LeBron v. Wilkins
| Citation | 23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. D 115,820 F.Supp.2d 1273 |
| Decision Date | 24 October 2011 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 6:11–cv–01473–Orl–35DAB. |
| Parties | Luis W. LEBRON, individually and as class representative, Plaintiff, v. David E. WILKINS, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Florida Department of Children & Families, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Validity Called into Doubt
West's F.S.A. § 414.0652 John J. Dingfelder, Maria Kayanan, Randall C. Marshall, Shalini Goel Agarwal, ACLU Foundation of Florida, Inc., Joshua Aaron Glickman, Randall Challen Berg, Jr., Shawn Alex Heller, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff.
Jason Vail, Lisa M. Raleigh, Office of the Attorney General, Jesse Panuccio, Executive Office of the Governor, Marion Drew Parker, Florida Department of Children and Families, Tallahassee, FL, for Defendant.
THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Dkt. 2), Motion for Class Certification (Dkt. 16) and Reply to Defendant's opposition to preliminary injunctive relief (Dkt. 22), along with the State's responses (Dkt. 19; Dkt. 16) in opposition to Plaintiff's motions.
The question presented is whether Section 414.0652, Florida Statutes, which requires all applicants for a class of federal welfare benefits to submit to suspicionless drug testing, is constitutional under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Based on the evidence submitted by the parties on their written submissions and at a hearing on Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction against the enforcement of Section 414.0652 against him until this matter is fully adjudicated by the Court. On stipulation of the State that it will not seek to enforce the statute against others similarly situated to Plaintiff until the matter is fully resolved, the Court DENIES the Plaintiff's Motion for Class Certification (Dkt. 16) without prejudice.
Plaintiff in this case, Luis Lebron, applied to the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) for benefits under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (“TANF”) program in July 2011 to support himself and his minor child. Lebron Aff. ¶¶ 5, 14 (Dkt. 2–1 at 1, 2.) Plaintiff has sole custody of his four-year old son and is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida with prior military service. Lebron Aff. ¶ 5 (Dkt. 2–1 at 1.) Though Plaintiff attests that he has never used illegal drugs, Section 414.0652 requires him to submit to drug testing as a condition of eligibility for TANF benefits. Lebron Aff. ¶ 19 (Dkt. 2–1 at 3.)
Plaintiff refuses to take a drug test because he believes that requiring him to pay for and submit to such a test is unreasonable when there is no reason to believe that he uses drugs. Lebron Aff. ¶ 19 (Dkt. 2–1 at 3.) DCF has stipulated that, as of the date of the initiation of this action, Plaintiff is eligible for TANF benefits, aside from his failure to provide proof that he has tested negative for controlled substances. Berner Aff. ¶ 10 (Dkt. 19–1 at 5; Dkt. 19 at 5.) Plaintiff contends that Section 414.0652 violates his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches, and he seeks a preliminary injunction on behalf of himself and a class of persons similarly situated to enjoin the State from enforcing this statute as a condition for receipt of TANF benefits.
The TANF block grant program was created by Congress on August 22, 1996, as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 601 et seq. The Act was intended to provide states with resources and flexibility to operate programs designed meet the following goals:
(1) provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives;
(2) end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;
(3) prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and
(4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
42 U.S.C. § 601(a).
To become eligible to receive TANF funds, a state must submit a plan that outlines how it intends to administer its program and set eligibility requirements for families that apply for assistance. 42 U.S.C. § 602(a). States may generally use federal funds “in any manner that is reasonably calculated to accomplish” the purposes of TANF. 42 U.S.C. § 604(a)(1). As a complement to this provision, 21 U.S.C. § 862b provides: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, States shall not be prohibited by the Federal Government from testing welfare recipients for use of controlled substances nor from sanctioning welfare recipients who test positive for use of controlled substances.” 21 U.S.C. § 862b. Thus, Congress authorizes states to test welfare recipients for controlled substances and to sanction those who test positive, but it does not provide guidance on the manner in which states are permitted to do so consistent with constitutional mandates.
Florida began disbursing TANF funds in 1996 pursuant to Chapter 414, Florida Statutes. See Fla. Stat. § 414.015 et seq. (1996). After holding hearings on welfare reform, the Florida Legislature enacted legislation in 1998 that required DCF 1 to develop and implement a “Demonstration Project” to study and evaluate the “impact of the drug-screening and drug-testing program on employability, job placement, job retention, and salary levels of program participants” and to make “recommendations, based in part on a cost benefit analysis, as to the feasibility of expanding the program,” including specific recommendations for implementing such an expansion. Fla. Stat. § 414.70(1)-(5) (1998) (repealed 2004).
