Source: http://nj.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19740715_0040072.C03.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2017-06-27 14:11:44
Document Index: 125893838

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1331', '§ 1346', '§ 701', '§ 1702', '§ 1346', '§ 701', '§ 703', '§ 1702']

| Lindy v. Lynn
PHILIP B. LINDY, TRADING AS FOUNTAIN VIEW APARTMENTS, APPELLANTv.JAMES LYNN, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR EASTEEN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA (D.C. CIVIL NO. 73-1442).
Maris, Hunter and Garth, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from the judgment of the district court dismissing the plaintiff's cause of action on the merits. Plaintiff, Philip B. Lindy, trading as Fountain View Apartments, had obtained from Metropolitan Federal Savings and Loan Association a mortgage loan to finance the construction of a large apartment building in Philadelphia. The mortgage loan was insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Pursuant to FHA regulations the mortgagee required the plaintiff to deposit with it the sums of $69,308.00 as working capital and $103,962.00 as a mortgage discount fee for which sums the mortgagee issued a Mortgagee's Certificate in the form prescribed by FHA. The additional sum of $21,440.00 was deposited by the plaintiff with the mortgagee pursuant to an Escrow Agreement, also in the form prescribed by FHA. These deposits were in the form of two letters of credit issued by Frankford Trust Company, of Philadelphia, one of the defendants. The plaintiff was unable to commence construction of the apartment project and defaulted on the mortgage, of which default the acting Area Director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, one of the defendants, was notified. The assistant general counsel of that Department thereupon notified the mortgagee that its insurance claim would be debited with $194,710.00, the amount of the two letters of credit which it held.
We think that the district court should have dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction of its subject matter. The complaint alleges that jurisdiction is founded upon 28 U.S.C. § 1331(a), which grants jurisdiction where the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a) (2), the Tucker Act, which grants jurisdiction of civil actions against the United States, not exceeding $10,000.00 in amount, founded, inter alia, upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress, or any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706, which grant aggrieved persons the right to the review of agency action by any applicable form of legal action in a court of competent jurisdiction, and 12 U.S.C. § 1702, which provides that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development may be sued in his official capacity in any court of competent jurisdiction, State or Federal. We are satisfied that none of these statutes supports the jurisdiction claimed for the district court by the plaintiff in the present case.
Nor is 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a) (2), the Tucker Act, available to support the district court's jurisdiction. For that section deals only with claims for monetary damages and does not confer upon the district courts jurisdiction to grant equitable relief unless it is in aid of a claim against the United States for a money judgment. Clay v. United States, 1954, 93 U.S. App. D.C. 119, 210 F.2d 686; Lynn v. United States, 5 Cir. 1940, 110 F.2d 586. Here there is no such monetary claim. The plaintiff is not aided by 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706, which authorizes the judicial review of administrative agency orders, since no such order is here sought to be reviewed. Moreover, § 703 requires that the reviewing court must be one which is otherwise of competent jurisdiction. Getty Oil Co. (Eastern Operations) Inc. v. Ruckelshaus, 3 Cir. 1972, 467 F.2d 349; Pan Am World Airways, Inc. v. Civil Aeronautics Board, D.C. Cir. 1967, 129 U.S. App. D.C. 159, 392 F.2d 483. The same is true of 12 U.S.C. § 1702, which makes the Secretary suable in his official capacity in a court which is otherwise of competent jurisdiction. Here it is clear that the district court is not otherwise of competent jurisdiction to entertain this lawsuit.