Ward, Bittle, Miller, et al. v. Thomas
| Decision Date | 01 August 1998 |
| Docket Number | D,No.1414,No. 98-6193,1414,98-6193 |
| Citation | 207 F.3d 114 |
| Parties | (2nd Cir. 2000) KRASAUNDRA WARD, AKILAH BITTLE, DENISE MILLER, YECENIA RIVERA, PHILOMENA COLLINS, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ANNE C. CLARK, JENNIFER SHERARD, and AVERY FITZPATRICK, Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. JOYCE THOMAS, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Social Services, Defendant-Appellant, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH and HUMAN SERVICES, Third-Party-Defendant. ocket |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from a final order of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Janet Bond Arterton, J.) granting summary judgment in favor of intervenors-plaintiffs in their 1983 class action for declaratory and injunctive relief.
Reversed on the ground that the Eleventh Amendment bars the action.
Judge Straub dissents in a separate opinion.
HUGH BARBER, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut (Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, Richard J. Lynch, Patricia McCooey, Assistant Attorneys General, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant.
KATHLEEN KELLER, New Haven, CT (Kathleen A. Sullivan, Ian Carleton, The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, Shelley White, New Haven Legal Assistance Association, on the brief), for Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Before: VAN GRAAFEILAND, JACOBS and STRAUB, Circuit Judges.
Judge STRAUB dissents in a separate opinion.
In 1995, Connecticut General Statute 17b-104 was amended to reduce benefits payable under the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC") program for those beneficiaries who also received housing subsidies. See 1995 Conn. Acts 95-351, 2(d) (Reg. Sess.) (codified at Conn. Gen. Stat. 17b-104 (1996)). The amendment was challenged under 42 U.S.C. 1983 by a class of AFDC beneficiaries seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against defendant-appellant Joyce Thomas, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Social Services ("Commissioner"). The claims of the original class of plaintiffs have been resolved. The present appeal concerns the claims asserted by intervenor Avery Fitzpatrick, a minor child whose benefits were reduced under the amendment because he lived with an adult caretaker who received a housing subsidy. He challenges the reduction on the ground that he was not a beneficiary of the subsidy because the caretaker owed him no legal duty of support. The district court certified a subclass of all children similarly situated (the "Fitzpatrick subclass").
The Commissioner now appeals from a final order of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Janet Bond Arterton, J.), granting summary judgment in favor of the Fitzpatrick subclass. See Ward v. Thomas, 9 F. Supp. 2d 109 (D. Conn. 1998). The Commissioner contends that the district court erred because: (1) under the Eleventh Amendment, pursuit of these claims in federal court is barred by state sovereign immunity, (2) the challenged state policy is consistent with federal law, and (3) the claims are barred because appellees failed to pursue their state administrative remedies in a timely fashion.
We hold that the Eleventh Amendment bars the Fitzpatrick subclass's action, and reach no other issue.
This appeal arises from the administration of the now-terminated AFDC program by the State of Connecticut. The program was intended to encourage "the care of dependent children in their own homes or in the homes of relatives by enabling each State to furnish financial assistance and rehabilitation and other services ... to needy dependent children and the parents or relatives with whom they are living." 42 U.S.C. 601 (1994). States were not required to participate in the AFDC program, but those that did received federal matching funds and partial reimbursement of expenses. See Mont v. Heintz, 849 F.2d 704, 706 (2d Cir. 1988). Participating states were required in turn to submit an AFDC plan meeting the requirements of 42 U.S.C. 602 for the approval of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and to "administer their plans in conformity with applicable federal law." Id. (citing Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 408 (1970)).
Broadly speaking, the AFDC entitlement was a function of two factors established by each participating state: (1) the standard of need, and (2) the level of benefits. See id. (citing 45 C.F.R. 233.20(a)(2)). The standard of need was "a dollar figure set by each State reflecting the amount deemed necessary to provide for essential needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter." Quern v. Mandley, 436 U.S. 725, 737 (1978). The level of benefits determined the amount of assistance that was provided and was "not necessarily a function of the standard of need." Id. "On both scores Congress has always left to the States a great deal of discretion." Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 408 (1970).
