Opinion ID: 6971731
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Dimension

Text: While the district court found that these plaintiffs had satisfied Article Ill’s injury-in-fact and causation requirements, 5 it held that they had faded to establish redress-ability because it lacked jurisdiction over the FSM and that, even if it ordered FEMA to pay to the FSM the promised 75 percent of all costs incurred in the individual and family grant program, “there is no guarantee that the FSM would reinstate its IFG program and pass those funds through to the plaintiffs.” (emphasis added). The plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in requiring them to make an unduly high showing of redressability, and that their claims satisfy the correct standard — that it is “likely” that their injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. We agree. Plaintiffs need not demonstrate that there is a “guarantee” that their injuries will be redressed by a favorable decision. In fact, we recently emphasized that plaintiffs “must show only that a favorable decision is likely to redress [their injuries], not that a favorable decision will inevitably redress [their injuries].” Beno v. Shalala, 30 F.3d 1057, 1065 (9th Cir.1994) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130). The plaintiffs who already have had their appeals favorably decided by the FSM satisfy this standard. In cases similar to the one before us, the Supreme Court has stated that plaintiffs lack standing primarily when the funding agency is not before the court, Lujan, 504 U.S. at 568-71, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (plurality opinion), or when redressability “depends on the unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts and whose exercise of broad and legitimate discretion the courts cannot presume either to control or predict.” ASARCO, Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 615, 109 S.Ct. 2037, 104 L.Ed.2d 696 (1989) (plurality opinion). See also Beno, 30 F.3d at 1065 (citing with approval these plurality holdings). Neither of these problems is present in this case. First, the funding agency (FEMA) is before the court. Second, the FSM’s decision whether to pass on to these plaintiffs any funds received from FEMA is not “unfettered.” To the contrary, the agreement it signed with FEMA, which is mandatory and binding under the regulations, requires it “[immediately upon receipt of funds, [to make] disbursements ... to applicants.” FEMA-FSM Agreement of Jan. 8, 1991, Exhibit A at 2. 6 The agreement further provides that all excess funds “(including those which the FSM passes on to applicants) ... shall be returned to FEMA.” Id. at 3 (emphasis added). Thus, the FSM would not even have any incentive to keep individual and family grant funds for itself. Finally, we would in any event presume that a public agency that receives funds that are for the specific purpose of compensating specific individuals, in specific amounts set forth in claims that have been approved by that agency, would not divert the funds for its own use. See, e.g., Banks v. Secretary of Indiana Family & Soc. Servs. Admin., 997 F.2d 231, 241 (7th Cir.1993). Under these circumstances, the fact that FEMA is required by law to give the funds to the plaintiffs through the conduit of the FSM, an entity which is beyond the court’s reach, does not adversely affect these plaintiffs’ ability to seek relief in federal court. To paraphrase the Seventh Circuit’s analysis of a comparable case, “briefly put,” the plaintiffs argue that FEMA “has deprived it of money to which it otherwise would have been entitled.” Family & Children’s Center, Inc. v. School City of Mishawaka, 13 F.3d 1052, 1059 (7th Cir.1994) (holding that Children’s Center could assert right of disabled children to receive money under the IDEA even though Act requires defendant to provide money only “to children”). The defendants’ speculation that the FSM “might conspire to evade th[e] mandatory language” of the regulations and its agreement “does not defeat plaintiffs’ standing.” Beno, 30 F.3d at 1066; see also Banks, 997 F.2d at 241 (rejecting argument that plaintiffs’ injuries were not redressable because the Secretary “lacks adequate means to insure a state’s compliance with the Medicaid Act”). There is, certainly, a substantial likelihood that these plaintiffs will receive funds from FEMA if it is ordered to provide them. That is sufficient for our purposes.