National Corn Growers Ass'n v. Baker

• Decision Date: 26 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. 85-08-01151.,85-08-01151.
• Citation: 9 CIT 571,623 F. Supp. 1262
• Parties: NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION et al., Plaintiffs, v. James A. BAKER, III etc. et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of International Trade

623 F. Supp. 1262

9 CIT 571

NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION et al., Plaintiffs, v. James A. BAKER, III etc. et al., Defendants.

No. 85-08-01151.

United States Court of International Trade.

November 26, 1985.

Williams & Connolly (Aubrey M. Daniel, III, Stephen L. Urbanczyk, Manley W. Roberts, Robert W. Hamilton and William R. Murray, Jr.), Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Richard K. Willard, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., Joseph I. Liebman, Attorney in Charge, International Trade Field Office, Commercial Litigation Branch (Kenneth N. Wolf), New York City, for defendants.

McDermott, Will & Emery (R. Sarah Compton, and Kurt J. Olson), Washington, D.C., for intervenor-defendant RAJ Chemicals, Inc.

Rogers & Wells (Robert V. McIntyre and Roger A. Clark), Washington, D.C., for intervenor-defendant Certified Oil Co. Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (A. Douglas Melamed, Robert C. Cassidy, Jr. and Deborah M. Levy), Washington, D.C., for proposed intervenor-defendant Citicorp Intern. Trading Co., Inc.

David L. Armstrong, Atty. Gen., Frankfort, Ky. (Frank F. Chuppe, Asst. Deputy Atty. Gen.) Louisville, Ky., for proposed amicus curiae Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Opinion & Order

AQUILINO, Judge:

Notwithstanding the court's denial of both plaintiffs' application for a preliminary injunction and defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint in Slip Op. 85-98, as amended, the parties have now returned to this court with renewed requests for the same relief, as well as for other relief.

I

For their part, the defendants (now joined by intervenor-defendant RAJ Chemicals, Inc.) posture that they are immune from this suit, that the court does not have jurisdiction and that the plaintiffs lack standing, to wit:

... Despite the pendency of the Federal defendants' dispositive motion, despite repeated requests by the Federal defendants for this Court to address and determine critical questions such as: 1) standing, 2) sovereign immunity, 3) failure to state a cause of action, 4) lack of jurisdiction and 5) failure to comply with mandatory conditions precedent to this Court's jurisdiction, this Court has not done so. Rather, this Court has ordered discovery to go forward.¹

In repeating their demand that the court "adjudicate the dispositive issues" raised by the defendants, counsel also request that any adverse decision thereof be certified for interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292.²

Were it not for this new, contingent application, this court would not discuss the issues self-evidently considered by Judge Carman at the time of the motions for immediate equitable relief³, as well as in his memorandum opinion, and subsequently re-considered by this court in conjunction with the determination to permit the plaintiffs certain discovery, Slip Op. 85-105. Indeed, the memorandum opinion was amended on September 23, 1985 to state unequivocally "defendant's motion to dismiss denied." As to plaintiffs' standing, the opinion reads:

... Plaintiffs here are connected with the domestic production of ethanol. They are threatened with economic injury if ethanol is imported at a rate of duty approximately 58 cents per gallon below the rate set by Congress. Because Congress established the tariff under item 901.50, TSUS, to offset tax exemptions available to imported ethanol, thus protecting domestic producers, plaintiffs' threatened injury is arguably within the zone of interest Congress sought to protect by the tariff. See 126 Cong.Rec. 31,709.⁴

Taking the allegations of plaintiffs' complaint as true, as the court must for purposes of determination of defendants' motion to dismiss⁵, paragraph 2 thereof shows that the National Corn Growers Association has as its purpose the promotion of American corn, which is a principal source of ethanol. Its membership includes 19 supporting members from related sectors of the corn industry, including fuel ethanol producers.

Plaintiff New Energy Company of Indiana allegedly operates a fuel ethanol facility in South Bend.⁶ It is averred that plaintiff Archer Daniels Midland Company operates three ethyl alcohol plants and is the largest producer of fuel ethanol in the United States.⁷ According to paragraph 5 of the complaint, plaintiff Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, Inc. has two wholly-owned subsidiary corporations with interests in ethanol-producing facilities, and paragraph 6 claims that plaintiff A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company operates a fuel ethanol plant in Tennessee.

