Lynch v. Household Finance Corporation

Decision Date22 October 1970
Docket NumberCiv. No. 13737,13738.
Citation318 F. Supp. 1111
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
PartiesDorothy LYNCH, on behalf of herself and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. HOUSEHOLD FINANCE CORPORATION, David W. Goldman, Commissioner of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut; Jack Friedler, Deputy Sheriff of New Haven County, individually and as representative of all Sheriffs, Deputy Sheriffs and Constables of the State of Connecticut; and Hospital of St. Raphael Employees Credit Union, Inc., Defendants. Norma TORO, on behalf of herself and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Eugene A. CAMPOSANO, Jerome A. Lacobelle, Commissioner of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut; Charles H. Barrett, Deputy Sheriff of New Haven County, individually and as representative of all Sheriffs, Deputy Sheriffs and Constables of the State of Connecticut, and The Hamden National Bank, Defendants.

Allen Sims, William H. Clendenen, Jr., David M. Lesser and Kenneth R. Kreiling, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiffs in both actions.

Richard G. Bell and Charles A. Pulaski, Jr., of Tyler, Cooper, Grant, Bowerman & Keefe, New Haven, Conn., for defendants Household Finance Corp., Goldman and Friedler in No. 13,737.

Raymond J. Cannon, Daniel R. Schaefer and C. Michael Budlong, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Robert K. Killian, Atty. Gen., State of Connecticut, Hartford, Conn., for defendant Barrett in No. 13,738.

Robert S. Evans, of Evans & Evans, New Haven, Conn., for defendant The Hamden Nat. Bank in No. 13,738.

Eugene A. Camposano, East Haven, Conn., defendant pro se in No. 13,738.

Jerome A. Lacobelle, New Haven, Conn., defendant pro se in No. 13,738.

Gerald W. Brownstein, New Haven, Conn., for The Commercial Law League of America, amicus curiae in both actions.

Before ANDERSON, Circuit Judge, and TIMBERS and ZAMPANO, District Judges.

TIMBERS, District Judge:

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

In these class actions brought by owners of a savings account and of a checking account, respectively, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the ground their constitutional rights are impaired by the Connecticut pre-judgment attachment and garnishment statutes, threshold questions are presented as to whether this Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1964), and its jurisdictional implementation, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) (1964); and whether the actions are barred by the prohibition against enjoining state court proceedings, 28 U.S.C. § 2283 (1964).

For the reasons stated below, we hold in both actions that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and the actions are barred by the anti-injunction statute. Judgments therefore must be entered for defendants dismissing the complaints in both actions.

FACTS

The facts alleged in the respective complaints, which are taken as true on defendants' motions to dismiss, may be briefly summarized.

In the Lynch action (No. 13,737), on June 20, 1969 defendant Goldman, an attorney representing Household Finance Corporation in a civil action against Dorothy Lynch in the Connecticut Circuit Court for the Sixth Circuit, signed and issued, in his capacity as a Commissioner of the Superior Court, a writ of attachment commanding the attachment of Mrs. Lynch's assets to the value of $800. On June 23, 1969 defendant Friedler, a deputy sheriff for New Haven County, served the writ of attachment on the Hospital of St. Raphael Employees Credit Union, Inc., where Mrs. Lynch had a balance of $494.83 in her savings account. This completed the attachment of Mrs. Lynch's savings account.

In the Toro action (No. 13,738), on January 27, 1970 defendant Lacobelle, an attorney representing Eugene A. Camposano in a civil action against Norma Toro in the Connecticut Circuit Court for the Sixth Circuit, signed and issued, in his capacity as a Commissioner of the Superior Court, a writ of attachment commanding the attachment of Mrs. Toro's assets to the value of $700. On January 30, 1970 defendant Barrett, a deputy sheriff for New Haven County, served the writ of attachment on The Hamden National Bank, where Mrs. Toro had a balance of $103.99 in her checking account. This completed the attachment of Mrs. Toro's checking account.1

In both actions plaintiffs allege that they had no prior notice of the attachments, that they were given no opportunity to be heard prior to the attachments and that the deprivation of plaintiffs' use of the money in the accounts has caused them hardship.

