Slip Op. 07-19 

UNITED STATES COURT OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE 

Before: Leo M. Gordon, Judge 

Court No. 06-00138 

 

OPINION AND ORDER 

[Defendant’s motion for judgment on the agency record denied; case remanded.] 

 Dated: February 5, 2007 

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (John D. Greenwald and Lynn M. Fischer 

Fox) for the Plaintiff. 

 

 Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General; David M. Cohen, Director, and 

Patricia M. McCarthy, Assistant Director, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, 

U.S. Department of Justice (Richard P. Schroeder), for the Defendant. 

Gordon, Judge: The court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 

Section 142 of the Trade Act of 2002, as amended, 19 U.S.C. § 2395 (Supp. 2004).1

 

Plaintiff Julie Nguyen, a shrimper from Texas, challenges the denial of trade adjustment 

assistance (“TAA”). Defendant United States Secretary of Agriculture moves to dismiss 

for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to 

USCIT R. 12(b)(5), arguing that Plaintiff’s application for TAA was untimely. 

Pursuant to its discretion under USCIT R. 12(b), the court has converted 

Defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be 

 

1

All further citations to the Trade Act of 1974, as amended by the Trade Act of 2002, are 

to the relevant provision in Title 19 of the U.S. Code, 2004 Supplement.

JULIE NGUYEN, 

 

Plaintiff, 

 

 v. 

UNITED STATES SECRETARY 

OF AGRICULTURE, 

Defendant. 
Court No. 06-00138 

 

Page 2

granted to a motion for judgment upon the agency record pursuant to USCIT R. 56.1. 

See USCIT R. 12(b). Prior to converting Defendant’s motion, the court provided the 

parties an opportunity to address the merits in additional submissions. 

After reviewing the administrative record the court concludes that Defendant’s 

final determination contains a misstatement of material fact that precludes the court 

from evaluating the basis for the agency’s action. Accordingly, the court remands the 

matter to the agency for further consideration of Plaintiff’s application in its proper 

context. 

I. Background 

In November 2004 the Foreign Agricultural Service (“FAS”) of the United States 

Department of Agriculture certified shrimpers landing their catch in Texas as eligible to 

apply for fiscal year 2005 TAA benefits. Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers, 

69 Fed. Reg. 69,582 (Dep’t of Agric. Nov. 30, 2004) (notice of certification). The 90-day 

period to apply for those benefits began on November 29, 2004, and closed on 

February 28, 2005. Id.

Plaintiff Julie Nguyen and her husband, Be Nguyen (“Mr. Nguyen”), are Texas 

shrimpers and joint owners of the shrimping vessel the “Klein Express.” 

On February 17, 2005, Mr. Nguyen timely filed an individual application for fiscal year 

2005 benefits with the local Farm Service Agency (“county agent”) that administers the 

TAA program in Jefferson/Orange County, Texas. (Pub. R. at 30.)2 The county agent 

granted the application on August 22, 2005, and paid Mr. Nguyen $10,000 in 

adjustment assistance. 

 

2

 The public version of the administrative record is cited as “Pub. R.”
Court No. 06-00138 

 

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After receiving this payment the Nguyens learned that a husband and a wife 

engaged in a farming operation as a joint venture are both eligible to receive TAA 

benefits. The Nguyens subsequently submitted a revised application to the county 

agent on December 29, 2005, listing both Plaintiff and her husband as eligible 

producers, and re-attaching the certifying documentation submitted with Mr. Nguyen’s 

individual application. (Pub. R. at 1.) The revised application was filed four months 

after Mr. Nguyen received his $10,000 payment and ten months after the closure of the 

90-day application period for fiscal year 2005 benefits. 

Upon receiving the revised application, the county agent forwarded it to FAS in 

Washington D.C. for resolution. In its transmittal letter, the county agent noted three 

times that the Nguyens’ revised application was for the “joint operation” of Be and Julie 

Nguyen. Letter dated Feb. 21, 2006, from Executive Director Darrell Guidry to FAS 

Deputy Director (Pub. R. at 27). FAS responded by denying the Nguyens’ revised 

application as untimely, but incorrectly stated that the Nguyens were seeking payments 

as individuals as opposed to jointly: 

In your letter, you stated that the Nguyen’s [sic] requested that their TAA 

application be revised so that they may receive TAA payments as 

individuals and not jointly as originally filed. Their request is denied since 

the application deadline for this petition has expired. 

