Court Opinion

ID: 9448481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:37:00.857423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:26.837830
License: Public Domain

BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
The majority opinion disturbs me because I believe that it creates uncertainty and confusion in the administration of the Agricultural Adjustment Act so far as the determination of eligibility for new-farm wheat allotments is concerned.
Appellee Gage satisfied all pertinent regulatory requirements except that he admittedly received more than 50% of his income from a non-farm source and he did not have an established rotation system which included wheat. The trial court held that the findings of the Review Committee, adverse to Gage on these two points, were sustained by the evidence and conclusive on the court. The court further held that the source-of-income provision was invalid and remanded the case for determination of the acreage to which Gage was entitled.
The majority reverses by holding that even though the source-of-income provision is void Gage is entitled to no allotment because he did not have a wheat-including established rotation system. This holding is made in the face of the fact that the controlling regulation makes wheat-allotment eligibility rest on the satisfaction of either one of two alternatives. The majority says that it is not necessary to determine the validity of the first alternative because if it is void, eligibility then depends on the second alternative which Gage has not satisfied. By avoiding decision on the validity of the first, the court avoids decision on whether the second can stand alone.
The pertinent regulations are Subsections (i) and (ii) of 7 C.F.R. § 728.919 (b) (3). To satisfy (i) the applicant must establish that the system of farming has changed, that the farm operator will operate no other farm for which there is a wheat acreage allotment, and that the operator of the farm will derive 50% or more of his livelihood from the farm. These requirements are stated in the conjunctive and if all three are satisfied, the applicant is eligible for a wheat allotment. Subsections (i) and (ii) are joined by the word “or.” Subsection (ii) says that an applicant is eligible if the established rotation on the farm includes wheat for the year in question. If this is shown, the applicant is eligible regardless of his ability to satisfy (i).
The effect of the majority opinion is to read the “or” as “and” when applying the subsections to an applicant who cannot satisfy the source-of-income requirement. In my opinion an applicant who cannot satisfy (ii) is entitled to have determined his rights under (i) and it is no answer to say that the validity of (i) is immaterial because in any event he cannot satisfy (ii). I am mystified as to how the local committees will administer these regulations in the face of the majority decision. If the “or” is read as “and,” the source-of-income provision applies to both subsections and must be satisfied even though there is á qualifying rotation practice. If (i) is invalid, a determination must be made as to the effect of that invalidity on the remaining *780regulations covering new-farm allotments. The problem must be solved and it is squarely and fairly presented in this case.
Regulations by the Secretary applicable to eligibility for new-farm allotments must be reasonably consistent with the purposes and objectives of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The addition of standards or tests not justified by the Act is the performance of a non-delegable legislative function.1 In Rigby v. Rasmussen, 10 Cir., 275 F.2d 861, a case involving wheat regulations, this court held that such regulations will not be annulled unless “plainly and palpably inconsistent with law.”
No provision of the Act makes source of income a test of eligibility for new-farm wheat allotments. The Review Committee contends that the regulation is consistent with the economic objectives of the Act because the determination of eligibility for a new-farm allotment on the basis of source of income protects the objects of congressional concern, those dependent on farming for a livelihood. This congressional objective has to be implied from the provisions of 7 U.S.C.A. § 1282 and § 1331 relating to parity and to distress caused by crop surpluses. The source of income of a farm operator has nothing to do with parity and nothing to do with the creation or cure of a surplus. If the economic objectives of the Act sustain the source-of-income principle, that principle should apply to both old and new farms and should also apply to the rotation-system requirement of Subsection (ii).
The effect of the regulation is to benefit the big producer and to hurt the small farmer. Throughout the farming areas industrious and thrifty men run farms and also work in nearby towns. The application of the source-of-income test to those individuals may well disqualify them from raising wheat to supplement their incomes and to aid in the provision of a livelihood for their families.
The regulation makes the source-of-income test applicable to the operator of the farm, not to the owner. The door is wide open for the bonanza wheat farmer producing from an immense acreage to qualify by providing a paid operator for each farm. As long as the employee derives more than 50% of his income from work on that farm, the producer is eligible for a new-farm allotment.