Plaintiffs, purporting to represent those persons similarly situated who are said to constitute a class encompassing all Connecticut residents who have been or will be subjected to pre-judgment attachment or garnishment, claim that the Connecticut pre-judgment attachment and garnishment statutes2 on their face and as applied to plaintiffs impair their rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.3 They seek declaratory and injunctive relief, invoking the jurisdiction of this Court pursuant to the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1964), and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) (1964).

Since the actions seek injunctive relief with respect to State statutes upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statutes, a special statutory district court of three judges was convened to hear and determine the actions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284 (1964).

We do not reach the merits of plaintiffs' constitutional claims. Rather, we grant defendants' motions to dismiss both actions on the grounds that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and the actions are barred by the anti-injunction statute.

OPINION
I

The sole jurisdictional basis for the instant actions is Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, now 42 U.S. C. § 1983 (1964), and its jurisdictional implementation, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) (1964). Sitting as a district court, we are bound by decisions of the Court of Appeals for this Circuit. Lewis v. Rockefeller, 431 F.2d 368 (2 Cir. 1970). We hold that the decision of the Court of Appeals for this Circuit in Eisen v. Eastman, 421 F.2d 560 (2 Cir. 1969), is dispositive of the threshold jurisdictional issue presented in both actions before us, namely, whether the rights here asserted, not being ones of personal liberty but dependent for their existence upon the infringement of property rights, are outside the protection of 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (3) (1964). 421 F.2d at 564 and 566. We hold they are.

The court in Eisen had before it a New York landlord's claim that the New York City Rent and Rehabilitation Law violated his constitutional right not to be deprived of property without due process of law by reducing rents to the amounts to which Eisen was restricted under the law there involved. The court held that "Since the complaint . . . alleged only the loss of money, the district court's conclusion that jurisdiction under the Civil Rights Act was not established . . . was thus correct." Eisen v. Eastman, supra, at 566.

Interference with a Connecticut resident's right to the uninterrupted use of her bank account, like the interdiction of a New Yorker's right to rely upon an undiminished amount of rental income from his property, has to do almost entirely with the loss of money; it involves, at most, only an incidental deprivation of personal rights in the sense of "personal liberty, not dependent for its existence upon the infringement of property rights." Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 531 (1939); Eisen v. Eastman, supra, at 564.

Access to funds held in a savings account or a checking account—the infringed property rights which Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Toro claim unite the interests of their classes—is so close to the simple ownership of the money involved as to be virtually indistinguishable. Unless such a right to own or use one's money is closely linked by custom to an expenditure to secure or protect a right which is in some sense "personal" and incapable of monetary valuation, as might be the case with welfare payments and wages, it is outside the protection of § 1343(3). Otherwise, any plaintiff could claim that money taken under color of state law is marginal to his capacity to maintain the barest minimum in food, shelter, health care or personal credit rating, thereby negating Eisen.

Escalera v. New York City Housing Authority, 425 F.2d 853, 864 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 853 (1970), may not be read to suggest that Eisen is to be ignored in this fashion or by reasoning that any deprivation of procedural due process is automatically "personal", since the underlying right in question there was the continued occupancy of scarce public housing.

The instant cases illustrate the confusion created by the argument that the use to which a specific plaintiff might put $494.83 or $103.99 which has been set aside in a savings account or a checking account makes any of the incidents of ownership of such accounts fundamental matters of "personal liberty." To be consistent, a suitable class could be defined only in terms of plaintiffs with like subjective intentions or identical degrees of emergency need for the precise amount of money left in their savings or checking accounts at the moment they were or might be garnished. The class would be not just all poor people with savings or checking accounts, but only those likely to feel the pinch of garnishment in the same manner through a loss of marginal sums necessary to safeguard incalculable personal interests. No such class could be defined as a practical matter. And the possible mootness of Mrs. Toro's own garnishment complaint would be enough to require dismissal even if there were jurisdiction.4

II

In view of our decision that the instant actions must be dismissed for lack of Civil Rights Act jurisdiction, supra pp. 1113-14, it is not necessary for us to reach other grounds urged for dismissal. Since the anti-injunction statute, 28 U.S. C. § 2283 (1964), pressed upon...

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