Pigford v. Vilsack

• Decision Date: 17 December 2014
• Docket Number: Civil Action Nos. 97–1978 PLF,98–1693 PLF
• Citation: 75 F.Supp.3d 462
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia
• Parties: Timothy Pigford, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Tom Vilsack, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant. Cecil Brewington, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Tom Vilsack, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant.

75 F.Supp.3d 462

Timothy Pigford, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Tom Vilsack, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant.

Cecil Brewington, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Tom Vilsack, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant.

Civil Action Nos. 97–1978 PLF

98–1693 PLF

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed December 17, 2014

Anthony Herman, Covington & Burling LLP, David A. Branch, Law Office of David Branch, Jacob A. Stein, Stein, Mitchell & Muse, L.L.P., Richard Talbot Seymour, Law Office of Richard T. Seymour, P.L.L.C., Joshua A. Doan, U.S. Department of Justice, Barbara Kim Kagan, Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, Washington, DC, Charles Jerome Ware, Charles Jerome Ware, P.A., Columbia, MD, Faya R. Toure, Selma, AL, Charles Jerome Ware, Charles Jerome Ware, P.A., Columbia, MD, Phillip L. Fraas, Stinson Morrison Hecker, LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

Andrea Iris Newmark, Daniel Edward Bensing, Elizabeth Goitein, Herbert E. Forrest, Julie Straus, Matthew Josephson, Tamra Tyree Moore, Terry Marcus Henry, Joel L. McElvain, Michael Sitcov, Stephen McCoy Elliott, Marsha Stelson Edney, Megan Anne Crowley, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, Elbert Lin, Office of the West Virginia Attorney General, Charleston, WV, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

PAUL L. FRIEDMAN, United States District Judge

This matter is before the Court on the defendant's motion to dismiss a petition for an award of attorney fees and costs filed by Boone Law Firm, P.A.(“Boone Law Firm”).Upon consideration of the parties' papers, the relevant legal authorities, and pertinent portions of the record in this case, the Court will grant the defendant's motion and dismiss the petition for attorney fees and costs with prejudice.¹

I.BACKGROUND

Boone Law Firm seeks an award of attorney fees and costs for legal services provided to Mr. Edward L. Scott, Jr., a member of the Pigford class.The Pigford case arose from decades of racial discrimination by the Department of Agriculture and local county commissioners in administering farm loans and benefits to African American farmers.SeePigford v. Glickman,185 F.R.D. 82, 85–90(D.D.C.1999).The Consent Decree approved by this Court created a mechanism for resolving individual claims of class members outside the traditional litigation process.Pigford v. Schafer,536 F.Supp.2d 1, 4(D.D.C.2008).Class members could choose between two claims procedures, known as Track A and Track B. Id.Track A claims were decided by a third-party neutral known as an adjudicator, and claimants that were able to meet a minimal burden of proof were awarded $50,000 in monetary damages, debt relief, tax relief, and injunctive relief.Id.Track B imposed no cap on damages and also provided for debt relief and injunctive relief; but claimants who chose Track B were required to prove their claims by a preponderance of the evidence in one-day mini-trials before a third-party neutral known as an arbitrator.Id.Decisions of the adjudicator and the arbitrator were final, except that the Monitor, a court-appointed third-party neutral, could on petition direct the adjudicator and the arbitrator to re-examine claims if the Monitor determined that “a clear and manifest error ha[d] occurred” that was “likely to result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”Id.(citingConsent Decree¶¶ 9(a)(v), 9(b)(v), 10(i), 12(b)(iii)).

Edward Scott was a farmer in Leflore County and Bolivar County, Mississippi until the early 1980s and a Track B claimant.Fraas Fee PetitionMem. 1–2.Boone Law Firm represented Mr. Scott from February 1999 to February 2001.Boone Fee Petition Mem.at 6.The arbitrator initially dismissed Scott's claim, but Mr. Scott's pro se motion for monitor review led to a reinstatement of his claim in 2006.Fraas Fee PetitionMem. 2.Attorney Phillip Fraas then represented Mr. Scott from 2006 onward.The arbitrator issued his decision in November 2011, finding that Mr. Scott's row crop and catfish farming operation had failed due to discriminatory lending practices by the Farmers' Home Administration.The arbitrator awarded Mr. Scott over $6 million in economic damages, $150,000 in non-economic damages, and full debt relief including over $241,000 in debt payments returned to Mr. Scott.Id. at 1, 4–5.

Phillip Fraas filed a motion for attorney fees, costs, and expenses in January 2014, relating to his work on Mr. Scott's Track B claim.See Fraas Fee Petition.Boone Law Firm then submitted a separate motion for attorney fees, costs, and expenses in May 2014.See Boone Fee Petition.Boone Law Firm requests $435,985.97 for attorney fees, paralegal fees, and expenses for legal services provided to Mr. Scott between 1999 and 2001, including “develop[ing] evidence that included the identification of Similarly Situated White Farmers (SSWFs), economic damage experts, losses related to row crops, catfish farms, catfish processing plant[s], and psychiatric damages,” and introduction of the “constructive application” principle, which, according to the firm, also benefitted thousands of Track A claimants.Boone Fee Petition Mem.at 1–2, 12.

