Peoples v. United States Department of Agriculture

Decision Date03 February 1970
Docket NumberNo. 22574.,22574.
Citation138 US App. DC 291,427 F.2d 561
PartiesArlett PEOPLES et al., Appellants v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE et al.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mr. Ronald F. Pollack, New York City, of the bar of the Court of Appeals of New York, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom Messrs. Lee A. Albert, New York City, Edgar S. Cahn, and Mrs. Jean Camper Cahn, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellants. Mr. John R. Kramer, Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for appellants.

Mr. Howard B. Pickard, Atty., Dept. of Agriculture, of the bar of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom Messrs. Neil Brooks, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Dept. of Agriculture, and Alan S. Rosenthal, Atty., Dept. of Justice, were on the brief, for appellees. Mr. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty., at the time the record was filed, also entered an appearance for appellees.

Before WRIGHT, McGOWAN and LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judges.

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:

This is an action brought by a number of poor people in the State of Alabama against the Secretary of Agriculture. Their complaint raises various statutory and constitutional objections to the way in which the defendants are administering the Food Stamp Act of 1964,1 and the Commodities Distribution Program which is predicated primarily on Section 32 of the Act of August 24, 1935,2 and on Section 416 of the Agriculture Act of 1949.3

It may be helpful if our discussion focuses on a principal, if not primary, claim by plaintiff, that the Secretary's Food Stamp Program fails to comply with the provision of 7 U.S.C. § 2016(b) which states that the prices which the Secretary shall charge poor people for the food stamps they receive shall be equal to their normal expenses for food. Under the program it is only when poor applicants have paid this ("normal" expense) price for their Government food stamps that they become eligible for the "bonus" stamps that supply at least some of the additional food they need. Plaintiffs say that the charge for a food stamp allotment specified by the Secretary is in fact higher than the normal expenditures for food for a large part, if not the majority, of the people in Alabama who are living below adequate nutrition levels, and that their resulting inability to pay the price of a food stamp allotment under the Secretary's program results in their complete and unlawful exclusion from the Food Stamp Program which Congress enacted for their benefit.

The District Judge dismissed the complaint on the ground that the primary objective of the statute was the removal of agricultural surpluses, that the benefits to the poor and undernourished was at best an incidental objective, which does not establish any legal right in the incidental beneficiary to complain of illegalities in administration, and that accordingly plaintiffs had no legal standing to complain even assuming the Secretary had acted unlawfully and in disregard of the statute.

1. The pertinent principles on the subject of standing have been reviewed and restated in our recent en banc decision in Curran v. Laird, 420 F.2d 122 (November 12, 1969) which discusses the recent Supreme Court precedents and underlying principles. These principles establish a presumptive standing, operative unless negatived by a statutory provision, which permits a complaint, alleging that executive programs unlawfully deviate from statutory requirements, to be filed by those who were intended beneficiaries of the statutory provisions, even though they are not the primary beneficiaries of the statute.

There can be little doubt that the plaintiffs were in the category of those Congress intended to benefit in the food stamp program. This appears plainly from 7 U.S.C. § 2011 (1964), wherein Congress declared:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress, in order to promote the general welfare, that the Nation\'s abundance of food should be utilized cooperatively by the States, the Federal Government, and local government units to the maximum extent practicable to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation\'s population and raise levels of nutrition among low-income households. The Congress hereby finds that increased utilization of foods in establishing and maintaining adequate national levels of nutrition will tend to cause the distribution in a beneficial manner of our agricultural abundances and will strengthen our agricultural economy, as well as result in more orderly marketing and distribution of food. To effectuate the policy of Congress and the purposes of this chapter, a food stamp program, which will permit those households with low incomes to receive a greater share of the Nation\'s food abundance, is herein authorized. (Emphasis added.)4

The principles of standing discussed above establish the standing of poor people to complain of illegal departures by the Secretary from the Congressional plan, since they are an intended beneficiary of Congress, and this principle is neither undercut by the fact that the farmers were also beneficiaries, nor dependent on some process of appraisal to determine whether the poor people weighed heavier in the scales that the farmers, or which should be labeled the "primary" beneficiaries.

2. The Government contends in the alternative that even assuming that the plaintiffs have standing to complain of the alleged illegalities of defendant officials, jurisdiction to entertain and determine their complaint has not been assigned by Congress to the District Court.

The complaint alleged that such jurisdiction existed by virtue of various statutory provisions, including 28 U.S.C. § 1361 and 5 U.S.C. § 702.5 We need not consider whether § 10(a) of the Administrative Procedure Act, now codified in 5 U.S.C. § 702, sufficed to constitute a grant of jurisdiction to the District Court. The District Court for the District of Columbia has an independent source of jurisdiction in the legislation, passed by Congress, and codified in the District of Columbia Code, 11 D.C.Code § 521, which gives that court general equity jurisdiction, and venue where either party is resident or found within the District of Columbia. This permits actions for declaratory judgment as well as injunction to be maintained against those whose office in the Federal Government establishes their official residence in the District. Stark v. Wickard, 321 U.S. 288, 64 S.Ct. 559, 88 L.Ed. 733 (1944); Nestor v. Hershey, 425 F.2d 504, at 521-523 F.2d (Dec. 16, 1969).

The Mandamus and Venue Act of 1962, Public Law 87-748, codified in 28 U.S.C. § 1361, confirms the District Court's jurisdiction. That act declares the jurisdiction of any District Court in the United States to entertain an action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer of an agency of the United States to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.6 It provides venue in any district where the defendant resides.7

This statute fills a void, which previously had been taken to prevent District Courts outside the District of Columbia from issuing mandamus against a government official.8 While the statute is couched in terms of mandamus action, its liberalizing purpose, to remove technical objections that existed outside the District of Columbia, was intended to permit District Courts generally to issue appropriate corrective orders where Federal officials are not acting within the zone of their permissible discretion but are abusing their discretion or otherwise acting contrary to law, and hence to entertain a civil action under § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act.9 This statute does not undercut the historic jurisdiction of the District Court for the District of Columbia to entertain such actions, it rather extends that mandamus jurisdiction to the other District Courts.

3. We do not see any merit in the Government's reliance on the introductory provision in § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, which says that the act is not applicable where "statutes preclude judicial review." (5 U.S.C. § 701.)

Apparently the Government argues that a withdrawal from the APA must be inferred from certain provisions of the Food Stamp Program statute which accord judicial review to a food distributor who has been excluded from participation in the program, or blacklisted, or has had a claim rejected in whole or in part (7 U.S.C. § 2022). The food distributors became involved in the legislation only secondarily, as the means by which Congress hoped to achieve benefit to others (poor people and farmers). The specific review provisions in 7 U.S. C. § 2022 both avoided any possibility that the distributors would be held without a legal right to complain of adverse agency action, and gave them a trial de novo well beyond the scope of review available under the general provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2) (F). There is no fair implication that granting this special judicial review to food distributors was intended to curtail or negative the judicial review otherwise presumed to be available for the protection of the poor.

4. The Government also argues that the District Court was without jurisdiction over the subject matter because the issues tendered by the complaint relate to matters that are committed to the non-reviewable discretion of the Secretary. The District Court did not advance this as a reason for dismissing complaint without a trial.

In the interest of sound judicial administration we have considered certain jurisdictional questions not discussed by the District Court because they were ripe for judicial consideration and our determination at this time could obviate uncertainty or delay. However, we do not think it appropriate to rule at the present time on the nature and scope of the Secretary's discretion. This is one of...

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