Studt v. U.S., 79-1176
| Decision Date | 29 October 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-1176,79-1176 |
| Parties | Wayne STUDT d/b/a Studt's Super Valu, Appellee, v. UNITED STATES of America; Robert Bergland, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture; Food and Nutrition Services, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Patricia G. Reeves, Atty. App. Staff, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C. (argued), Barbara Allen Babcock, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., Robert D. Hiaring, U.S. Atty., Sioux Falls, S.D., and Robert S. Greenspan, Washington, D.C., on brief, for appellants.
David M. Axtmann, Highmore, S.D., for appellee.
Before HEANEY and ROSS, Circuit Judges, and LARSON, * Senior District Judge.
The United States appeals from a decision of the United States District Court, District of South Dakota, 1 disqualifying Appellee Wayne Studt from participating in the Food Stamp Program for a period of sixty days. Appellee was found guilty of exchanging non-eligible items for food stamps in violation of the Food Stamp Act of 1977. Appellant claims that the district court erred in reducing the one-year disqualification imposed by the Department of Agriculture to a sixty day period of disqualification.
Wayne Studt owns and operates Studt's Super Valu, a retail grocery store in Highmore, South Dakota. During a three-day period in October of 1977, the Food and Nutrition Service, a branch of the Department of Agriculture, conducted an investigation of Studt's Super Valu after statistics compiled by that office revealed that redemption of food stamps at the store was substantially higher than the redemption rate at other retail grocery stores in the surrounding geographic area. Under the Food Stamp Act of 1977, 7 U.S.C. § 2011 Et seq., and its predecessor the Food Stamp Act of 1964, food stamps may be accepted only for eligible food items, See 7 C.F.R. § 272.2(b), and no money may be given as change in a food stamp transaction. The investigation, conducted by compliance specialists of the Food and Nutrition Service and their aides, consisted of five separate purchases from the Super Valu store, in which a specialist or an aide would attempt to make mixed purchases of eligible and ineligible items with food stamps. All attempted purchases were made without objection by employees of Studt's Super Valu; among the ineligible items purchased were razor blades, paper goods, detergents, and cigarettes. Two of the purchases were made from Studt's wife, one of two clerks working at the store. Testimony at the trial indicated that Studt had been contacted numerous times prior to the compliance investigation, at which times the Food Stamp Program had been explained to Studt and he had been warned that food stamp violations probably were occurring at the store.
As a result of the investigation Studt was disqualified from participating in the Food Stamp Program for a period of one year. At his request, a hearing and review of this decision was held by the Food and Nutrition Service, which upheld the sanction originally imposed. Studt appealed this determination to the Hyde County Court of South Dakota; the case was removed to the United States District Court, District of South Dakota pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a). The district court held that the imposition of a year's disqualification was arbitrary and capricious, finding that no policy existed in the store to violate the Food Stamp Act, and therefore reduced the period of disqualification from one year to 60 days.
On appeal, appellant United States contends that the district court erred in substituting its judgment for the judgment of the Department of Agriculture as to the appropriate sanction for violation of the Food Stamp Act. At no time has Studt denied that he was in violation of the Food Stamp Act. The only question before us, therefore, is the appropriate standard of review of the sanction imposed on the...
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