Jordan v. Trainor

• Decision Date: 22 August 1975
• Docket Number: No. 71 C 70.,71 C 70.
• Citation: 405 F. Supp. 802
• Parties: John JORDAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. James TRAINOR, Acting Director, Illinois Department of Public Aid, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

405 F. Supp. 802

John JORDAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. James TRAINOR, Acting Director, Illinois Department of Public Aid, et al., Defendants.

No. 71 C 70.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

August 22, 1975.

Sheldon H. Roodman, Kenneth K. Howell, O.E.C. Neighborhood Legal Office, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Wm. J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Richard P. Byrne, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WILL, District Judge.

This case is now before the Court on remand from the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 693 (1974), and the order of the Seventh Circuit dated October 29, 1974 to this Court, and pursuant to the motion of the plaintiffs to require notice to members of the plaintiff class.

The only remaining question in this case relates to fashioning the appropriate relief, if any, to deal with defendant's illegal denial of public assistance benefits to the needy aged, blind, and disabled members of the plaintiff class, which consists of all needy aged, blind, and disabled persons who applied for Aid to the Aged, Blind and Disabled (AABD) at one of the offices of the Illinois Department of Public Aid between July 1, 1968 and April 16, 1971, and whose applications were illegally delayed in processing, and who, as a result, were illegally denied benefits to which they were entitled.

Upon finding that the plaintiff class was illegally denied benefits to which its members were entitled, the District Court, Judge Napoli presiding, entered a permanent injunction "to insure compliance, present and future, with the requisite time limitation," (Jordan v. Swank, 71 C 70, unpublished opinion, p. 2, February 4, 1972), and also ordered the state officials to release and remit AABD payments wrongfully withheld from those members of plaintiff's class, defined in the trial court's order to include:

Those applicants who applied for AABD since the effective date of the regulations, July 1, 1968, and did not receive their initial check as required within the 30 day or 45 day (60 days for Aid to the Disabled as of January 1, 1971) limits. Jordan v. Swank, p. 3, supra.

The holding of the district court was affirmed by the Seventh Circuit in Jordan v. Weaver, 472 F.2d 985 (7th Cir. 1973), in an opinion in which the Court upheld the relief granted by the trial court and agreed that the "defendants, acting under color of state law, denied eligible welfare applicants timely assistance benefits to which they were entitled by federal rights, and held that the District Court properly ordered equitable restitution of the benefits wrongfully denied. Weaver, supra, at 994. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit held that the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution did not deprive the federal court of jurisdiction to order the defendants to pay assistance benefits illegally denied members of the plaintiff class.

In Edelman v. Jordan, supra, the United States Supreme Court reversed that portion of the Seventh Circuit's opinion which affirmed the District Court's order that retroactive benefits be paid by Illinois State officials. The Court held that, under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), the prospective portion of the District Court's order which enjoined state public aid from failing to process applications within federal time limits, did not contravene the guidelines of the 11th Amendment. On the other hand, Ex parte Young did not, it continued, authorize ordering recovery from state funds of an accrued monetary liability. The test established by the Court in Edelman, for determining which claims against the unconsenting state are barred by the 11th Amendment and which are permitted, is whether the award is by its terms prospective in nature, even though its implementation may have fiscal consequences. This characterization avoided the labeling of relief as equitable or monetary, which the Court found to be of little analytical benefit, and focused on the substance of the relief awarded. An ancillary fiscal impact in conjunction with the state's compliance in the future with a court order was held to be permissible under the 11th Amendment. The Court also rejected the Seventh Circuit's theory that the State of Illinois had consented to suit for retroactive relief by participating in the federal AABD program, holding that such consent will be found to exist only where set out in explicit statutory language or overwhelming textual implication.

The question here is whether the relief requested by plaintiff is prospective in nature, notwithstanding the fiscal consequences of its award, or a retroactive award of monetary relief falling within the proscription of Edelman v. Jordan, supra.

