# Joyce Goolsby, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated v. W. Michael Blumenthal, as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury

> Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · October 4, 1978 · 581 F.2d 455

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9465017

## Case

- **Full name:** Joyce GOOLSBY, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. W. Michael BLUMENTHAL, as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- **Decided:** October 4, 1978
- **Citations:** 581 F.2d 455; 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 8626
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brown
- **Judges:** Thornberry, Brown, Thorn-Berry, Morgan
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9465017

## Opinion text

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result and in the reasoning of the opinion. I cannot, however, refrain from pointing out that, paraphrasing the now famous quip of Judge Henry Friendly of the Second Circuit, our problem is to determine what Congress would think on an issue about which it has not thought. 1 We offer an extension to fit this case: had Congress thought, it would have told us what it thought.
To those who think that the judiciary is too quick to become too deeply involved in legislative solutions to the day’s problems, and who believe that courts should show a *464 greater restraint or, to adopt a moralistic tone, a “decent respect” for other decision-making bodies, this case is Exhibit A for a different view of how responsibility is divided. This exhibit supports the strongly held suspicion that too often the legislative view is: if our work is deficient, the courts will patch it up.
If our juryrig 2 patchwork efforts are deficient, the fault does not lie at our feet.
. See Nolan v. Transocean Air Lines, 2 Cir., 1960, 276 F.2d 280, 281 , rev’d, 365 U.S. 293 , 81 S.Ct. 555 , 5 L.Ed.2d 571 , on remand, 2 Cir., 290 F.2d 904 . Those of us who have borrowed this idea in the past hope that we have given a sufficient acknowledgment. See Wirth Ltd. v. S/S Acadia Forest, 5 Cir., 1976, 537 F.2d 1272, 1276 ; Hopkins v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 5 Cir., 1968, 394 F.2d 656, 657 ; Page v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 1965, 349 F.2d 820, 823 .
. See Little v. Green, 5 Cir., 1970, 428 F.2d 1061, 1067 . In this case the “jury” is not the court’s factfinder. Rather, it is the ship’s rudder, without which she is helpless.
1. 31 U.S.C. § 1221 et seq.
2. S.Rep.No. 92-1050, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1972 U.S.Code Cong, and Admin. News, p. 3874.
Of course, the phrase no strings can be read in a narrow manner. For such a reading see Kushner and Werner, Revenue Sharing and Relocation: The Administrative Dilemma of Ostensibly Conflicting Congressional Directives, 5 Ecology L.Q. 433 , 438-442. Interestingly, the plaintiffs brief in this case is an edited version of this law review article.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9465017. Public record. Not legal advice.