North Carolina Fisheries Association

Federal Judge Looks Favorably on First of Two Flounder Litigations

Federal Judge Robert Doumar looked favorably upon the NCFA motion to enforce a previous ruling against the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS), agents of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, in Federal Court on April 18.

During the two-hour hearing, held in Norfolk, VA, Doumar scolded NMFS for failing to uphold a previous court order to issue summer flounder quotas within a reasonable time frame.
Doumar also issued a temporary order restraining the agency from making any additional quota adjustments until receiving further instruction from the court.

The federal judge made it quite clear that he was displeased with NMFS' actions, telling NMFS attorneys that they were fighting an uphill battle.

After NMFS provided the court with a "declaration" placing blame for a final quota delay on the state of North Carolina, NC attorneys told the court that NC Division of Marine Fisheries was also very displeased with NMFS.

Judge Doumar requested that NMFS produce some documents by Monday, April 30. NCFA will then have 10 days to respond, and the Judge will rule sometime after that.

At that time the state of North Carolina will also answer NMFS' allegations.

According to NCFA Chairman Billy Carl Tillett and President Jerry Schill, who attended the court proceedings, it was a very interesting and productive hearing and NCFA is very pleased that the State of North Carolina elected to attend.

NCFA filed suit against National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) charging that the agency has not fulfilled its obligations under a court order prompted by a previous lawsuit filed by the association, and that NMFS condones and commits demonstrable inequities against commercial fishermen.

"Commercial fishermen continue to suffer major economic hardship due to the government's failure to address the equitability issue," said Schill. "The agency (NMFS) violated a previous court order to set the quota in a timely fashion, which makes it very difficult for our state to properly manage its share of the flounder resource.

"In addition, according to the government's figures, the recreational fishery has exceeded their target every year for the past 5 years, amounting to 22 million pounds of overages. We've been very patient for the regulators to solve this problem, but simply cannot wait any longer."

The Association's suit is essentially two fold. The first being the April 18 hearing to enforce a previous ruling. The second fold charges that NMFS consistently allows recreational overages in the flounder fishery. A court date for the second issue is pending.

Hearing Highlights

Judge Doumar has said that he WILL rule that the Secretary of Commerce violated his previous order. (Although we won't know for sure until he issues a final rule, it also suggests that NMFS will be required to pay NCFA's legal fees.)
Judge Doumar issued a temporary order that NMFS cannot make any other quota adjustments until otherwise directed by the Court;
The Judge declared that he WILL issue sanctions against NMFS, but we won't know until the final order what those sanctions will be. It depends on what NMFS is able to produce by April 30, and our subsequent response.
Although the recreational overages were not the subject of this hearing, Doumar indicated that he thought it was interesting that commercial quota overages must be paid back the following year but recreational overages must not. (This issue is the subject of a separate action filed by NCFA that will be heard at a later date.)