Nelson v. Thornburgh
| Decision Date | 12 July 1983 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 81-5115. |
| Citation | 567 F. Supp. 369 |
| Parties | Martin NELSON, et al. v. Richard THORNBURGH, et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Andrew F. Erba, Community Legal Services, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
Stephen F. Gold, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff-intervenor.
Maura A. Johnston, Deputy Atty. Gen., Harrisburg, Pa., for defendants.
Plaintiffs Martin Nelson, Paula Buntele and Thomas Mobley are income maintenance workers ("IMWs") employed by the Department of Public Welfare ("DPW") of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and assigned to neighborhood offices of the Philadelphia County Board of Assistance ("PCBA"). Defendants, all sued in their official capacities, are Governor Richard Thornburgh, Secretary of Welfare Helen O'Bannon and PCBA Executive Director Dan Jose Stovall.1
Plaintiffs are blind. Because their job entails extensive paperwork, they are unable to perform their duties satisfactorily without the aid of a reader. Plaintiffs have therefore hired readers on a part-time basis. With the assistance of these readers, plaintiffs meet the requirements of their position as well as their sighted colleagues.
Plaintiffs, up to now, have borne the expense of these readers, despite requests by plaintiffs and the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services that DPW assume this cost. Plaintiffs claim in this lawsuit that DPW's refusal to accommodate them by providing readers or, in the alternative, mechanical devices capable of helping them accomplish the reading functions, constitutes "discrimination" within the meaning of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 794, which provides in relevant part:
No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States ... shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance....
Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages for reader expenditures made in the past.
Defendants contend that plaintiffs are not "otherwise qualified" within the meaning of section 504 because they do not possess an essential qualification of the IMW position: the ability to read. Alternatively, defendants argue that, even if "otherwise qualified," plaintiffs are not entitled to the accommodation that they seek because the cost of readers or mechanical devices would be an undue hardship on DPW and PCBA. Finally, defendants insist that, even if they are found obligated to assume the cost of accommodating plaintiffs' blindness in the future, this court is without authority to require defendants to reimburse plaintiffs for reader expenses incurred heretofore.
The issues in this case have been fully developed through plaintiffs' unsuccessful motion for a preliminary injunction, defendants' partially successful motion for summary judgment, supplemental memoranda on the issue of damages, and a four-day trial. On the basis of the evidence presented, I make the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
Plaintiffs Martin Nelson, Paula Buntele and Thomas Mobley, all blind since birth, are employed by DPW as IMWs. Each is assigned to a different district of the PCBA. Defendants Thornburgh, O'Bannon and Stovall have ultimate responsibility for the policies and practices complained of in this lawsuit.
DPW is a department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, charged with administering the federal and state programs, such as cash assistance, food stamps and medical assistance, designed to aid those in need. See 62 Pa.Stat.Ann. § 401. In the fiscal year which ended on June 30, 1983, DPW was authorized to disburse $4,310,000,000; of this sum, a little under half came from the federal government through block grants. An additional $300,000,000 is devoted to administering the funds, $141,000,000 of which is contributed by the federal government. Eighty percent (80%) of the administrative budget is used to pay salary and benefits for DPW's 38,000 employees.2
Since 1979, budgetary constraints have considerably reduced the work-force of the county assistance offices, including the offices in Philadelphia County administered by the PCBA. For instance, 160 clerical employees have been furloughed in Philadelphia County, and a hiring freeze has been in effect since 1979. During that same period, caseloads have increased by about 100,000 cases statewide, with a proportional increase in Philadelphia. This combination of diminished resources and enlarged responsibilities has resulted in a growing backlog of work in many offices, increasing the strain on clerical, caseworker and supervisory employees.
The IMW is, as a rule, the only point of contact between the individual recipient and the massive apparatus of the state and federal welfare system. Historically, the focus of the IMW's responsibilities was on social work: accompanying the provision of material aid with counselling and referrals to other helping agencies (e.g., vocational training programs). The caseworker, as the IMW used to be known, interviewed the client, sometimes in a home visit, and then described in a narrative the results of the interview and the reasons for granting or denying aid.
By the mid-1970's the nature of the job had shifted away from traditional social work. The central function of the job is now the determination of the client's initial and continued eligibility for federal and state benefits. The practice of reporting the outcome of the interview through a narrative recital is a casualty of this trend; it has been almost fully replaced by computerized standard forms. The standard forms are designed to maximize efficient processing of benefits and minimize mistakes by making it easier to control the IMWs' discretion and keep the client files uniform.
The principal form used by the IMW in the interview with the client is the "743," part of the "121 series" adopted by DPW in the mid-1970's. The IMW elicits from the client all the information required by the five-page form, which includes everything relating to the client's financial, vocational and family situation that could conceivably bear upon the question of eligibility.3 DPW's normal procedure calls for the IMW to copy this information by hand on the appropriate block of the 743 form. Depending on the client's situation, the IMW may also have to fill out other forms, such as a food stamp application worksheet or a child support form. During the interview, the IMW often will have to review documents provided by the client. Some documents, such as rent receipts, are used to verify the client's address; others, such as medical reports, are used to evaluate the client's medical fitness for work, an important component of the eligibility requirement.
After a form is completed, the IMW hands it to the client for review. If the information is correct, the client signs the form. The typical IMW spends about half the day conducting interviews.
After the client leaves the office, the IMW makes the determination of eligibility for benefits. To do this, the IMW consults the DPW Income Maintenance Manual ("the Manual"). The Manual is over one thousand pages long, and filled with regulations, procedures, charts and tables. New materials are added to the Manual almost daily, reflecting changes in the amount of aid or the policies affecting its distribution.4 From the standards contained in the Manual, the IMW determines if the information on the 743 entitles the client to receive or continue to receive benefits.5 Some of the benefits are distributed under federal programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Old Age Assistance, and foodstamps. Other benefits exist under state programs, like General and Medical Assistance.
After determining eligibility under these programs, the IMW fills out an instruction sheet encoding the decision on the amount of benefits, and sends it with the 743 to the clerical department. The clerical staff then enters all the data into the central computer.
The IMW must then perform the post-interview procedures, which include completing forms in order to update client information, sending copies of forms to appropriate offices and personnel and notifying the client of DPW's decision on his or her eligibility.
Another important function of the IMW is attending to "special projects." Special projects are undertaken at the direction of higher level administrators and are designed to correct errors that may have escaped scrutiny in individual cases. For example, the IMW may receive a list of his or her clients who receive Social Security benefits as well as assistance, to determine whether that income source was disclosed at the time of the eligibility decision. Or, the IMW may receive a list of clients receiving more than the maximum grant or less than the minimum, and be asked to justify or rectify the discrepancy.
The IMW must also be prepared to handle client emergencies by being able to calm distraught clients, replace lost checks, or track down bureaucratic error.
Changes in the last ten years have operated to limit the range of discretion associated with the IMW position. Yet the IMW remains a professional-level position, with significant responsibilities. The capacity to read without aid is certainly helpful in carrying out the duties of the job, as are the abilities to hear or to move about without help. The essential qualifications for this career, however, are dedication to the work, sufficient judgment and life-experience to enable one accurately to assess the legitimate needs of clients, and the ability to work effectively under the pressure of competing demands from clients and supervisors.
With the aid of readers, plaintiffs perform...
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