Bonnette v. California Health & Welfare Agency
| Decision Date | 24 November 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. C-75-1812-MHP.,C-75-1812-MHP. |
| Citation | 525 F. Supp. 128 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | Eleanor BONNETTE, Faye Pryor, Vickie Young, Joanne R. Cardone, Marjorie Marshall, Thet Poy Chung, Elizabeth Tears and Amelia Walker, Plaintiffs, v. CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND WELFARE AGENCY and Mario Obledo, individually and in his capacity as Secretary of the California Health and Welfare Agency; California Department of Health and Beverlee Myers, individually and in her capacity as Director of the California Department of Health; California Department of Social Services and Marion Woods, individually and in his capacity as Director of the California Department of Social Services; Solano County Public Welfare Department and Crawford Tucker, individually and in his capacity as Acting Director of the Solano County Public Welfare Department; San Francisco County Department of Social Services and Edwin Sarsfield, individually and in his capacity as Director of the San Francisco County Department of Social Services; Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare and William Redmond, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare, Defendants. |
Nancy Levin, R. Anthony Finkas, Solano Co. Legal Asst. Agcy., Vallejo, Cal., Rebecca I. McKee, Employment Law Center, San
Francisco, Cal., Craig H. Scott, Pittsburg, Cal., Public Advocates, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs.
Winifred Smith, Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, Cal., Thomas H. Gordinier, Fairfield, Cal., Gretchen Nicholson, Deputy City Atty., San Francisco, Cal., John Heinrich, County Counsel, Sacramento, Cal., Joseph Taillefer, Deputy Co. Counsel, County of Sacramento, Sacramento, Cal., Patrick Bupara, Asst. U. S. Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for defendants.
This matter was tried and submitted to the court upon the brief testimony of witnesses, exhibits and designated depositions. The parties have stipulated to certain preliminary facts and those facts are adopted herein as the findings of fact of this court.
Plaintiffs Eleanor Bonnette, Faye Pryor, Vickie Young, Joanne R. Cardone, Thet Poy Chung,1 Elizabeth Tears, Marjorie Marshall and Amelia Walker are domestic workers who provided in-home supportive services to public assistance recipients during all or part of the period from May 1974 to October 1976.
The defendants in this action are: California Health and Welfare Agency and its Secretary, Mario Obledo; California Department of Health Services and its Director, Beverlee Myers; California Department of Social Services and its Director, Marion Woods; Solano County Public Welfare Department and its Acting Director, Crawford Tucker; San Francisco County Department of Social Services and its Director, Edwin Sarsfield; and Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare and its Director, William Redmond.
This action is brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. Plaintiffs claim that the state and county defendants, acting jointly with the public assistance recipients who receive the services, employ plaintiffs and have violated the minimum wage provisions of the FLSA.
Since the early 1950's, the State of California has elected to participate with the federal government in addressing the special needs of the aged, the blind, and disabled welfare recipients. The federal grant program for the disabled, blind, and aged was administered by the State Department of Health and the counties. The state had an option of providing an additional grant to these recipients to meet their special needs. The state legislature exercised that option, establishing an Attendant Care program which permitted these particular welfare recipients to contract with individual providers to perform various domestic services. The federal government provided 50% of the funding for such services; the state and counties jointly funded the remaining 50%.2
Amendments to the Social Security Act, H.R. 1, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. (1973), which became effective January 1, 1974, replaced the public assistance program with federally administered Supplemental Security Income — State Supplemental Payment Programs hereinafter SSI — SSP. This program provided for cash grant living allowances to aged, blind, and disabled recipients. It did not provide for supplemental payments to recipients for the purchase of attendant care services nor did it provide for the payment of salaries of county-employed homemakers.
Consequently, the termination of the public assistance program (Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Blind, and Aid to the Totally Disabled) meant the end of the funding mechanism for the Attendant Care program as of January 1, 1974. A new program, In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), which would utilize another source of federal Social Services Funds, was devised. The In-Home Supportive Services program is provided for in California Welfare and Institutions Code § 12300 et seq., which went into effect January 1, 1974. As with the experimental Homemaker Service program, the federal government was to provide 75% of the funding for the new program and the state was to provide the remaining 25%. The counties were relieved of any financial responsibility although they continued to administer the program. The statutory purpose of this consolidated program continued to be to enable aged, blind, and disabled adults to remain in their own homes by supplying homemaker/chore services. The old Attendant Care program was replaced by the Chore Service program.
The state legislature set the eligibility requirements and established three methods by which counties could deliver in-home care to public assistance recipients. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 12302. A county could hire in-home service workers directly via its civil service system; chore persons hired in this manner would clearly be employees of the county. These workers would be entitled to all the rights, benefits, and protections which civil service entails.
The second method of providing in-home supportive services was for a county to contract with agencies or individuals engaged to perform such services.
The third method of providing in-home supportive services was for a county to "make direct payment to recipients" for the purchase of services. This was the method of delivery of services utilized in the employment of all plaintiffs in this lawsuit.
In 1976, the State Department of Industrial Relations issued a state minimum wage order covering domestic workers such as plaintiffs. The Department of Health instructed county welfare departments that the wage order applied to providers of in-home supported services. As of October 1, 1976, chore workers throughout the state were entitled to receive the state minimum wage, which has always at least equaled the federal minimum.
All counties wishing to participate in the program were required to submit to the state plans for its implementation in their jurisdictions. Included in these plans were the method(s) by which a particular county proposed to deliver in-home supportive services.
The Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare, the Solano County Public Welfare Department, and the San Francisco Department of Social Services are responsible in their respective counties for the administration of the In-Home Supportive Services program. During the period of time relevant to this action, May 1974 to October 1976, the State of California disbursed funds to defendant counties for the purpose of administering the In-Home Supportive Services program. Defendant counties disbursed federal and state monies specified above to certain welfare recipients for the purpose of securing chore services for their benefit.
The direct payment method of providing in-home support services to the aged, blind and disabled and the use of chore workers paid in this manner were in furtherance of the goals and objectives of the California Health and Welfare Agency and the various county social services departments before this court. The direct payment method was less costly to the counties and the state. There was a fiscal benefit to the taxpayer. There was a substantial benefit to the welfare recipients. Without these programs, the recipients would be institutionalized. If in-home services were limited to the county employee method or the use of contract agencies the expense to the state and the counties would be greater.
The California State Department of Health issued guidelines and instructions to the counties for administration of chore service programs. The guidelines covered eligibility, service needs assessment, selection and training of providers, methods of payment to chore service workers and the establishment of rates of pay. Each county was required to annually submit its plan for in-home supportive services to the state. The plans were regularly reviewed by the state. Because the programs were fully funded by the state and federal governments, the county drew against the state funds in accordance with the approved plan.
The counties were free to set the rates of pay for chore providers within the limits established by the state. The state would not approve any plan if its wage rate was out of line. The proposed rates set forth in the plan were to be supported by relevant data. There was no specific state provision on the hourly rate of pay until the 1976 order.
The state has admitted it had no substantial concern whether payment of the minimum wage to chore workers would increase costs because other home care providers were already paid wages clustered around the minimum wage figure. The counties generally had a greater concern for the fiscal effects of paying the minimum wage.
The counties deliberately attempted to structure the chore service program in such a way that the recipient would be considered the employer...
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