By legislation enacted in 1995, Connecticut reduced the level of AFDC benefits provided to families living in subsidized housing, by an amount equal to eight percent of the state's standard of need. See Ward v. Thomas, 895 F. Supp. 406, 410 (D. Conn. 1995). This amount was intended to account for the financial benefit attributable to the housing subsidy. See Conn. Gen. Stat. 17b-104(d) (1996).1
In June 1995, the original class of plaintiffs filed suit challenging this planned reduction in AFDC benefits. See Ward, 895 F. Supp. at 408, 410. The original complaint, later amended, alleged that the planned reduction was enacted without timely and adequate notice and in violation of federal statutory and constitutional provisions. See id. at 408. The class sought to enjoin the Commissioner from carrying out the planned reduction policy.
In March 1996, Avery Fitzpatrick, a minor acting through his caretaker and great-aunt, Annie Dykes, intervened and filed a complaint of his own. Although Dykes had no legal responsibility to care for Fitzpatrick, she cared for him in her federally-subsidized apartment. Fitzpatrick was an AFDC recipient; Dykes was not. After the effective date of the 1995 amendment, the Commissioner reduced Fitzpatrick's monthly AFDC benefits from $356 to $300 based on his residence in subsidized housing. Fitzpatrick alleged that the benefits reduction ran afoul of a federal regulation prohibiting the Commissioner from assuming that an AFDC recipient receives support from any person who lives in the household but has no legal responsibility to furnish support.
The AFDC program was terminated effective October 1, 1996, by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 ("PRWORA"), Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105 (1996), which replaced AFDC with a program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families ("TANF"). See 42 U.S.C. 601 et seq.; see also Ward, 9 F. Supp. 2d at 111 n.1. PRWORA contains a provision, 116(b)(2)(A), 110 Stat. at 2184, called "the Savings Clause" by the parties, which, according to Fitzpatrick (and the original plaintiffs), preserved the validity of AFDC statutes and regulations with respect to their claims. Thus, after the effective date of PRWORA, the original plaintiffs filed a Third Amended Complaint, which restated the essence of the initial Amended Complaint, with the addition of Fitzpatrick's claim, and sought correction of past underpayments pursuant to the requirements of the former AFDC program as preserved by the Savings Clause.
In September 1997, the district court certified a plaintiff subclass of "all children who received [AFDC] benefits at any point between August 1, 1995 and October 1, 1996, while living in subsidized housing with a non-legally liable caretaker relative who was not a member of the child's assistance unit." Ward, 9 F. Supp. 2d at 111. With the exception of the claim pressed by the Fitzpatrick subclass, all claims were eventually resolved and are not the subject of this appeal.
The Fitzpatrick subclass and the Commissioner cross-moved for partial summary judgment. On March 31, 1998, the district court denied the Commissioner's motion and granted summary judgment in favor of the subclass.
The district court read PRWORA's Savings Clause to preserve the requirements of the AFDC program with respect to the subclass's claim, see id. at 119, and concluded that under those requirements, the Commissioner could not impute to the Fitzpatrick subclass the housing subsidies received by the children's non-legally responsible caretakers, see id. at 111-13. The district court based its holding in part on 45 C.F.R. 233.20(a)(2)(viii), an AFDC regulation which prohibited the Commissioner from assuming that a non-legally responsible adult who shares a household with an AFDC child recipient contributes to the support of the child. See Ward, 9 F. Supp. 2d at 112 (citing Van Lare v. Hurley, 421 U.S. 338, 347 (1975)). The district court gave consideration to 42 U.S.C. 602(a)(7)(C), which allowed an offset of AFDC benefits to the extent that the AFDC benefits duplicated the value of the housing subsidy, but concluded that this subsection was inapplicable because the Fitzpatrick subclass children did not themselves receive the housing subsidies. See Ward, 9 F. Supp. 2d at 112-13. In addition, the district court concluded that the housing subsidies were not otherwise available to the subclass members as defined by 45 C.F.R. 233.20(a)(3)(ii)(D). See Ward, 9 F. Supp. 2d at 112-13 (citing Anderson v. Edwards, 514 U.S. 143, 154 (1995)). Thus, with respect to the legality of the Commissioner's policy, the district court held that:
[i]n view of the statutes, regulations and case law, it is hard to discern how the laudable purpose of providing public housing to low-income individuals[] translates to a quantifiable benefit to a child receiving assistance, when only the...
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