The U.S. Agriculture Department should stop trying to collect farm debts owed by American Indian farmers until their discrimination lawsuit against the department is resolved, the farmers' lawyer says.

The USDA can suspend collection work against farmers involved in the class-action lawsuit and has done so in other discrimination cases, attorney Joseph Sellers said in court papers filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The current case involves hundreds of Indian farmers who claim they were unfairly denied loans and loan restructuring, as well as other farming assistance in the 1980s and 1990s. It could eventually involve thousands of farmers.

USDA lawyers have argued that the agency's collection practices are being administered fairly and as directed by federal law.

They also said another discrimination case in which USDA suspended collection work involving black farmers was certified as a class action and settled, while the exact definition of the class in the Indian case is not fully defined. The class is the group of farmers who can make claims in court.

Sellers is asking U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to order a start to discovery, the legal process in which opposing sides are compelled to turn over information.

Sullivan has not set a schedule for when he will decide the matter.

The case was filed in November 1999. Sullivan certified it a class action in December 2001, and USDA appealed his decision. In February 2002, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia suspended action in the case until it answered the department.

The appeals court declined to reconsider Sullivan's ruling in October and lifted its suspension. Since February, lawyers have been arguing in court papers over how to manage future proceedings in the case.

Sellers said there are enough grounds to move ahead now, while further delay would only put more farmers at risk of going out of business before their claims are resolved.