The relationship between source of income of an individual and the right of that individual to use his property for a lawful endeavor is difficult to comprehend. If source of income is a permissible test, the owner of urban property can be denied the right to operate a parking lot unless he gets a certain percentage of his income from such activity. If the source-of-income standard is applicable to the use of property, it may be applied to other rights and privileges, such as teaching school and practicing law, to preclude therefrom those receiving a certain percentage of their income from outside sources. Without saying whether legislative action establishing such a test may be valid or not, the principle involved is political in nature and must be determined by carefully considered legislative action — not by administrative fiat.
The Review Committee says that the regulation is justified because restrictions on eligibility are needed to prevent undesirable dilution of the total acreage by an increase in the number of allottees and to prevent unreasonably small allotments. The desirability of such objectives does not sustain the imposition of standards having no basis in the Act.2
The argument of the Review Committee that the regulation must be upheld because it is an administrative interpretation of long standing is not persuasive. The regulation in question was not con*781temporaneous construction by those responsible for putting the statutory plan into operation.3 The Act was passed in 1938 and the first reference to income or livelihood as a factor for consideration in new-farm allotments was in the regulations applicable to the 1951 crop. While similar factors were earlier applied to tobacco, cotton, rice, and peanut allotments, there are differences in the statutory provisions relating to those commodities.4 Administrative determinations must have a basis in law and must be within the granted authority.5 A regulation may not add to a statute something which is not in the statute,6 and, if it does, no amount of administrative interpretation will make it valid.
In my opinion the source-of-income provision is plainly and palpably inconsistent with the law and cannot stand. This determination does not solve the problem because it leaves undecided the effect of such partial invalidity of the regulations concerning new-farm allotments.
The trial court eliminated the source-of-income provision from Subsection (i) and gave effect to the two remaining conditions of that subsection, which the applicant satisfied, with the result that the applicant was eligible for an allotment. This assumes that the Secretary would have issued the regulation without the source-of-income provision. The majority leaves undecided the validity of the source-of-income provision and holds that, regardless of its validity, the failure of the applicant to satisfy (ii) deprives him of eligibility. This assumes either that the Secretary would have issued the regulation without Subsection (i) or that the Secretary did not express his true intent when he connected (i) and (ii) with the disjunctive “or” but intended to use the conjunctive “and.”
The correct solution is indicated by Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc., 322 U.S. 607, 618-619, 64 S.Ct. 1215, 88 L.Ed. 1488. The Court of Appeals held void part of a definition appearing in a regulation of the Administrator of the Wages and Hours Division and applied the remaining valid provisions to determine the rights of the parties. The Supreme Court agreed on the invalidity of the questioned provision but held that the Court of Appeals erred in giving effect to the remaining provisions. The Supreme Court said, at page 619, 64 S.Ct. at page 1222:
“It would be the sheerest guesswork to believe that elimination of an important factor in the Administrator’s equation would have left his equation unaffected even if he did not here insist upon its importance. It is not for us to write a definition. That is the Administrator’s duty.”
The Court held that the case should be remanded to the district court with instructions to hold it until the Administrator made a valid determination within the authority given him by Congress.
Similarly here it would be the sheerest guesswork to believe that the Secretary would have promulgated Subsection (i) without the source-of-income provision, or that he would have promulgated Subsection (ii) without its alternate, Subsection (i), or that he did not express his true intent in using the disjunctive “or.”
The disposition “most consonant with justice to all interests in retracing the erroneous course that has been taken” 7 is to remand this ease to the County Com*782mittee with directions to hold it until the Secretary, with all deliberate speed, makes regulations for new-farm eligibility that are within the authority given him by Congress.

. A. L. A. Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570; Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446.

. Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, supra, 293 U.S. pp. 418, 419, 55 S.Ct. pp. 247, 248, 79 L.Ed. 446; United States v. Abrams, 6 Cir., 197 F.2d 803, 805, certiorari denied 344 U.S. 855, 73 S.Ct. 93, 97 L.Ed. 664.

. Cf. United States v. American Trucking Associations, Inc., 310 U.S. 534, 549, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345.

. Eor example, 7 U.S.C.A. § 1344(e) covering apportionment of new cotton acreage refers to adjustment for various conditions including “small or new farms.”

. Brannan v. Stark, 342 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 433, 96 L.Ed. 497; Social Security Board v. Nierotko, 327 U.S. 358, 369, 66 S.Ct. 637, 90 A.L.R. 718.

. United States v. Calamaro, 354 U.S. 351, 359, 77 S.Ct. 1138, 1 L.Ed.2d 1394. Nothing within this statute makes it a proper subject for interpretive or definitive regulation as in Birmingham v. Geer, 8 Cir., 185 F.2d 82, certiorari denied 340 U.S. 951, 71 S.Ct. 571, 95 L.Ed. 686.

. 322 U.S. 619, 64 S.Ct. 1222.