Letter dated Mar. 6, 2006, from FAS Director Robert Curtis to Executive Director Darrell 

Guidry (Pub. R. at 28) (emphasis added). On April 4, 2006, FAS notified the Nguyens 

of the denial of their revised application. Letter dated Apr. 4, 2006, from FAS Director 

Robert Curtis to Be and Julie Nguyen (Pub. R. 29). Plaintiff then commenced this 

action. 
Court No. 06-00138 

 

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II. Standard of Review 

The court reviews FAS’ findings under the “substantial evidence” standard, 

19 U.S.C. § 2395(b), which in essence requires the court to consider whether the 

agency’s determination is “unreasonable” given the administrative record as a whole. 

Nippon Steel Corp. v. United States, 458 F.3d 1345, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2006). 

If the agency misstates material facts in its final determination so that the court cannot 

evaluate the agency’s action, then the proper course is to remand to the agency for 

further consideration. See Florida Power & Light Co. v. United States Nuclear 

Regulatory Comm’n, 470 U.S. 729, 744 (1985) (“[I]f the reviewing court simply cannot 

evaluate the challenged agency action on the basis of the record before it, the proper 

course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional 

investigation or explanation.”)

III. Discussion 

The TAA statute provides that payment of “adjustment assistance . . . shall be 

made to an adversely affected agricultural commodity producer covered by a 

certification . . . who files an application for such assistance within 90 days after the 

date on which the Secretary makes a determination and issues a certification of 

eligibility . . . .” 19 U.S.C. § 2401e(a)(1) (emphasis added). The statute does not 

address whether the 90-day deadline applies to a TAA recipient’s revised application to 

include the recipient’s spouse as part of a joint operation. Id. The TAA regulations, on 

the other hand, provide that the agency may authorize the county agent “to waive or 

modify non-statutory application deadlines or other program requirements in cases
Court No. 06-00138 

 

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where lateness or failure to meet other program requirements by applicants does not 

adversely affect the operation of the program.” 7 C.F.R. § 1580.501 (2005) 

(emphasis added). 

In denying the Nguyens’ revised application as untimely, the agency did not 

address whether an application like Plaintiff’s is subject to the 90-day deadline of 

section 2401e(a)(1), or is instead governed by some non-statutory application deadline, 

which the agency has the discretion to waive or modify under 7 C.F.R. § 1580.501. 

This is an issue that the agency, not the court, needs to address in the first instance. 

See generally Richard J. Pierce, Jr., Administrative Law Treatise § 14.3 at 941 

(4th ed. 2002) (noting that court should afford agency first opportunity to interpret an 

agency-administered statute when “(1) the statutory language is capable of bearing 

more than one reasonable construction, (2) the choice between or among those 

alternative constructions is critical to the outcome of the case before the court, and 

(3) the agency has not previously adopted a construction of the language at issue.”) 

More fundamentally, the agency’s final determination misstates the factual 

predicate of the Nguyens’ revised application. FAS erred in stating that the Nguyens 

were seeking TAA benefits “as individuals and not jointly as originally filed.” 

Letter dated Mar. 6, 2006, from FAS Director Robert Curtis to Executive Director Darrell 

Guidry (Pub. R. at 28). FAS has it backwards. Mr. Nguyen originally applied as an 

individual, and the Nguyens are now applying as a joint operation. See Letter dated 

Feb. 21, 2006, from Executive Director Darrell Guidry to FAS Deputy Director 

(Pub. R. at 27). This misstatement requires a remand to the agency for consideration of 

the revised application in its proper context—a request to obtain benefits for a joint 
Court No. 06-00138 

 

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operation by revising a timely filed individual TAA application that has been granted. 

See, e.g., Metallverken Nederland B.V. v. United States, 13 CIT 1013, 1030-31, 

728 F. Supp. 730, 743 (1989) (misstatement of material fact by agency required remand 

for further consideration). 

Accordingly, it is ordered that this action is remanded to Defendant for 

reconsideration of the revised application, and that Defendant shall report its remand 

results to the court on or before April 10, 2007. Subsequent to the filing of the 

Defendant’s remand results, the court will conference with the parties to establish a 

schedule for the submission of comments on those results. 

 

 /s/ Leo M. Gordon 

 Judge Leo M. Gordon 

 

Dated: February 5, 2007 

 New York, New York