Yetiv v. U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development ( 2007 )

NOONAN, Circuit Judge,

concurring:

At oral argument, Yetiv, a lawyer representing himself, made a spirited case that he was the object of bureaucratic spite. Reading the record has not entirely dispelled that impression. Yetiv says he was doing what others did; the government had no loss; he was picked on out of pique. Nonetheless, Yetiv’s legal arguments do not carry the day. Analogously, a claim of “selective prosecution” of a crime is rarely a winner. Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456, 82 S.Ct. 501, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962) (“the conscious exercise of some selectivity in enforcement is not in itself a federal constitutional violation.”) HUD, when I first became acquainted with it in redevelopment work fifty years ago, was a lumbering agency, slow to act and not very vigilant in the performance of its duties. It does not seem to have changed. Yet an annual report on the financial health of projects financed by the federal government is not an unreasonable requirement. Failure to file is a material harm to the agency providing the money. However casually and unexpectedly HUD decides to make an example of a developer, it acts within its jurisdiction and is not arbitrary in asserting the need of annual reports as a material aid to its activities.