As a group, these named plaintiffs are characterized as "domestic interested parties who have been adversely effected sic and aggrieved by the entries and the defendants' rulings at issue in this case."⁸ Accepting this contention as true for the purpose of determination of defendants' motion, the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702, provides, in part:

A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof....

The Supreme Court has characterized actions brought pursuant to this statute as follows:

The trend of cases arising under the APA and other statutes authorizing judicial review of federal agency action has been toward recognizing that injuries other than economic harm are sufficient to bring a person within the meaning of the statutory language, and toward discarding the notion that an injury that is widely shared is ipso facto not an injury sufficient to provide the basis for judicial review.⁹

Here, of course, the plaintiffs are claiming economic harm, and the Supreme Court has stated that

palpable economic injuries have long been recognized as sufficient to lay the basis for standing, with or without a specific statutory provision for judicial review.¹⁰

Cf. Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970); Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 90 S.Ct. 832, 25 L.Ed.2d 192 (1970). In Camp, the Court held that the plaintiffs had standing to obtain judicial review of a ruling by the Comptroller of the Currency. In Barlow, the Court held that tenant farmers eligible for payments under the upland cotton program had standing to challenge an amended regulation of the Secretary of Agriculture. In neither case was the defendant federal official able to show that Congress sought to preclude judicial review of the administrative rulings. See 397 U.S. at 157 and 165, 90 S.Ct. at 831 and 837.

Defendants' memorandum of law refers to a number of recent Supreme Court decisions on the issue of standing, most notably, 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), Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979), and Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). These decisions, however, do not support the claim of lack of standing herein.

In Warth, standing was denied due to the failure of the complaint "clearly to allege facts" demonstrating that the named plaintiffs were the proper persons to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute. 422 U.S. at 518, 95 S.Ct. at 2215. This is hardly the case here, where the complaint more than adequately meets the Article III requirements of alleging injury. As for the "prudential limitations"¹¹ on the exercise of federal-court jurisdiction in an action such as this, the Court in Warth stated:

... Congress may grant an express right of action to persons who otherwise would be barred by prudential standing rules. Of course, Art. III's requirement remains: the plaintiff still must allege a distinct and palpable injury to himself, even if it is an injury shared by a large class of other possible litigants. E.g., United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669 93 S.Ct. 2405, 37 L.Ed.2d 254 (1973). But so long as this requirement is satisfied, persons to whom Congress has granted a right of action, either expressly or by clear implication, may have standing to seek relief on the basis of the legal rights and interests of others, and, indeed, may invoke the general public interest in support of their claim. 422 U.S. at 501, 95 S.Ct. at 2206 (citations omitted).

This is precisely the analysis the Court followed in Gladstone in concluding that "the facts alleged in the complaints and revealed by initial discovery were sufficient to provide standing under Art. III"¹², as well as under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act enacted by Congress in 1968. See 441 U.S. at 100-09, 99 S.Ct. at 1608-12.

The Valley Forge opinion recites the standing requirement that a "complaint fall within `the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question'"¹³, quoting from Camp, supra, 397 U.S. at 153, 90 S.Ct. at 829. In concluding that the plaintiffs in Valley Forge lacked standing to pursue their esoteric claim of violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as a result of transfer of title to some federal land, the Supreme Court stated:

... We simply cannot see that plaintiffs have alleged an injury of any kind, economic or otherwise, sufficient to confer standing. 454 U.S. at 486, 102 S.Ct. at 766 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).

This court cannot, and therefore does not, reach the same conclusion as to plaintiffs' complaint herein.

The memorandum opinion of September 20, 1985 states that "it is clear that this Court should exercise jurisdiction under section 1581(i) when the usual route through administrative action would result in a `manifestly inadequate' remedy"¹⁴, citing for support Luggage and Leather Goods Manufactures of America, Inc. v. United States, 7 C.I.T. ___, 588 F.Supp. 1413, 1420 (1984), and United States Cane Sugar Refiners' Association v. Block, 3 C.I.T. 196, 544 F.Supp. 883, aff'd, 69 CCPA 172, 683 F.2d 399 (1982). The opinion states further:

... Under

...