Special to the Greene County Democrat / By John Zippert, Co-Publisher
Over 200 Black farmers attended Saturday's 17th. Annual Small Farmers Conference in Albany, Georgia, sponsored by the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which heard from lawyers and the court appointed "monitor" in the Pigford vs. Glickman, Black farmers class action lawsuit. The lawyers, J. L. Chestnut and Rose Sanders of Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Pettaway and Campbell of Selma, Alabama; and the Monitor, Randi Roth of the Farmers Legal Action Group (FLAG) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, urged farmers to appeal any rejection letter they receive in the case, if they do not feel it is correct.
Randi Roth, the court appointed monitor in the case, said, "my job has three parts: to review decisions, to solve problems and to issue reports on this case." Roth said her office would not officially open until March 1st. because there are still some details of her powers and the activities of her office to be worked out with the judge and the parties. A judicial conference is scheduled for February 17 to work on these issues. Roth said she was, "an adjunct to the judge in the case, which means I work for the judge, but do not speak or think for the judge; I am also an independent monitor, which means that I don't work for either side in this case."
Roth reported that as of February 10, 2000, Poorman Douglas, the Portland, Oregon claims facilitator, had received 19,287 eligible Track A claims and 142 Track B claims. Of these, 9,285 Track A claims have been adjudicated, with 60% or 5,576 approved and 3,709 denied. A little less than half of the claims have been reviewed and many of those approved for payment have been delayed and are late in actually receiving a check.
Attorney J. L. Chestnut in his review of the status of the case, said, "the government has already paid out $150 million in claims and another $150 million is in the pipeline; but the government is too slow and too white in their attitudes and in their processing of the case. I have never seen a lawsuit that can solve every problem but in this case the government is holding up progress with technicalities; and the same USDA agents that discriminated against the farmers in the first place are now being called upon to respond to and reject applications from Black farmer class members. The adjudicators are not making fair and consistent rulings which has caused many of the rejections. We urge every farmer who was rejected to appeal to the monitor."
Chestnut said some farmers and some farm organizations have blamed the lawyers in the case for the problems instead of putting the blame on the government. He said the lawyers have received a $1 million dollar advance for legal fees but have spent much more than that in expenses to keep the case moving. "In my firm in Selma, we have spent $2 million on this case already, but we have not charged farmers a dime! We do not intend to charge the farmers and if we find someone is charging farmers to file claims or appeals, we want to know who is doing this, so we can stop them."
Attorney Rose Sanders, echoed many of Chestnut's charges and added a few of her own. She said she had never seen a case "where the government is fighting so hard against the farmers, when the case has already been settled." She urged farmers to go "into the streets to fight for justice in this case. Do not trust the judge, the lawyers, the adjudicators, the monitor or anyone else to resolve this case." She said we need to develop a strategy to respond to the adjudicators who are rejecting people in an unfair and inconsistent manner.
Both Chestnut and Rose Sanders were critical of Randi Roth, the monitor, for not employing any Black lawyers as staff and not setting up an office in the South, accessible to the large majority of the class members in the region. Roth who is white has thus far hired one attorney to assist her, Stephen Carpenter, who is also white.
In her response, Randi Roth said she was in the process of staffing her office and recruiting Black attorneys for the three open positions available, including the Deputy Monitor, managing attorney and staff attorney. She said she was still studying various options for staffing her office and creating a presence in the South, including establishing an office in Atlanta; and possibly setting up a circuit riding attorney who would travel from state to state in the South, to be in the area, on the ground, accessible to the people.
Roth said as monitor in the case, she can only order a case to be reexamined by the adjudicators but she could not order or force the payment of claims. To get a case reexamined on appeal, she said, "it needs to have clear and manifest errors which had a fundamental impact on the decision. You must submit a petition requesting the reexamination and indicate the errors made in the decision, as well as submit evidence to back your petition and claims." Roth said one issue to be decided in the February 17 judicial conference, is whether she will be able to receive new evidence and argument as part of the claim appeals process. This would allow farmers to augment and amplify their original claims. The government is of course opposing this procedure.
Roth urged Black farmers, who receive rejection letters to carefully review the explanation given in their letter looking for errors and then prepare a petition indicating all the errors that they have found. Farmers can get legal help in preparing their appeal petition to the monitor.
The farmers at the conference asked many questions about the status of the lawsuit and the role of the monitor. One Georgia farmer summed up the frustration of farmers with the process by stating, "it seems that if they reject me in this lawsuit, you are going to send me back to the same dog, who bit me the first time, to try to get justice.":
