Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-14-03866/USCOURTS-ca6-14-03866-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 16a0022p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

TRUMBULL COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

VILLAGE OF LORDSTOWN, OHIO; CITY OF WARREN,

OHIO, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

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No. 14-3866 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Ohio at Youngstown. 

No. 4:09-cv-00249—Benita Y. Pearson, District Judge. 

Argued: July 30, 2015 

Decided and Filed: February 2, 2016 

Before: BATCHELDER, ROGERS, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: Stephen N. Haughey, FROST BROWN TODD LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, for 

Appellants. Matthew G. Vansuch, HARRINGTON, HOPPE & MITCHELL, LTD., Warren, 

Ohio, for Appellee Village of Lordstown. Thomas J. Wilson, COMSTOCK, SPRINGER & 

WILSON, CO., LPA, Youngstown, Ohio, for Appellee City of Warren. ON BRIEF: Stephen 

N. Haughey, Thaddeus H. Driscoll, FROST BROWN TODD LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, for 

Appellants. Matthew G. Vansuch, HARRINGTON, HOPPE & MITCHELL, LTD., Warren, 

Ohio, for Appellee Village of Lordstown. Thomas J. Wilson, COMSTOCK, SPRINGER & 

WILSON, CO., LPA, Youngstown, Ohio, for Appellee City of Warren. 

 KETHLEDGE, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which BATCHELDER, J., joined. 

ROGERS, J. (pg. 4), delivered a separate dissenting opinion. 

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 Case: 14-3866 Document: 54-2 Filed: 02/02/2016 Page: 1
No. 14-3866 Trumbull Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs v. Village of Lordstown, et al. Page 2 

_________________ 

OPINION 

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KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Trumbull County has provided sewer service to General 

Motors’ Lordstown Assembly Plant since 1964. In the mid-2000s, the County borrowed $3.4 

million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to maintain and improve the County’s sewer 

lines. That loan obligation triggered the protections of a Kennedy-era statute, 7 U.S.C. 

§ 1926(b), under which sewer providers that owe money to the Department are protected from 

competition with other sewer providers. The County invokes that statute here, claiming that the 

Village of Lordstown violated § 1926(b) when the Village built sewer lines that could one day 

serve GM’s Lordstown Plant. (The County added the City of Warren as a defendant because the 

City operates and maintains the Village’s lines.) The district court granted summary judgment to 

the defendants, holding on the merits that the Village’s mere construction of sewer lines did not 

curtail or limit the County’s service in violation of the statute. We agree with that reasoning but 

decide the case on standing grounds. 

Standing contains three elements, one of which is that “the plaintiff must have suffered 

an injury in fact—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and 

particularized, and (b) actual or imminent[.]” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 

(1992) (internal quotation marks, citations, and footnote omitted). As an initial matter, 

protection from competition normally is not a legally protected interest. See id. at 578. But 

§ 1926(b) does provide temporary protection along those lines. Specifically, the statute provides 

that, during the term of a loan by the Department of Agriculture to a sewer provider, the 

provider’s service “shall not be curtailed or limited” by competition with another provider. Here, 

the County still owes $3.3 million to the Department. At present, therefore, § 1926(b) affords 

the County a legally protected interest in freedom from competition. See Hardin v. Kentucky 

Utilities Co., 390 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1968). 

But that does not mean the County has shown any actual or imminent invasion of that 

interest. A plaintiff must establish standing “in the same way as any other matter on which the 

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No. 14-3866 Trumbull Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs v. Village of Lordstown, et al. Page 3 

plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at 

successive stages of the litigation.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561. Here the district court decided the 

case at the summary-judgment stage, so the County must present evidence creating a genuine 

issue that the defendants “curtailed or limited” the County’s service, or threaten to do so 

sometime soon. (We recognize that this issue is nearly identical to the merits issue decided by 

the district court. Sometimes in no-injury cases the merits and standing issues look the same. 

But standing is jurisdictional, and so we begin there.) 

The relevant evidence is undisputed. The Village built sewer lines to extend sewer (as 

opposed to only septic) service to the Village’s east side. The Village also built sewer lines to 

serve a trailer park adjacent to the GM plant. And the line to the trailer park is large enough to 

handle all of the sewage from the GM plant. That said, the Village has not provided sewer 

service to GM or any other customer serviced by the County. In that respect this case is different 

from Hardin: there, as here, the plaintiff claimed that a federal statute protected it from 

competition with the defendant; but there the defendant had already begun servicing the 

plaintiff’s customers. See 390 U.S. at 5. We have nothing of the sort here—no curtailment or 

limitation of any kind—which means the County cannot show any actual invasion of an interest 

protected by § 1926(b). 

Nor is any such invasion imminent. Sewer lines can last for decades, so the mere fact of 

their construction does not show that the Village intends to compete with the County anytime 

soon. And the protections of § 1926(b) are temporary: once the County pays off its federal loan, 

the Village is free to compete with the County all it likes. Nor does the statute bar the Village 

from preparing to compete with the County. The core problem with the County’s claim is that 

§ 1926(b) protects the County from competition only for a limited time. And the County lacks 

evidence that the Village intends to compete with the County during that time, rather than after 

it. The County lacks any actual or imminent injury, therefore, to the interests protected by 

§ 1926(b). The sewage flows as it ever did. 

The district court’s judgment is vacated, and the case remanded with instructions to 

dismiss for want of jurisdiction. 

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No. 14-3866 Trumbull Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs v. Village of Lordstown, et al. Page 4 

_________________ 

DISSENT 

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ROGERS, Circuit Judge, dissenting. If a neighbor increases the risk to your property, 

e.g., by removing a floodwall, you have standing to challenge the removal, even if the flood is 

not impending and indeed may never occur. This is not to say that you have a legal right to keep 

the neighbor from removing the floodwall—that is a merits issue. But if you did have a legal 

right to keep the neighbor from removing the floodwall, or if Congress gave you such a legal 

right, you could prevail and there would be little question that you would have a case or 

controversy under Article III. By winning the suit, you would preserve the present value of your 

property, not to mention the mental peace of not having to worry as much about that once-in-acentury flood. 

 For similar reasons, this case should be decided on the merits. The plaintiff by winning 

would obtain insurance against a costly albeit uncertain hit to its tax base, the very possibility of 

which would at some level immediately reduce confidence in the long-term financial health of 

the county. This gives the county Article III standing. However, for the reasons given in the 

majority opinion, the county’s claim fails on the merits. Lordstown has not done anything that is 

precluded by 7 U.S.C. § 1926(b). 

 This case is not like Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992). There would be 

an analogy to Lujan if the flood could not reach your property, or if Lordstown’s sewer lines 

could not foreseeably be used to reduce the county’s tax base. 

 Case: 14-3866 Document: 54-2 Filed: 02/02/2016 Page: 4