Court Opinion

ID: 9462835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:51:26.020509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:48.636657
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge,
concurring, with whom TIMBERS, Circuit Judge, joins:
In concurring in Judge Moore’s carefully considered opinion I would like to add that, sympathetic as I am to the idea of providing ready court access to those who seek enforcement of civil rights legislation, a holding that federal grants-in-aid may be attacked by persons unaffected by them would violate basic standing requirements that have repeatedly been reaffirmed and enforced by the Supreme Court in recent years. See e. g., Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975); O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). There is not the slightest indication in the present record that the plaintiffs will be adversely affected by the federal funding of the New Castle sewer and recreation projects or that if the funding were enjoined as demanded the plaintiffs would be benefitted. What they seek is a ban on federal funding to New Castle because it is allegedly a predominantly white, wealthy, exclusionary community, not because they would thereby gain anything. Should the relief be granted, HUD would presumably be free to use the money to aid construction of sewers and parks in San Francisco.
Thus the case differs sharply from those cited by our esteemed dissenting brothers, in each of which the plaintiffs would be benefitted by the relief sought. In Hills v. Gautreaux, -U.S.-, 96 S.Ct. 1538, 47 L.Ed.2d 792, 44 U.S.L.W. 4480 (1976), for instance, the plaintiffs, who were tenants in federally funded, racially segregated housing in predominantly black ghetto areas in Chicago, stood to benefit from the relief sought, an order which would eliminate the discrimination against them by directing that such housing, for which they had applied as tenants, must be constructed in predominantly white areas where the plaintiffs might then reside, see 296 F.Supp. at 908 (N.D.I11.1969). Here plaintiffs gain no comparable benefit from the injunction sought. The most they can realize is the satisfaction that federal funds will not be misused. Absent statutory authorization, this is not enough to confer standing. They must show some stake in the outcome. See Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 96, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968).
Our dissenting brothers seek to remedy this glaring deficiency by advancing a theory nowhere found in the complaint: that the grants to New Castle might have a discriminatory effect on what they choose to call a “regional housing market” that would include plaintiffs and New Castle. They also suggest that Congress, by providing that HUD’s performance of its affirmative duties under Title VI (1964 Civil Rights Act), 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, and Title VIII (Fair Housing Act of 1968), 42 U.S.C. § 3601, et seq., would be subject to judicial review, intended to give standing to citizens in the position of the plaintiffs here. However, no such authority to sue is to be found in these statutes. Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-l, obligates HUD to terminate funds “to the particular program, or part thereof, in which such [discrimination] has been so found” but since this case does not involve an attack upon particularized discrimination plaintiffs cannot use 42 U.S.C. *599§ 2000d-2 for judicial review. Title VIII, 42 U.S.C. § 3608, obligates HUD to administer programs in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of the Act, but there is no indication, express or implied, that Congress intended to give private persons the right to sue HUD for non-compliance with this duty. On the contrary, 42 U.S.C. § 3612, which authorizes enforcement of certain provisions of the Fair Housing Act (§§ 3603 through 3606) by private civil action, omits § 3608, the section outlining HUD’s general duties, which is allegedly violated here by HUD. Title 42 U.S.C. § 3610 is limited to suits against private persons alleged to have violated the Act, which may be brought only after voluntary compliance proceedings before the Secretary of HUD have failed. Surely if Congress had intended judicial review of HUD’s alleged maladministration of the Act, it would not have excluded § 3608 from those sections that might be enforced by private action.
Thus the dissents’ suggestion that Congress intended to confer such authority upon private litigants is but an example of the wish becoming the father of the thought. When Congress desires to authorize citizen suits for the enforcement of laws of widespread public interest, it knows how to do so, as it vividly demonstrated in its enactment of § 304(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857h-2 and § 505 of the Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365. Here it has not yet taken such action.