Collins v. Hoke

• Decision Date: 29 March 1983
• Docket Number: Nos. 82-1396,82-1405,s. 82-1396
• Citation: 705 F.2d 959
• Parties: Lee Roy COLLINS, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Appellants/Cross Appellees, v. Mary Jo HOKE, individually and in her official capacity as General Relief Director of Cedar County, Iowa; Howard Davis, Norman Kroemer, Jean Penningroth, Robert Suchomel and Leroy Wiese, individually and in his or her official capacity as a member of the Board of Supervisors of Cedar County, Iowa, Appellees/Cross Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 959

705 F.2d 959

Lee Roy COLLINS, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Appellants/Cross Appellees, v. Mary Jo HOKE, individually and in her official capacity as General Relief Director of Cedar County, Iowa; Howard Davis, Norman Kroemer, Jean Penningroth, Robert Suchomel and Leroy Wiese, individually and in his or her official capacity as a member of the Board of Supervisors of Cedar County, Iowa, Appellees/Cross Appellants.

Nos. 82-1396, 82-1405.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 8, 1982.

Decided Feb. 15, 1983.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied March 29, 1983.

Christine Luzzie, Lois Cox, Legal Services Corp. of Iowa, Iowa City Regional Office, Iowa City, Iowa, for appellants/cross appellees.

Lee H. Gaudineer, Carlton G. Salmons, Austin & Gaudineer, Des Moines, Iowa, for appellees/cross appellants.

Before HEANEY, ROSS and FAGG, Circuit Judges.

ROSS, Circuit Judge.

This action is before this court on appeal by Lee Roy Collins and on cross-appeal by Mary Jo Hoke from the district court's ¹ orders dated September 11, 1981, and January 14, 1982. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

Facts

Lee Roy Collins is a 52 year old widower who lives alone in a rented farmhouse in rural Cedar County, Iowa. He is unemployed and unemployable due to physical disabilities. At all times relevant, he was awaiting final determination on his application for Federal Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Benefits. ²

Collins received about $350.00 from Cedar County in general relief assistance in September and October of 1980. In December, Collins' subsequent request for assistance was denied and he was offered residence in the Cedar County Care Facility. On December 22, 1980, Collins filed his original complaint in federal district court challenging the County's authority to provide for support by placement in the care facility. Upon Collins' motion for preliminary injunction, the district court ordered the County to provide Collins with monetary assistance until February 6, 1981.

Cedar County adopted a county ordinance on February 4, 1981, establishing regulations governing provision of general relief assistance. Relevant portions of the ordinance provided: (1) a limitation of the amount of monetary assistance to $1,000.00 per year; and (2) express authorization to the County to offer placement in the care facility whenever assistance might extend beyond 60 days. On February 5, 1981, in reliance on the new ordinance, the County General Relief Director denied Collins' request for monetary assistance of $260.00. The Director instead offered him residence in the care facility because any additional monetary assistance would exceed the $1,000.00 per year ceiling. Collins refused the offer.

On February 9, 1981, Collins appeared before the Cedar County Board of Supervisors to present his appeal of the Director's decision. Collins was represented at the hearing by a paralegal from the Legal Services Corporation of Iowa. The Board refused to allow Collins to be represented by a nonattorney during the appeal hearing. The Board affirmed the Director's denial of monetary relief and offer of residence in the care facility. Collins filed a supplemental complaint in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Jurisdiction is also based on 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1331 and 1343(3) and (4).

On September 11, 1981, the district court ruled that the County's offer of facility placement violated Iowa Code Sec. 252.27 (1981), that the $1,000.00 annual ceiling on benefits violated the County's statutory duty to assist the poor, and that Collins was constitutionally entitled to nonattorney representation before the Board. In its order of January 14, 1982, upon reconsideration of its earlier rulings, the district court held that a state statute effective July 1, 1981, expressly granted authority to the County to offer placement in the care facility and validated the $1,000.00 ceiling. The court then addressed Collins' constitutional arguments and found that the County's actions and the ordinance satisfied constitutional requirements.

