Court Opinion

ID: 9484536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:56:18.888548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:18.249609
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent because, in my opinion, this case extends official immunity too far.
The majority rests its decision on an analogy to Bushman v. Seiler, 755 F.2d 653 (8th Cir.1985). This reliance is misplaced. In Bushman, an insurance company, serving as a Medicare carrier, hired a consultant to investigate Medicare claims two podiatrists were regularly submitting for services provided at various nursing homes. Id. at 654. In a letter report to the insurance company, the consultant suggested the podiatrists’ diagnoses of peripheral vascular disease, a foot ailment, were based on their patients’ entitlement to Medicare coverage. Id. The podiatrists subsequently sued the consultant for libel and slander.
*338The special facts there supported official immunity. An express governmental agency relationship existed between the insurance company and the Department of Health and Human. Services. The consultant’s report was part of regular audits the insurance company was required to perform as a Medicare carrier. Id. at 655-56.
Bushman does not control this case for two fundamental reasons. First, the Farm Credit Bank (Agribank), by whom Hoffman was employed, is not an agency of the government, but a “farmer-owned and operated” federal instrumentality, see Hanna v. Federal Land Bank Ass’n of Southern Illinois, 903 F.2d 1159, 1162 (7th Cir.1990),1 which Congress has expressly stated “shall have the power to ... sue and be sued.” 12 U.S.C. § 2013(4).
Second, Hoffman’s alleged statements to Miller were not part of either a report or other integral function Farm Credit Bank was expressly obligated to provide Capital Corporation or an alleged fraud perpetrated against the government. Becker v. Philco Corp., 372 F.2d 771 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 979, 88 S.Ct. at 408 (1967), also cited by the majority, does not apply because Hoffman’s comments did not arise out of a private individual’s duty to report security breaches to the government. Id. at 773-74.
Rather, Hoffman’s statements were elicited as simply part of a background check Miller conducted in which he contacted persons with and for whom Slotten had previously worked. That Hoffman was one of these persons contacted was purely coincidental, having very little to do with any obligation Agribank may have had pursuant to the Assistance Agreement.
Capital Corporation, as I understand the institution, is owned by the member banks and, among other things, provides a central source of financial assistance to individual Farm Credit System institutions and assists Farm Credit System institutions in restructuring, refinancing or guaranteeing loans of their member borrowers. The Capital Corporation is run by a five-member board; four elected from the Farm Credit District boards, the banks that own voting stock, and one member appointed by the chairman of the Farm Credit Administration. See H.R. 99-425 (Dec. 6, 1985), reprinted in 1985 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2587, 2588-89 (House Report).
Thus, Capital Corporation does not become an agency of the government, but a corporation owned by the member banks to assist them in their banking functions to service farmers. That Capital Corporation and Agribank are subject to audit and regulatory supervision by the Farm Credit Administration does not, in my opinion, convert these institutions into federal agencies, nOr make their internal operating decisions governmental action so as to shield the decisionmakers with official immunity.
Although the majority suggests Hoffman’s comments were provided in compliance with Agribank’s duty to permit Capital Corporation “full and complete access to ... [its] personnel,” the connection to the federal government is simply too attenuated, easting far too great a shield over Farm Credit Banks and abrogating the “sue and be sued” clause under which they operate.
I would not extend official immunity status to Hoffman because he was not a federal government employee as was the situation in Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 565, 79 S.Ct. 1335, 1336, 3 L.Ed.2d 1434 (1959). His statements in no way relate to or further the governmental nexus between Agribank and the Capital Corporation with the Farm Cred*339it Administration. Agribank is not a federal agency. Neither Agribank nor its employees enjoy official immunity in the circumstances thus far presented in this case.
For these reasons, and on the basis of District Judge Donald J. Stohr’s excellent analysis in his order2 denying summary judgment, I would affirm that order.

. The Seventh Circuit said of other banks in the Farm Credit System:
[Production credit associations and federal land bank associations are not federal agencies. Even though Federal Land Bank Associations and Production Credit Associations are 'federally chartered instrumentalities] of the United States,' created under the Farm Credit Act of 1971, they are not considered as federal agencies per se under 12 U.S.C. § 2001(a) that establishes the ‘farmer-owned cooperative Farm Credit System,' and are owned and operated by farmers. Congress' intent was that the farm credit system was to be owned and operated by farmers rather than the federal government. Thus, both Federal Land Bank Associations and Production Credit Associations are farmer-owned and operated agencies rather than the federal instrumentalities.
Hanna v. Federal Land Bank Ass'n of Southern Illinois, 903 F.2d 1159, 1162 (7th Cir.1990) (citations omitted).

. Order filed August 4, 1992, Slotten v. Hoffman, et al., No. 4:92CV0417-DJS (E.D.Mo.).