In order to carry out this mandate, DCF designed the Demonstration Project to test empirically (1) whether “individuals who apply for temporary cash assistance or services under the state's welfare program are likely to abuse drugs,” and (2) whether “such abuse affects employment and earnings and use of social service benefits.” Robert E. Crew, Jr. and Belinda Creel Davis, Assessing the Effects of Substance Abuse Among Applicants for TANF Benefits, 17(1) Journal of Health & Social Policy 39 at 41 (2003) (Dkt. 22–2 at 2). The Legislature instructed DCF to drug test only those individuals whom the department had “reasonable cause to believe” engaged in illegal use of controlled substances. Fla. Stat. § 414.70(1) (1998) (repealed 2004). Thus, to gather data on the likelihood of TANF applicants to use drugs, DCF, working in conjunction with private contractors, screened over eight thousand applicants for welfare benefits between 1999 and 2001 using a written test designed to differentiate between substance abusers and non abusers, regardless of denial or deliberate deception on the part of the test subject. Robert E. Crew, Jr. and Belinda Creel Davis, Assessing the Effects of Substance Abuse Among Applicants for TANF Benefits, 17(1) Journal of Health & Social Policy 39 at 41–42, 44 (2003) (Dkt. 22–2 at 2–3, 5). Of those individuals who were screened, 6,462 continued to receive TANF benefits during the relevant timeframe and were determined to be proper subjects of the study. Id. at 44. Based on the results of the screening, 1,447 of the 6,462 TANF applicants were flagged as potential substance abusers and were required to undergo urinalysis. Id. at 45. Only 335 of those individuals subjected to drug testing—5.1% of the total population who were screened—tested positive. Id. at 45.
The results of the Demonstration Project confounded the expectations of the researchers, who observed that “evidence of drug abuse in Florida is substantially lower than the percentages reported in other research on this topic.” Id. In fact, the percentage of positive drug tests was so low in comparison to previous studies that the researchers opined that the results “raise some questions about the procedures employed by the State to identify drug use among welfare recipients.” Id. 46. To explain the surprisingly low rate of drug use, the researchers speculated that, as news of the drug testing spread, applicants for TANF benefits took the “opportunity to ‘clean’ their urine” by abstaining from illegal substances for a period prior to application. Id. Notwithstanding the concerns surrounding the methods employed, the concrete scientific evidence gathered clearly undermined the underlying assumption regarding the prevalence of substance abuse among TANF applicants: drug use among the tested TANF population was found to be significantly lower than drug use among welfare recipients in other national studies. See id. at 45–46. The results also showed significantly lower rates of drug use among this population than the rate of drug use among the population of Florida at large, which was recently estimated at 8.13 percent. (Dkt. 2 at 16 n. 4.)
With respect to the second area of inquiry, whether drug abuse affects employment and earnings and use of social service benefits, the researchers found that (1) there is very little difference between the employment rates and earning capacities of Food Stamps, cash assistance, and Medicaid recipients who screened positive for substance abuse and those who did not; and (2) there is also very little difference on these same variables between those who tested positive on a urinalysis and those who did not. Robert E. Crew, Jr. and Belinda Creel Davis, Assessing the Effects of Substance Abuse Among Applicants for TANF Benefits, 17(1) Journal of Health & Social Policy 39 at 47–48 (2003) (Dkt. 22–2 at 8–9). That is to say, those welfare recipients who screened and tested positive for the use of illicit substances were found to be just as likely to work and just as likely to use social service benefits...
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Lebron v. Sec'y of the Fla. Dep't of Children & Families
...drug test pursuant to § 414.0652 as a condition for receiving TANF benefits until the case was resolved. Lebron v. Wilkins, 820 F.Supp.2d 1273, 1293 (M.D.Fla.2011). The court found that Lebron was substantially likely to succeed on the merits of his challenge, that he would suffer irreparab......
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Lebron v. Sec'y of Fla. Dep't of Children & Families
...drug test pursuant to § 414.0652 as a condition for receiving TANF benefits until the case was resolved. Lebron v. Wilkins, 820 F.Supp.2d 1273, 1293 (M.D.Fla.2011). The court found that Lebron was substantially likely to succeed on the merits of his challenge, that he would suffer irreparab......
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Lebron v. Sec'y of the Fla. Dep't of Children & Families, 14–10322.
...drug test pursuant to § 414.0652 as a condition for receiving TANF benefits until the case was resolved. Lebron v. Wilkins, 820 F.Supp.2d 1273, 1293 (M.D.Fla.2011). The court found that Lebron was substantially likely to succeed on the merits of his challenge, that he would suffer irreparab......
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Lebron v. Wilkins
...that it would “apply [the Court's] ruling to all persons similarly situated to Plaintiff” without the need for class certification. 820 F.Supp.2d at 1293. Defendant appealed this Court's preliminary injunction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The parties never......