National Corn Growers Ass'n, Inc. v. Bergland, s. 79-1509
| Decision Date | 02 January 1980 |
| Docket Number | 79-1585,Nos. 79-1509,s. 79-1509 |
| Parties | NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INC. and Corn Refiners Association, Inc., Appellees, v. Robert S. BERGLAND, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, Commodity Credit Corporation, and Ray Fitzgerald, Executive Vice President of Commodity Credit Corporation, American Sugarbeet Growers Association, Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, American Sugar Cane League of the U.S.A., Inc. and Florida Sugar Cane League, Inc., and California Beet Growers Association, LTD., Appellants. NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INC. and Corn Refiners Association, Inc., Appellees, v. Robert S. BERGLAND, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, Commodity Credit Corporation and Ray Fitzgerald, Executive Vice President of Commodity Credit Corporation. Appeal of AMERICAN SUGARBEET GROWERS ASSOCIATION, Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, American Sugar Cane League of the U.S.A., Inc., Florida Sugar Cane League, Inc. and California Beet Growers Association, LTD. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Raymond W. Fullerton, Atty., Litigation Div., Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C., for appellants; L. Call Dickinson, Jr. and Craig F. Graziano, Dickinson, Throckmorton, Parker, Mannheimer & Raife, Des Moines, Iowa, Charles S. Murphy and Wilbur L. Fugate, Baker & Hostetler, Washington, D. C., on brief, for Am. Sugarbeet Growers Ass'n et al.; Stuart E. Schiffer, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Leonard Schaitman and Douglas N. Letter, Attys., U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., and Raymond W. Fullerton, Director, Litigation Div., Terrence G. Jackson and Thomas V. Conway, Attys., U. S. Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C., on brief, for Bob Bergland et al.; appearances on reply brief for Bob Bergland et al. are the same except Alice Daniel, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., who replaces Stuart E. Schiffer.
Paul J. Tagliabue, Covington & Burling, Washington, D. C., for appellee; H. Richard Smith, Paul F. Ahlers, Lance A. Coppock, Ahlers, Cooney, Dorweiler, Haynie & Smith, Des Moines, Iowa; Ralph W. Gearhart and Robert O. Daniel, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and H. Thomas Austern, Paul J. Tagliabue, and Theodore Voorhees, Jr., Washington, D. C., on brief.
Before LAY and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judges, and HARPER, * Senior District Judge.
National Corn Growers Association, Inc. and National Corn Refiners Association, Inc., sought declaratory and injunctive relief in a suit brought against Inter alia, the United States Secretary of Agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging unlawful implementation of the "de la Garza amendment," section 902(2) of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, 7 U.S.C.A. § 1446(f) (1979 Supp.). The amendment directed the Secretary of Agriculture to implement a price support program for the 1977 and 1978 sugar beet and sugar cane crops in the form of purchases or loans. 1 The amendment contained an exception, subsection (3), to protect sugar processors whose crop years prevented their participation in the 1977 and 1978 crop loan program authorized by the amendment. 2 It allowed interim price support programs other than purchase and loan programs authorized by the amendment, namely payments or subsidies made directly to processors, for "that portion of the 1977 crop of sugar cane and sugar beets marketed prior to the implementation of the program authorized by this subsection (the amendment's loan or purchase program)."
Generally sustaining plaintiffs' allegations, the district court held: (1) Implementation of the loan program authorized by the amendment was illegally delayed past its effective date, October 1, 1977; and (2) the interim direct subsidy program instituted pursuant to subsection (3)'s exception to the amendment was illegally continued past the date the loan program was implemented. According to the court's ruling, all sugar processors who entered into contracts for the sale of sugar after October 1, 1977, were not eligible for the interim direct subsidy payments.
The district court granted partial summary judgment on count I of the complaint, expressly deferring "the assessment of any substantive relief . . . until the present status of the loan program and the full impact of damages sustained, if any, has been ascertained." The court determined the judgment should be certified pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
While the Rule 54(b) certification was appropriate to remove finality problems caused by appeal of judgment on only one count of the multiple claim action, a Rule 54(b) certificate does not make partial adjudication of one of several claims final if it is not otherwise a final decision. Sears,...
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