Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03819/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03819-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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1

The Honorable Gary A. Fenner, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

__________

No. 03-3819

__________ 

Dee Ella Lee, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Western

* District of Missouri.

Roderick Paige, Secretary of the *

Department of Education, * [PUBLISHED]

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 12, 2004

Filed: August 4, 2004

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, McMILLIAN, and MELLOY, Circuit

Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Roderick Paige, Secretary of the United States Department of Education,

appeals from a grant of summary judgment entered in favor of Dee Ella Lee,

contending that the district court1

 incorrectly barred the department from garnishing

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Ms. Lee's social security benefits on account of her outstanding student loans. We

affirm.

Ms. Lee defaulted on two student loans in 1984. The Department of Education

took assignment of the loans in the late 1980's and has sought repayment ever since.

In October, 2001, the government began withholding a portion of Ms. Lee's social

security benefits, applying the amount to Ms. Lee's outstanding loan balance. She

filed suit to stop the government from garnishing her benefits. 

The dispute between Ms. Lee and Secretary Paige requires the synthesis of

three separate acts: the Social Security Act, the Debt Collection Act (as amended by

the Debt Collection Improvement Act), and the Higher Education Act.

The Higher Education Act, passed in 1991, eliminated statutes of limitations

on the government's right to seek repayment on defaulted federal student loans,

providing that "[n]ot withstanding any other provision of statute, ... no limitation shall

terminate the period within which suit may be filed, a judgment may be enforced, or

an offset [or] garnishment ... initiated or taken." 20 U.S.C. § 1091a(a)(2). At the time

that the Higher Education Act became law, the Debt Collection Act authorized the

government to offset unpaid debt balances from some federal payments but not from

social security benefits. See 31 U.S.C. § 3716 (1988); 42 U.S.C. § 407 (1988).

Congress later passed the Debt Collection Improvement Act, which authorizes federal

agencies to recover money owed on delinquent student loans (as well as some other

debts) by offsetting a debtor's social security benefits. See 31 U.S.C.

§ 3716(c)(3)(A)(i). The Debt Collection Improvement Act left unchanged, however,

the original Debt Collection Act's limitation on the right of offset, under which

government agencies are not allowed to use the remedy of administrative offset on

claims that have been outstanding in excess of ten years. See 31 U.S.C. § 3716(e)(1).

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Though he concedes that the claims against Ms. Lee had been outstanding for

more than ten years, Secretary Paige nonetheless argues that the ten-year limitation

in the Debt Collection Act did not prohibit the administrative offset of Ms. Lee's

benefits because that would be contrary to § 1091a(a)(2) which had eliminated

statutes of limitations. Instead, he maintains that the ten-year disabling provision in

§ 3716(e)(1) should control all claims except those like the collection of student

loans, where Congress eliminated all statutes of limitation. Ms. Lee argues that the

disabling provision of § 3716(e)(1) was intentionally left in the statute and that it

controls this case. 

The district court agreed with Ms. Lee. See Lee v. Paige, 276 F.Supp. 2d 980

(W.D. Mo. 2003). The court reasoned that when "Congress removed all statute of

limitations obstacles in § 1091a, it could not have contemplated that its actions would

have any effect on Social Security payments, because such payments were not yet

subject to offset," id. at 984, and subsequent Congressional approval of offsetting

social security benefits did not import § 1091a into the social security context,

because Congress expressly left the ten-year disabling provision intact. Had

Congress intended to limit the disabling provision to allow the government unlimited

offset opportunities for the collection of delinquent student loans, the district court

reasoned, it would have done so explicitly. In the absence of Congressional language

authorizing application of § 1091a to social security offsets, the district court

concluded that the specific limitations in § 3716(e)(1) prevail. Id. at 983-84.

We review de novo a district court's interpretation of a statute. Loehrer v.

McDonnell Douglas Corp., 98 F.3d 1056, 1061 (8th Cir. 1996). We affirm the

judgment for the reasons given in the district court's well-reasoned opinion. The

Department of Education remains free to pursue payment on the defaulted loans from

Ms. Lee; it simply cannot take money from her monthly social security check to

reduce the debt. 

______________________________

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