The defendant states that after Boone Law Firm filed its fee petition, the defendant learned of, and obtained a copy of, a March 2003 Settlement Agreement between the defendant and Boone Law Firm, in which the firm agreed to settle its claims for attorney fees related to the Pigford case.Def.'s MTD Mem.at 2 & n.2.The defendant then filed its motion to dismiss Boone Law Firm's fee petition, arguing that the Settlement Agreement bars the firm's fee petition.See Def.'s MTD.²Boone acknowledges that it entered into the March 2003 Settlement Agreement, but argues that Mr. Scott's claim was excluded from the settlement.Boone Opp'n Memat 2.

II.DISCUSSION

A.Legal Standard

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.Under Article III's case or controversy requirement, federal courts may only decide “real and substantial controvers[ies].”North Carolina v. Rice,404 U.S. 244, 246, 92 S.Ct. 402, 30 L.Ed.2d 413(1971)(per curiam)(quotingAetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth,300 U.S. 227, 241, 57 S.Ct. 461, 81 L.Ed. 617(1937) ).Federal courts have no jurisdiction over moot cases, seeWorth v. Jackson,451 F.3d 854, 857(D.C.Cir.2006), and such cases must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.The Court has “an affirmative obligation to ensure that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority ... which includes the obligation to consider the possibility of mootness.”Lindell v. Landis Corp. 401(k) Plan,640 F.Supp.2d 11, 14(D.D.C.2009)(quotingAbu Ali v. Gonzales,387 F.Supp.2d 16, 17(D.D.C.2005) )(omission in original)(internal quotation marks omitted).Claims that have been resolved by earlier settlement agreements, and therefore present no ongoing controversy, are moot.Id.Accordingly, although the defendant here does not specify the procedural rule governing its motion to dismiss Boone Law Firm's fee petition, the Court will analyze the defendant's motion to dismiss—which is based on the Settlement Agreement executed by the parties in 2003—as a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1).

Under Rule 12(b)(1), the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction.Lindell v. Landis Corp. 401(k) Plan,640 F.Supp.2d at 14.When deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court must construe the complaint in the plaintiff's favor and treat all well-pled factual allegations as true.SeeAllen v. Nicholson,573 F.Supp.2d 35, 38(D.D.C.2008).The Court is not required, however, to accept unsupported inferences or “legal conclusions cast as factual allegations.”Id.(quotingRann v. Chao,154 F.Supp.2d 61, 64(D.D.C.2001) )(internal quotation marks omitted).Under Rule 12(b)(1), the Court may dispose of the motion on the basis of the complaint alone or it may consider materials beyond the pleadings, such as the proffered settlement agreement, “as it deems appropriate to resolve the question whether it has jurisdiction to hear the case.”Lindell v. Landis Corp. 401(k) Plan,640 F.Supp.2d at 14(quotingScolaro v. D.C. Bd. of Elections and Ethics,104 F.Supp.2d 18, 22(D.D.C.2000) )(internal quotation marks omitted).

B.Analysis

Settlement agreements are contracts, and courts interpret them accordingly.Lindell v. Landis Corp. 401(k) Plan,640 F.Supp.2d at 15(citing 13B Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure Juris.§ 3533.2 (2d ed. 2002));see alsoDodge v. Trs. of Nat. Gallery of Art,326 F.Supp.2d 1, 9(D.D.C.2004)(“When a case is settled extrajudicially through settlement agreements, this Court has applied the principles of contract law ... to determine what claims the parties intended to foreclose from future litigation.”)(citations omitted)(alteration omitted)(internal quotation marks omitted).In such situations, “ ‘the judicial task ... is to give effect to the mutual intent of the parties,’ and ‘when the language of a contract is clear and unambiguous on its face, a court will assume that the meaning ordinarily ascribed to those words reflects the intention of the parties.’ ”Pigford v. Schafer,536 F.Supp.2d at 10(quotingMesa Air Group, Inc. v. Dep't of Transp.,87 F.3d 498, 503(D.C.Cir.1996) )(omission in original).Any assertions of ambiguity in the terms of the agreement must be established by objective evidence.Seeid.

The March 2003 Settlement Agreement between Boone and the defendant contains only four paragraphs, and the key portion states that:

Defendant shall pay to Boone Law Firm, P.A., attorney's fees, expenses, and costs in the amount of $580,000 (five-hundred eighty thousand dollars) in full and final settlement of any and all claims by the Boone Law Firm pursuant to any statute or any other basis, for attorneys' fees,

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