The relief now requested by plaintiffs is neither one for retroactive monetary relief nor an injunction requiring the state to conform its conduct in the future to a set of standards. Rather, it involves only the sending of notices to members of the plaintiff class explaining their possible entitlement to retroactive benefits and the appropriate state administrative and appeals procedures to be followed in applying for those benefits. The requested relief, therefore, while related to possible retroactive benefits, is clearly not an award of those benefits. The plaintiffs contend that Edelman does not deprive this court of jurisdiction to grant the requested relief and cite authority in support thereof. The defendants argue that Edelman erects an absolute bar, based on the 11th Amendment, to any order related in any possible way to payment of retroactive benefits by the state, that no existing authority supports the Court's ordering the state to send notices, and that plaintiffs are estopped by their pleadings to seek state administrative remedies.

The following language from the Supreme Court's opinion in Edelman indicates its concern with the award by a federal court of direct retroactive monetary relief against a state, rather than orders requiring the state to change existing policy or to inform citizens of their rights under state and federal law, even when a monetary loss would occur therefrom:

We do not read Ex parte Young or subsequent holdings of this Court to indicate that any form of relief may be awarded against a state officer, no matter how closely it may in practice resemble a money judgment payable out of the state treasury, so long as the relief may be labeled "equitable" in nature. The Court's opinion in Ex parte Young hewed to no such line.

* * * * * *

But that portion of the District Court's decree which petitioner challenges on Eleventh Amendment grounds goes much further than any of the cases cited. It requires payment of state funds, not as a necessary consequence of compliance in the future with a substantive federal-question determination, but as a form of compensation to those whose applications were processed on the slower time schedule at a time when petitioner was under no court-imposed obligation to conform to a different standard. While the Court of Appeals described this retroactive award of monetary relief as a form of "equitable restitution," it is in practical effect indistinguishable in many aspects from an award of damages against the State. . . . It is measured in terms of a monetary loss resulting from a past breach of a legal duty on the party of the defendant state officials.

The instant case involves the awarding of non-monetary relief but related to the possibility of securing, through the state administrative apparatus, benefits illegally withheld from members of the plaintiff class. This relief falls outside the area proscribed by the Supreme Court's Edelman opinion.

The Eleventh Amendment seeks to avoid the clash of federal and state sovereigns. In this respect, a distinction exists between compensating individuals directly and notice that relief may be available. Even if the latter ultimately results in a direct award of benefits, federal interference in such an award would be minimal. The Eleventh Amendment by its terms denies jurisdiction to federal courts only of suits against one state by citizens of another or by citizens or subjects of a foreign state. While this has been read to preclude federal courts from ordering payments by states of state funds, it has never been held to prohibit federal courts from fashioning other appropriate relief in suits in law or in equity between citizens of a state and officials of the same state, e. g., writs of habeas corpus, injunction, mandamus, etc. Nor, do we believe, that it may be used by a state to keep secret the fact that a number of its citizens may, under established state procedures, have valid claims against it. Accordingly, we conclude that ordering the sending of notices is not barred by the 11th Amendment to the Constitution.

Among the courts addressing the precise issue before us, none has denied the motion to require the sending of such notices. In Grubb v. Sterrett, 315 F. Supp. 990 (N.D.Ind.1970), a pre-Edelman case, the court held a statewide welfare regulation to be contrary to the Social Security Act and, therefore, invalid under the Supremacy Clause. Because the state had provisions for hearings regarding corrective retroactive payments, the court did not grant the retroactive monetary relief; rather, it remanded the claim for back benefits to the Indiana Department of Public Welfare and required the state to send notices to members of the plaintiff class. This course obviated the Court's consideration of any 11th Amendment objection to its jurisdiction to award retroactive monetary benefits.

In Doe v. Gillman, 479 F.2d 646 (8th Cir. 1973), also pre-Edelman, the Eighth Circuit vacated a District Court decree requiring the Iowa Department of Public Aid to make retroactive payments on the ground that it was unnecessary to decide the 11th Amendment question, since the Iowa Department of Public Aid...