Court Opinion

ID: 9461386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:13:30.296957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:02.390619
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in Judge Feinberg’s excellent treatment of the issues before us, particularly as he explicates and gives effect to the several opinions in which Judge Dooling has discussed various aspects 1 of the problem.
It is abundantly clear that Judge Dooling’s preliminary injunction contemplated that the officers of the Department of Housing and Urban Development were to be bound to rule on the plaintiffs’ and intervenors’ requests for waiver of the requirement of vacant delivery. The trial judge envisioned that an administrative hearing of some sort was essential, but what type of hearing? Assuredly not a trial-type!
The district court’s order relates the hearing requirement to “compliance with rulemaking procedures as set forth in 5 U.S.C. § 553.” We may note in Langevin v. Chenango Court, Inc., 447 F.2d 296, 300 (2 CA 1971) that Judge Friendly said:
Any argument that at least the rule-making procedures in § 4 of the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 553, were demanded would be answered by the exception in § 553(a) for “a matter relating to agency management or personnel or to public property, loans, grants, benefits or contracts.” In all this we are in accord with Hahn v. Gottlieb, 430 F.2d 1243, 1247 fn. 4 (1 Cir. 1970).2
The extract from Judge Dooling’s order, as set forth by Judge Feinberg, simply demonstrates that basically, as we all agree, the tenants or evictees should have a right to be heard. What is involved, in short, is an effort to achieve a balance of conflicting rights. The substantial interest of occupancy by the plaintiffs is not arbitrarily to be terminated as a result of governmental action, but conversely, we recognize that the rights of the mortgagees to recover their insurance are to be considered. On the present record, it appears that the barrier to the protection of such respective rights has been the Secretary’s insistence, up to now, that the premises be delivered unoccupied.
We have no doubt that the Secretary can adapt to administrative necessity such formulae as Judge Dooling envisioned in dealing with the equities to be considered.3 Regulations, or at the very least guidelines, can be formulated by *703the Secretary to govern situations such as here have been presented.4
In any event we now are doing what can be done5 along lines required by the order of the district court that conceptions of essential fairness are to control.

. One could more readily appreciate the extent to which Judge Dooling has penetrated the intricacies in this area had his pertinent opinions been reported. E. g., he noted that
No consideration was given by the Federal defendants to the interests of the occupants, the possibility that their tenancy might conserve the property, or to the reality of the theoretical possibility that the property could be expeditiously vacated, rehabilitated and resold advantageously. (Page 12, Judge Dooling’s memorandum re Jean Caramico property, June 13, 1973.)

. And see Brown v. Housing Authority of City of Milwaukee, 471 F.2d 63, 68 (7 CA 1972).

. As Judge Feinberg has pointed out, supra n. 18, Judge Dooling has preserved in his order an alternative basis upon which the Federal defendants may seek dissolution of the preliminary injunction.

. Perhaps the Department itself will so act. As Judgé Hastie noted, HUD before now has changed policy and practice where the courts and agency experience have demonstrated a need for such action. Cf. Jackson v. Lynn, 506 F.2d 233 (D.C.Cir. 1974).

. The Court has told us that certain landlord-tenant relationships (not too greatly dissimilar in principle) present legislative, not judicial functions. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 74, 92 S.ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972). The Congress surely can act in areas where judicial remedies may not be available for social and economic ills.