Elbert v. United States Department of Agriculture
- John Tunheim
- 0:18-cv-01574
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 12
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate.
In Elbert v. USDA, Judge Tunheim denied kidney-bean farmers' request for a court order forcing the USDA to redo its crop-insurance review, finding the proper path is a new lawsuit under federal administrative law.
Farmers who purchased Federal Crop Insurance Corporation-approved dry bean revenue protection policies — particularly dark red kidney bean growers in Minnesota — and others who purchased similar pulse-crop revenue insurance products that include a contingency provision setting the harvest price equal to the projected price when market data is insufficient.
What happened
Elbert v. United States Department of Agriculture is a long-running dispute brought by Minnesota kidney-bean farmers who purchased crop revenue insurance in 2015. The insurance was supposed to pay out if fall harvest prices dropped below spring projected prices, but a contingency provision — which had been quietly rewritten after regulatory approval — instead set the harvest price equal to the projected price whenever sufficient market data was unavailable. When that contingency triggered in 2015, the farmers' revenue protection policies became essentially worthless. Earlier court rulings found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal administrative law by making that change without proper procedure, and the court ordered the agency to reconsider the policy from scratch.
On remand, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board convened a panel of five experts, all of whom recommended keeping the contingency provision as written — setting the harvest price equal to the projected price when data is insufficient. The Board formally adopted that conclusion. The farmers returned to court arguing the agency had not truly complied with the court's prior order, and asked for a court-ordered writ of mandamus — a legal command — requiring the agency to either redo the evaluation again or dig through historical data to set a retroactive 2015 harvest price.
Judge Tunheim denied the petition for a writ of mandamus and also denied the farmers' motion to amend their complaint, closing the case. The court found that all three required conditions for issuing such a writ were missing: the farmers had no clear legal right to demand another reevaluation or a retroactive price; the agency had meaningful discretion in how it responded on remand and exercised that discretion; and the farmers are not without a remedy — they can file a brand-new lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act challenging whether the Board's latest decision was arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise unlawful. The court noted, candidly, that it found the agency's continued approval of a nearly worthless insurance product confounding, but concluded that a writ of mandamus was not the correct vehicle for further review.
The detailed version
- Elbert v. United States Department of Agriculture · No. 0:18-cv-01574
- John Tunheim
- Aug. 8, 2025
Background
Plaintiffs Rich Elbert, Jeff A. Kosek, Reichmann Land & Cattle LLP, Ludowese A.E. Inc., and Michael Stamer are Minnesota farmers who grow dark red kidney beans. In 2015, they purchased a specialized crop insurance product called the Dry Bean Revenue Endorsement (DBRE), designed to provide revenue protection — coverage against a price drop between the spring projected price and the fall harvest price — for pulse crops (legumes harvested for dry seed).
The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), a federal entity that reinsures private crop insurance policies under the Federal Crop Insurance Act (FCIA), 7 U.S.C. § 1508(h), must approve such policies through a process called a 508(h) submission. The FCIC Board must find, among other things, that a policy "adequately protect[s] the interests of producers" before granting approval.
In 2011, Watts and Associates, Inc. submitted the DBRE policy for approval. The submission proposed using AMS Bean Market News data (the "AMS Method") to set the fall harvest price, with a contingency allowing the FCIC itself to set the price if data was insufficient. A separate section of the submission suggested, as an alternative, substituting the projected price for the harvest price if the AMS Method failed — a suggestion that FCIC's own expert reviewers flagged as converting the revenue policy into a pseudo-yield policy, unfair to farmers. Despite that concern, the Board approved the submission in 2012.
After Board approval, the policy's contingency language was rewritten — without resubmission to the Board — to state that "the harvest price will be equal to the projected price" if the AMS Method could not be used. In 2015, there was insufficient AMS data to set a harvest price for dark red kidney beans in Minnesota. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) therefore set the harvest price equal to the projected price, effectively converting the revenue policies into yield policies and leaving the farmers unable to recover their revenue losses.
Procedural History
Plaintiffs originally filed as a putative class action in the Eastern District of Michigan; the Minnesota plaintiffs were transferred to this court. In Elbert I (2020), the court granted summary judgment to the government. After reconsideration, the court reversed in Elbert II (2021), granting summary judgment to plaintiffs because the FCIC's post-approval rewrite of the contingency language violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) — the federal statute governing how agencies must make decisions — by acting without proper procedure. In Elbert III (2022), the court remanded to the Board with instructions to reconsider whether to alter the originally approved contingency language "anew as if it had been properly resubmitted for approval in the first place."
On remand, the Board convened five external experts. All five recommended retaining the current policy language — setting the harvest price equal to the projected price when AMS data is insufficient — reasoning it was the most transparent and objective approach. RMA agreed with the experts. The Board formally approved that language.
The Current Motions
Plaintiffs filed a Petition for Writ of Mandamus under 28 U.S.C. § 1361, asking the court to order the Board to either (1) reevaluate the contingency pricing mechanism again, or (2) retroactively set a 2015 harvest price for dark red kidney beans in Minnesota using available data. Plaintiffs also filed a Motion to Alter/Amend/Supplement Pleadings.
Legal Standard for Mandamus
A writ of mandamus — a court order compelling a federal officer or agency to perform a duty — is an extraordinary remedy. Under the Mandamus Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1361, a court may issue such a writ only when: (1) the petitioner has a clear and indisputable right to the relief sought; (2) the respondent has a nondiscretionary (legally mandatory) duty to honor that right; and (3) the petitioner lacks an alternative, adequate remedy. Mitchael v. Colvin, 809 F.3d 1050, 1054 (8th Cir. 2016).
Analysis
No Clear and Indisputable Right to Relief
The court's prior remand order required the Board to reconsider whether to alter the contingency pricing mechanism — it did not mandate any particular outcome. The order gave the Board the choice to amend the mechanism or leave it in place. Nothing in the remand order gave plaintiffs a clear right to demand a second reevaluation if dissatisfied with the Board's conclusion, nor a right to demand that the Board set a retroactive 2015 price.
No Nondiscretionary Duty
Even if plaintiffs had a clear right, the Board exercised significant discretion on remand. It gathered expert opinions, evaluated the contingency pricing mechanism, and reached a formal decision. A writ of mandamus is limited to compelling "a precise and definite act" over which the agency has no discretion. Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 63 (2004). Because the remand order granted the Board broad discretion, mandamus is unavailable.
Alternative Remedy Available
The third requirement also fails plaintiffs: they have an available alternative remedy. The proper vehicle for challenging whether the Board's post-remand decision was arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise unlawful is a new APA claim in a separate lawsuit. The court emphasized that judicial review of agency action should proceed on a complete administrative record — a requirement better suited to APA review than to the court's equitable powers. The court noted that the parallel Michigan federal litigation reached the same conclusion. Ackerman Bros. Farms, LLC v. U.S. Dep't of Agric., No. 1:17-11779, 2025 WL 1513950, at *4–5 (E.D. Mich. May 28, 2025).
Disposition
The court denied plaintiffs' Petition for Writ of Mandamus and denied the Motion to Alter/Amend/Supplement Pleadings. Because no further relief is available in this case, the court ordered the case closed. The court directed that any new APA challenge be filed as a separate case. The court was candid that it found the agency's conclusion — that an insurance product setting the harvest price equal to the projected price adequately protects farmers — "confounding," but held that mandamus was nonetheless the wrong remedy.
Read the full 12-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.