MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question to be decided in this case is whether tenant farmers eligible for payments under the upland cotton program enacted as part of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 1194, 7 U. S. C. § 1444 (d) (1964 ed., Supp. IV), have standing to challenge the validity of a certain amended regulation promulgated by the respondent Secretary of Agriculture in 1966.
The upland cotton program incorporates a 1938 statute, § 8 (g) of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, as amended, 52 Stat. 35 and 205, 16 U. S. C. § 590h (g), thereby permitting participants in the program to assign payments only "as security for cash or advances to finance making a crop."
Petitioners, cash-rent tenant farmers suing on behalf of themselves and other farmers similarly situated, filed this action in the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. They sought a declaratory judgment that the amended regulation is invalid and unauthorized by statute, and an injunction prohibiting the respondent federal officials from permitting assignments pursuant to the amended regulation.
The District Court, in an unreported opinion, held that the petitioners "lack standing to maintain this action against these [respondent] governmental officials," because the latter "have not taken any action which directly invades any legally protected interest of the plaintiffs." The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, one judge dissenting. 398 F.2d 398. It held that petitioners lacked standing not only because they alleged
Our decision in Data Processing Service v. Camp, ante, p. 150, leads us to reverse here.
First, there is no doubt that in the context of this litigation the tenant farmers, petitioners here, have the personal stake and interest that impart the concrete adverseness required by Article III.
Second, the tenant farmers are clearly within the zone of interests protected by the Act.
Implicit in the statutory provisions and their legislative history is a congressional intent that the Secretary protect the interests of tenant farmers. Both of the relevant statutes expressly enjoin the Secretary to do so. The Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 states that "[t]he Secretary shall provide adequate safeguards to protect the interests of tenants . . . ." 79 Stat. 1196, 7 U. S. C. § 1444 (d) (10) (1964 ed., Supp. IV).
Third, judicial review of the Secretary's action is not precluded. The Court of Appeals rested its holding on the view that no provision of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 "expressly or impliedly . . . gives the Courts authority to review such administrative action." 398 F. 2d, at 402. Whether agency action is reviewable often poses difficult questions of congressional intent; and the Court must decide if Congress has in express or implied terms precluded judicial review or committed the challenged action entirely to administrative discretion.
The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 701 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV), allows judicial review of agency action except where "(1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law." The amended regulation here under challenge was promulgated under 16 U. S. C. § 590d (3) which authorizes the Secretary to "prescribe such regulations, as he may deem proper to carry out the provisions of this chapter." Plainly this provision does not expressly preclude judicial review, nor does any other provision in either the 1938 or 1965 Act. Nor does the authority to promulgate such regulations "as he may
The question then becomes whether nonreviewability can fairly be inferred. As we said in Data Processing Service, preclusion of judicial review of administrative action adjudicating private rights is not lightly to be inferred. See Leedom v. Kyne, 358 U.S. 184; Harmon v. Brucker, 355 U.S. 579; Stark v. Wickard, 321 U.S. 288; American School of Magnetic Healing v. McAnnulty, 187 U.S. 94. Indeed, judicial review of such administrative action is the rule, and nonreviewability an exception which must be demonstrated. In Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140, we held that "judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of
We hold that the statutory scheme at issue here is to be read as evincing a congressional intent that petitioners may have judicial review of the Secretary's action.
The judgments of the Court of Appeals and of the District Court are vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for a hearing on the merits.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITE joins, concurring in the result and dissenting.
I concur in the result in both cases but dissent from the Court's treatment of the question of standing to challenge agency action.
The Court's approach to standing, set out in Data Processing, has two steps: (1) since "the framework of Article III . . . restricts judicial power to `cases' and `controversies,' " the first step is to determine "whether
My view is that the inquiry in the Court's first step is the only one that need be made to determine standing. I had thought we discarded the notion of any additional requirement when we discussed standing solely in terms of its constitutional content in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968). By requiring a second, nonconstitutional step, the Court comes very close to perpetuating the discredited requirement that conditioned standing on a showing by the plaintiff that the challenged governmental action invaded one of his legally protected interests.
Before the plaintiff is allowed to argue the merits, it is true that a canvass of relevant statutory materials must be made in cases challenging agency action. But the canvass is made, not to determine standing, but to determine an aspect of reviewability, that is, whether Congress meant to deny or to allow judicial review of the agency action at the instance of the plaintiff.
I submit that in making such examination of statutory materials an element in the determination of standing, the Court not only performs a useless and unnecessary exercise but also encourages badly reasoned decisions, which may well deny justice in this complex field. When agency action is challenged, standing, reviewability, and the merits pose discrete, and often complicated, issues which can best be resolved by recognizing and treating them as such.
