IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-30797

ROBIN N. COOLEY,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF SLIDELL,

Defendant-Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Louisiana

Before WIENER, HAYNES, and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.

WIENER, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant the Housing Authority of the City of Slidell (“SHA”) 

appeals the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Appellee

Robin N. Cooley. The district court ruled that the SHA acted arbitrarily and 

capriciously in terminating Cooley’s rental assistance benefits under the 

Housing Choice Voucher Program (“Section 8”) for failure to attend an annual 

recertification meeting. In reaching that conclusion, the court found that the 

SHA had failed to consider the totality of the circumstances, including the facts

that Cooley’s mother had recently died and that Cooley contacted the SHA 

immediately after receiving its notice. We affirm.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

March 26, 2014

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 13-30797

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Cooley received rental assistance from the United States Department of 

Housing and Urban Development through the Housing Choice Voucher 

Program (“Section 8”).1 Section 8 provides federal funds to subsidize the rent 

of eligible families. State government entities, called public housing agencies, 

administer Section 8. In 1997, Cooley began receiving assistance in Jefferson 

Parish, Louisiana. In 2009, she transferred her voucher to Slidell’s program 

and signed a “Statement of Family Obligations” acknowledging specific

program requirements, including participation in annual recertification 

hearings. Cooley participated in two such hearings with the SHA, one in May 

of 2010 and the other in May of 2011.

In March of 2012, Cooley’s mother moved into Cooley’s Slidell apartment 

while receiving hospice care and died there on March 29, 2012. Cooley and her 

children temporarily moved into her mother’s former apartment in New 

Orleans East, approximately 30 miles west of Slidell, to wind up her mother’s 

affairs. Cooley’s children continued to attend school near her apartment in 

Slidell. She did not retrieve her mail until she moved back on April 18, 2012.

Meanwhile, the SHA had mailed a certified letter to Cooley, informing 

her that her annual recertification hearing would begin at 10:00 a.m. on April 

17, 2012. The letter was addressed to Cooley at her home in Slidell, was dated 

April 9, 2012, and was postmarked April 11, 2012. It stated that Cooley could 

reschedule the hearing by contacting the SHA within three days after she 

received the letter. The United States Postal Service attempted to deliver the 

certified letter on April 12, 2012, and again on April 16, 2012, and on each 

occasion left a notice of their attempt at Cooley’s Slidell home. She picked up

that notice when she returned home on April 18, 2012. Because the post office 

1 24 C.F.R. § 982.1(a)(1).

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had closed, she was unable to retrieve the letter until the next day, April 19, 

2012. Cooley went to the SHA’s office that same day, but her caseworker 

refused to see her without an appointment, instructing her to return during 

walk-in hours the next day, April 20. Cooley complied. Although the record 

contains conflicting evidence and testimony concerning the information 

exchanged between Cooley and the SHA staff during the April 20 meeting, the 

district court found that, at a minimum, Cooley conveyed to the caseworker 

that she had failed to attend the recertification hearing because she did not 

receive the notification letter until after the meeting had taken place.

On April 24, 2012, the SHA notified Cooley that it would terminate her 

participation in Section 8, effective May 31, 2012, for her failure to attend the 

recertification hearing and for another unspecified program violation. The 

letter informed Cooley of her right to appeal the decision by requesting an 

informal hearing, in writing, within ten days. Cooley timely requested such a

hearing.

Sheila Danzey, the SHA’s Interim Executive Director, conducted 

Cooley’s appeal hearing on May 15, 2012. On May 24, 2012, Danzey issued a 

decision letter upholding the termination. That letter described the basis of the 

termination as “violations of responsibilities 4, 5, and 6 of the Family 

Obligations Statement.” The district court found, and the parties do not 

materially dispute, that the decision letter did not discuss facts related to 

Cooley’s failure to comply with Family Obligations 5 or 6, involving prompt 

reporting of changes in income or household composition, but limited its 

discussion to Cooley’s failure to comply with Family Obligation 4, involving 

compliance with annual reporting requirements. After recounting some of the 

evidence Cooley had presented in her defense at the hearing, the decision letter 

includes the following statements that could be considered factual findings in 

support of the termination decision:

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According to your case manager, Ms. Dempsey[,] you never 

mentioned that you had [a] death in the family or that you were 

out of town as the reason you did not attend your scheduled 

appointment[.]

[. . .]

You have not demonstrated that you did not attend your 

appointment due to circumstances that were beyond your control. 

Your recertification appointment was scheduled three weeks after 

your mother passed which was ample time for you receive [sic] 

your mail and/or to contact this office to discuss the possibility of 

rescheduling your appointment. Your decision not to pick up your 

mail immediately upon receiving notice from the post office that 

you had certified mail from the Housing Authority was your own 

personal decision. The post office made two attempts (12th and 

16th) to delivery [sic] your appointment to your door via certified 

mail.

