income tenants. The project is being built on 9.5 acres of previously vacant land next to the Massachusetts Turnpike, near the neighborhoods of Back Bay, Fenway, the South End, South Cove, and Chinatown.

As part of its application for the UDAG, Boston presented a study of the project's likely impact on local housing demand. It estimated that the project would generate increased demand for residential space that would in turn displace several hundred families. Soon thereafter, several neighborhood organizations, including the Chinatown Housing Task Force, a plaintiff here, complained to HUD's Boston area Division of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity that the project would limit housing opportunities for low-income and minority residents in nearby neighborhoods. The Division considered the complaint; its director concluded that the minority displacement problem was serious; and further meetings were held with the complainants and others in Washington. HUD eventually decided to provide a $19 million grant. While that grant was not conditioned precisely in the manner that the complainants had requested, HUD allowed the city to use the loan repayments (amounting to roughly $40 million) for various neighborhood development projects, including at least $2.5 million for low and moderate income residents. HUD concluded that the grant, in light of these terms, did not violate any civil rights laws or regulations.

In November 1980, six weeks after HUD announced the grant, the Task Force and seven individuals brought this suit. Six of the seven individual plaintiffs are black or Puerto Rican residents of the South End. The seventh is a Chinese resident of South Cove. The Task Force is a community advocacy organization, 75 percent of whose members are Chinese. The plaintiffs' primary legal claim is that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and various related HUD regulations required HUD to conduct a more thorough study of the impact of Copley Place on the racial integration of nearby neighborhoods. They point to several statutes, regulations, and cases that, they claim, support them: 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d, 3608(d)(5); 24 C.F.R. §§ 1.1-1.12, 570.450-570.466; Otero v. New York City Housing Authority, 484 F.2d 1122 (2d Cir.1973); Shannon v. HUD, 436 F.2d 809 (3d Cir.1970); Marin City Council v. Marin County Redevelopment Agency, 416 F.Supp. 700 (N.D.Cal.1975).

The defendants, officials of HUD and the City of Boston, asked the district court to dismiss the complaint summarily on the ground that the action complained of--the decision to provide the grant--did not cause the harm that the plaintiffs allegedly will suffer. The defendants argued that the independent actions of private landlords and homebuyers, not the grant, would "cause" the rent increases, tenant displacement, and loss of integrated neighborhoods of which the plaintiffs complained. They added that, since other private and public development would continue in the absence of the grant, "gentrification" would occur regardless of whether Copley Place were built.

Initially, the district court ruled against the defendants. But one year later, after additional discovery and the submission of considerable evidence through affidavits, the court held that the plaintiffs had not successfully shown that the HUD grant would cause the injuries of which they complained. Munoz-Mendoza v. Pierce, No. 80-2589-C (D.Mass. June 28, 1982). The court added that, in any event, conducting the residential impact study now would not provide the plaintiffs with meaningful relief, for withdrawal of HUD funding would not lead to abandonment of the project. The district court therefore dismissed the suit.

II

The principles of standing are primarily aimed at determining whether a particular plaintiff is the type of person whom the law intends to protect against the type of harm of which he complains. The constitutional standing rules seek to ensure that a concrete Article III "case or controversy" exists by focusing on plaintiff's "harm." They ask whether the plaintiff "in fact" has suffered a redressable injury as a result of the defendant's actions. In the words of the Supreme Court, the plaintiff must demonstrate that his injuries " 'fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant,' or put otherwise, that the exercise of the Court's remedial powers would redress the claimed injuries." Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. at 74, 98 S.Ct. at 2631 (citations omitted). This language imposes three fairly strict requirements, namely: (1) an injury; (2) a causal connection between the injury and the complained-of acts; and (3) redressability. See, e.g., Valley Forge Christian College, supra; Community Nutrition Institute v. Block, 698 F.2d 1239 (D.C.Cir.1983). An individual plaintiff must show that he himself has been injured; an association, like the Task Force, in some circumstances need show only that the interests of its members have been harmed. See Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977); Warth v. Seldin, s...

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