I
STANDING
Although Flast v. Cohen was not a case challenging agency action, its determination of the basis for standing should resolve that question for all cases. We there confirmed what we said in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204 (1962), that the "gist of the question of standing" is whether the party seeking relief has "alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult . . . questions."
In light of Flast, standing exists when the plaintiff alleges, as the plaintiffs in each of these cases alleged, that the challenged action has caused him injury in fact, economic or otherwise.
II
REVIEWABILITY
When the legality of administrative action is at issue, standing alone will not entitle the plaintiff to a decision on the merits. Pertinent statutory language, legislative history, and public policy considerations must be examined to determine whether Congress precluded all judicial review, and, if not, whether Congress nevertheless foreclosed review to the class to which the plaintiff belongs. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), "statutes [may] preclude judicial review" or "agency action [may be] committed to agency discretion by law." 5 U. S. C. § 701 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). In either case, the plaintiff is out of court, not because he had no standing to enter, but because Congress has stripped
The APA provides that "[a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof." 5 U. S. C. § 702 (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Congressional intent that a particular plaintiff have review may be found either in express statutory language granting it to the plaintiff's class,
III
THE MERITS
If it is determined that a plaintiff who alleged injury in fact is entitled to judicial review, inquiry proceeds to the merits—to whether the specific legal interest claimed by the plaintiff is protected by the statute and to whether the protested agency action invaded that interest.
IV
To reiterate, in my view alleged injury in fact, reviewability, and the merits pose questions that are largely distinct from one another, each governed by its own considerations. To fail to isolate and treat each inquiry independently of the other two, so far as possible, is to risk obscuring what is at issue in a given case, and thus to risk uninformed, poorly reasoned decisions that may result in injustice. Too often these various questions have been merged into one confused inquiry, lumped under the general rubric of "standing." The books are full of opinions that dismiss a plaintiff for lack of "standing" when dismissal, if proper at all, actually rested either upon the plaintiff's failure to prove on the merits the existence of the legally protected interest that he claimed,
The risk of ambiguity and injustice can be minimized by cleanly severing, so far as possible, the inquiries into reviewability and the merits from the determination of standing. Today's decisions, however, will only compound present confusion and breed even more litigation over standing. In the first place, the Court's formulation
In the second place, though the Court insists that its nonconstitutional standing inquiry does not involve a determination of the merits, I have grave misgivings on this score. The formulation of the inquiry most certainly bears a disquieting similarity to the erroneous notion that a plaintiff has no standing unless he can establish the existence of a legally protected interest. Finally, assuming that the inquiry does not, in fact, focus on the merits, then surely it serves only to determine whether the challenged agency action is reviewable at the instance of the plaintiff in cases where there is no express statutory grant of review to members of his class.
FootNotes
"A payment which may be made to a farmer under this section, may be assigned, without discount, by him in writing as security for cash or advances to finance making a crop. Such assignment shall be signed by the farmer and witnessed by a member of the county or other local committee . . . . Such assignment shall include the statement that the assignment is not made to pay or secure any preexisting indebtedness. This provision shall not authorize any suit against or impose any liability upon the Secretary. . . if payment to the farmer is made without regard to the existence of any such assignment." 52 Stat. 35 and 205, 16 U. S. C. § 590h (g) (emphasis added).
Section 8 (g) was amended by 80 Stat. 1167 (1966) to permit assignments not only to finance "making a crop" but also to fund "handling or marketing an agricultural commodity, or performing a conservation practice." 16 U. S. C. § 590h (g) (1964 ed., Supp. IV).
"Payment may be assigned to finance making a crop. A payment which may be made to a farmer . . . under section 8 of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, as amended, may be assigned only as security for cash or advances to finance making a crop for the current crop year. To finance making a crop means (a) to finance the planting, cultivating, or harvesting of a crop, including the purchase of equipment required therefor; (b) to provide food, clothing, and other necessities required by the assignor or persons dependent upon the assignor; or (c) to finance the carrying out of soil or water conservation practices. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to authorize an assignment given to secure the payment of the whole or any part of the purchase price of a farm or the payment of the whole or any part of a cash or fixed commodity rent for a farm."
"Purposes for which a payment may be assigned.
"(a) A payment which may be made to a producer under any program to which this part is applicable may be assigned only as security for cash or advances to finance making a crop, handling or marketing an agricultural commodity, or performing a conservation practice, for the current crop year. No assignment may be made to secure or pay any preexisting indebtedness of any nature whatsoever.
"(b) To finance making a crop means (1) to finance the planting, cultivating, or harvesting of a crop, including the purchase of equipment required therefor and the payment of cash rent for land used therefor, or (2) to provide food, clothing, and other necessities required by the producer or persons dependent upon him.
"(c) Nothing contained herein shall be construed to authorize an assignment given to secure the payment of the whole or any part of the purchase price of a farm or the payment of the whole or any part of a fixed commodity rent for a farm."
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