The decision letter concluded by stating that the SHA’s policy is to send a single 

certified letter to schedule a recertification appointment and that the SHA 

“does not have the resources to schedule and send multiple appointments for 

you to re-certify for assistance.”

On September 26, 2012, Cooley filed suit in the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, alleging that the termination 

violated her right to due process and was arbitrary and capricious.2 The parties 

filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court granted Cooley’s 

motion and ordered that she be reinstated to Section 8. This timely appeal 

followed.

2 Cooley’s Complaint also contained allegations that she had been 

denied an impartial decision maker in violation of her rights to due process 

and under the Federal Housing Act. Cooley has abandoned these claims and 

they are not at issue in this appeal.

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II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review an order granting summary judgment de novo, applying the 

same standards as the district court.3 “Summary judgment is warranted if the 

pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits 

show that there is no genuine [dispute] as to any material fact and that the 

movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”4 When parties file crossmotions for summary judgment, we review “each party’s motion 

independently, viewing the evidence and inferences in the light most favorable 

to the nonmoving party.”5

The United States Supreme Court has held that “when a state agency 

acting in a judicial capacity resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it 

which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, federal courts 

must give the agency’s factfinding the same preclusive effect to which it would 

be entitled in the State’s courts.”6 “To determine Louisiana law, we look to the 

final decisions of Louisiana’s highest court. In the absence of a final decision 

by that court addressing the issue at hand, a federal court must determine, in 

its best judgment, how the state’s highest court would resolve the issue if 

presented with it.”7 The Louisiana Supreme Court has not yet addressed the 

preclusive effects of agency decisions in this precise context.8 Making its Erie

3 Duval v. N. Assur. Co. of Am., 722 F.3d 300, 303 (5th Cir. 2013).

4 Id. (quoting DePree v. Saunders, 588 F.3d 282. 286 (5th Cir. 2009)).

5 Ford Motor Co. v. Tex. Dep’t of Transp., 264 F.3d 493, 498 (5th Cir. 

2001).

6 Univ. of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788, 799 (1986) (quoting United 

States v. Utah Constr. & Mining Co., 384 U.S. 394, 422 (1966)) (internal 

citation and quotation marks omitted).

7 Holt v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 627 F.3d 188, 191 (5th Cir. 2010) 

(citing Am. Int’l Specialty Lines Ins. Co. v. Canal Indem. Co., 352 F.3d 254, 260 

(5th Cir. 2003)).

8 Although the parties make reference to the Louisiana Administrative 

Procedure Act (LAPA) in discussing the appropriate level of deference, that Act 

does not apply because the SHA is a political subdivision of the State. La. Rev. 

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guess, the district court applied the standard articulated by the Louisiana 

Court of Appeal for the First Circuit, which stated that an agency action may

be upheld when it is “[s]upported by substantial evidence, in that the action 

was not arbitrary or capricious or an abuse of discretion.”9 In making our own 

Erie guess de novo, we apply the same standard.

III. ANALYSIS

Among her arguments in favor of reversing the SHA’s termination and 

affirming the district court, Cooley points to the fact that she complied with 

the SHA’s requirements specifically communicated to her by contacting the 

SHA within three days of her receipt of the letter and attempting to reschedule 

the recertification appointment. This is so because the SHA’s certified letter 

was not delivered on April 12 or April 16; only the notice of attempted delivery 

was delivered. Cooley therefore did not receive the SHA’s letter notifying her 

of her recertification appointment until she picked it up at the post office on 

April 19; she then tried to reschedule on that very day. We hold that Cooley 

followed the SHA’s requirements and that the SHA’s contrary decision is 

Stat. § 40:384(16) (public housing authorities are political subdivisions); La. 

Const. art. VI, §44 (defining “political subdivision”); La. Rev. Stat. § 49:951(2) 

(excluding political subdivisions from the definition of “agency” covered by 

LAPA). If LAPA did apply, we would owe substantial deference to the factual 

findings made by the Eastern District of Louisiana, and not to the SHA’s 

factual findings. See La. Rev. Stat. § 49:964(F)-(G). Because the LAPA does not 

apply, the Louisiana Constitution governs Cooley’s claims insofar as it

guarantees a right to judicial review even in the absence of statutory 

authorization. See La. Const. art. I, §§ 2, 22; Loop, Inc. v. Collector of Revenue, 

523 So. 2d 201 (La. 1987).

9 Tanner v. City of Baton Rouge, 422 So. 2d 1263, 1266 (La. Ct. App. 

1982).

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arbitrary and capricious.10 As this disposes of the case, we do not address the 

parties’ remaining contentions.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

10 Ironically, the SHA was eight days late in mailing its initial notice to 

Cooley, thereby violating its own deadline established in its Administrative 

Plan. 

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