Collins appeals challenging the constitutionality of the county ordinance authorizing placement in a care facility and the constitutionality of the $1,000.00 ceiling on general relief. On cross-appeal, the County raises the following issues: (1) the County's authority prior to July 1, 1981, to offer residence in the care facility; (2) Collins' right to nonattorney representation before the Board; and (3) the district court's award of attorney fees.

A. Constitutionality of Facility Placement and $1000 Ceiling

Collins contends that the County's offer of residence in the care facility amounts to an involuntary commitment which violates his protected liberty interest and his right to due process. He argues that he lacks any real capacity to reject the offer because of his lack of alternative sources of support. Collins argues that his right to personal liberty protected by the fourteenth amendment is infringed by the restrictions to which he would be subjected at the care facility. ³

Collins cites a line of cases in which the United States Supreme Court has found liberty interests in: a teacher's choice to teach a foreign language, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 400, 43 S.Ct. 625, 627, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923); parents' choice to send children to private schools, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534, 45 S.Ct. 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); a married person's right to obtain contraceptives, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); and a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 153, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). The right to live at home and not be forced into the county facility, Collins asserts, is a fundamental right secured by the Constitution.

Collins contends that where "certain 'fundamental rights' are involved, the Court has held that regulation limiting these rights may be justified only by a 'compelling state interest,' and that legislative enactments must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake." Roe v. Wade, supra, 410 U.S. at 155, 93 S.Ct. at 727 (citations omitted). Collins also argues the county ordinance serves no legitimate governmental interest.

The County maintains that its offer of placement in the facility was not an involuntary commitment. The liberty interest protected by the fourteenth amendment does not include the right to state-support of a chosen lifestyle. For this proposition, the County relies on Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 316-18, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 2687-2688, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980) in which the Supreme Court held that although a woman's right to choose to have an abortion is a protected liberty interest, the government is under no obligation to finance a woman's exercise of that right. Thus, the County reasons that even if Collins has a liberty interest in his chosen lifestyle he is not entitled to government funds to support that lifestyle. We agree.

The Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae, supra, 448 U.S. at 316, 100 S.Ct. at 2687 held that

although government may not place obstacles in the path of a woman's exercise of her freedom of choice, it need not remove those not of its own creation. Indigency falls in the latter category. The financial constraints that restrict an indigent woman's ability to enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected freedom of choice are the product not of governmental restrictions on access to abortions, but rather of her indigency.

As in Harris v. McRae, the government here does not seek to interfere with Collins' exercise of his freedom to choose to live alone. Instead, his indigency has removed that option. The government seeks only to discharge its statutory duty to provide for Collins' needs. We find that the county ordinance authorizing the County to offer residence in the care facility does not impinge a fundamental liberty interest. The Court in Harris v. McRae, supra, 448 U.S. at 317-18, 100 S.Ct. at 2688-89 stated:

Although the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause affords protection against unwarranted government interference with freedom of choice in the context of certain personal decisions, it does not confer an entitlement to such funds as may be necessary to realize all the advantages of that freedom.

The Court further stated that the liberty interest protected in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 did not impose on the government an affirmative duty to finance those rights.

We affirm the district court's holding that the County has "not violated plaintiff's constitutional right to liberty by refusing to subsidize his preferred living arrangements, even though such a violation might have occurred had they taken affirmative steps to interfere with his liberty by forcing him to reside in the County Care Facility." The county ordinance authorizing the County to offer placement in the care facility does not violate constitutional principles.

Collins further claims that section 6(8) of the county ordinance ⁴ which limits the amount of benefits to which he is entitled to $1,000.00 per year, is constitutionally deficient and contrary to state law. The district court held that the $1,000.00 ceiling was not an absolute limitation of benefits because the ordinance provides that a person requiring additional assistance is offered placement in the care facility.

The Board is clearly within statutory authority in setting the $1,000.00 ceiling. Iowa Code Sec. 252.27 (1982) states in part that "[t]he amount of assistance issued shall be determined by standards of assistance established by the board of supervisors." Section 6(8) does not violate state law; nor is it offensive to the...