## Facts

- The Supreme Court consolidated priority disputes involving consensual security interests held by the United States under federal lending programs and competing private liens where the relevant federal statutes did not specify lien priority rules.
- In the SBA-related dispute, O.K. Super Markets granted Kimbell Foods a security interest in its property and Kimbell perfected under Texas UCC filing requirements.
- O.K. Super Markets later obtained a bank loan guaranteed by the SBA; the bank also perfected a security interest under Texas law and, after default, assigned its interest to the SBA.
- Kimbell Foods claimed priority to collateral proceeds based on its perfected security interest and earlier filing under Texas commercial law.
- In the FHA-related dispute, a farmer-borrower granted the Farmers Home Administration a security interest in crops and farm equipment, and the FHA perfected by filing a financing statement under Georgia law.
- A private repairman/creditor later obtained a competing state-law interest in the same collateral after performing repairs on the borrower’s tractor.
- Lower courts treated the disputes as governed by federal law but disagreed whether federal common law should grant the United States special priority or instead incorporate state commercial priority rules.

## Issues

1. Whether federal law governs priority disputes involving consensual liens arising from nationwide federal loan and loan-guarantee programs.
2. If federal law governs, whether courts should fashion a uniform federal priority rule favoring the United States or incorporate state commercial law (including UCC priority rules) as the federal rule of decision.
3. Whether federal tax-lien priority doctrines (including choateness) should be extended to consensual federal lending liens absent statutory direction.

## Decision

- The Court held that federal law governs the rights of the United States arising under nationwide federal lending programs.
- The Court declined to create a special, uniform federal priority rule that would generally elevate federal consensual liens over private liens.
- Absent contrary congressional direction, the Court adopted state commercial law as the content of the federal rule of decision for determining priority.
- The Court rejected applying tax-lien doctrines, including choateness-based priority concepts, to consensual security interests arising from federal lending programs.
- The Court affirmed the outcomes that gave priority according to state-law perfection and priority principles.

## Legal Principles

- Federal law governs priority questions involving liens held by the United States under federal programs, but federal common law may incorporate state law as the operative rule when Congress has not directed otherwise.
- A national program does not, by itself, justify displacing state commercial priority regimes with a uniform federal priority rule.
- Tax-lien priority doctrines developed to protect federal tax collection do not automatically apply to the United States when it acts as a voluntary secured lender.
- State UCC-based filing, perfection, and priority rules generally provide the governing standards for ranking federal consensual liens against private security interests unless a federal statute supplies a different rule.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that although federal law supplies the governing framework for federal lending liens, priority disputes between federal consensual security interests and private liens are generally resolved by incorporating state commercial law, rather than by granting the United States automatic superpriority absent congressional command.


United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 U.S. 715 (1979)