The Legacy of Coleman v. Block

Sarah looks toward the future, with an inset image of her in the “Going Under: North Dakota Lawyer Sarah Vogel Fights to Save Family Farms” feature story in Life Magazine (Nov. 1982).

As we enter another farm depression, we can learn from the past.

While every era is different, I believe that knowledge of the case law developed during the farm struggles of the 1930s and 1980s, and knowledge of statutory and regulatory reforms that arose from advocacy during those difficult times, will be helpful to today’s agriculture lawyers and policymakers.

Vastly Improved Appeals Procedures for Disputes with the Farm Service Agency of USDA

In the early 1980s, USDA used an appeal procedure for farm borrowers that “starved” farmers out by seizing all of their income, long in advance of an appeal hearing before a biased hearing officer who oftentimes had been involved in the decision being appealed. I challenged the constitutionality of these procedures in my class action lawsuit Coleman v. Block.

After we won our case, the “Coleman” fair hearing reforms—requiring a neutral hearing officer, fair appeals procedures, and proper advance notice of the right to apply for a deferral—were eventually put into law in Title VI of the 1987 Agriculture Credit Act (ACA).

The present form of the National Appeals Division (NAD) was established by Congress in the Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994. Compared to the pre-Coleman appeal procedures, the NAD appeals system is a dream come true.

Today, the tagline of the USDA Appeals Division is “Face to Face Fairness.” The agency boasts about their fair process: “you can file an appeal of a program decision by USDA agencies that does not go in your favor and get an impartial hearing within 45 days.”

The Equal Access for Justice Act (EAJA) now applies to USDA.

EAJA was adopted by Congress in 1980. It authorizes the payment of attorneys’ fees to a prevailing party in a lawsuit and in an adversary adjudication against the United States, unless the position of the United States is “substantially justified.” However, USDA’s position for almost three decades after passage of EAJA was that EAJA did not apply to FmHA administrative hearings. Only after USDA lost four decisions from four appellate courts did USDA finally concede that the Equal Access to Justice Act applied to all USDA hearings.

Certified State Mediation Programs

The 1987 Agriculture Credit Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to help states develop USDA Certified State Agricultural Loan Mediation Programs, and committed USDA to participating in such programs.

This April 2021 article written by Janie Simms Hipp and Toni Stanger-McLaughlin and published by the American Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Magazine advocates not only for farm credit counseling but a full revival of mediation services to help farmers and lenders navigate the coming farm crisis.

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Download My Presentation

“The Law of Hard Times: What Lawyers and Policy Makers in 2019 Can Learn from the Farm Crisis of the 1980s,”

presented at the American Agriculture Lawyers Association conference in 2019.

Family Farm-Oriented Organizations to Join and Support

In the 1980s, while working on Coleman v. Block, I relied on many farmer-oriented nonprofit and membership organizations. Some of these organizations are still helping family farmers today.

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