Albiston v. Maine Com'r of Human Services, No. 93-1137

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: Before SELYA, CYR and BOUDIN; CYR
• Citation: 7 F.3d 258
• Parties: Susan ALBISTON, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. MAINE COMMISSIONER OF HUMAN SERVICES, et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
• Decision Date: 10 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 93-1137

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7 F.3d 258 Susan ALBISTON, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
MAINE COMMISSIONER OF HUMAN SERVICES, et al., Defendants, Appellants. No. 93-1137. United States Court of Appeals,
First Circuit. Heard June 10, 1993.
Decided Sept. 27, 1993.

Page 259

Christopher C. Leighton, Deputy Atty. Gen., with whom Michael E. Carpenter, Atty. Gen., and Thomas D. Warren, Deputy Atty. Gen., Augusta, ME, were on brief for defendants, appellants.

Mary T. Henderson with whom Patrick Ende, Linda Christ, and Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Augusta, ME were on brief, for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before SELYA, CYR and BOUDIN, Circuit Judges.

CYR, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellees Susan Albiston and Anita Wingert brought a class action, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, to compel timely disbursement of "pass-through" and "gap" payments under Titles IV-A and IV-D of the Social Security Act. Defendants-appellants, in their official capacities, ¹ challenged plaintiffs'

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standing. The district court rejected the challenge. We affirm. I BACKGROUND

Title IV-A of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq., creates a voluntary, cooperative federal-state program for Aid to Families With Dependent Children ("AFDC"). The AFDC program, administered by participating states, provides federal financial assistance to needy families with children who are deprived of parental support through death, disability or desertion. States are not required to participate in the AFDC program, but must agree to administer it in accordance with a federally approved AFDC plan if they elect to participate. King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 316, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 2133, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968).

In 1975, Congress amended Title IV-A, by requiring AFDC recipients to assign to the State their "rights to support from any other person" (including the right to child-support payments from an absent parent), as a condition to their receipt of AFDC benefits. 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(26)(A). States in turn were required to amend their Title IV-A plan, see id. at § 602(a)(27), assuming responsibilities for enforcement of absent parents' child-support obligations [hereinafter "child-support enforcement," or "CSE"], under a program outlined in a new Title IV-D of the statute, 42 U.S.C. § 651 et seq. ² Among other provisions, Title IV-D requires States to "pass through" to AFDC recipients the first $50 of each monthly child-support payment the States recover from absent parents of AFDC recipients. See id. at § 657(b); see also Wilcox v. Ives, 864 F.2d 915, 916-17 (1st Cir.1988) (discussing origins and statutory background of States' "pass-through" obligation). Moreover, under Title IV-A, a State which pays out less in AFDC benefits than a family's predetermined "level of need" is required to provide supplemental monthly payments, drawn from its Title IV-D child-support recovery, up to the amount necessary to fill the "gap." ³ 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(28); see also Stowell v. Secretary of HHS, 3 F.3d 539, 540-41 (1st Cir.1993) ("Stowell II") (describing "gap-filling" under the Act); Doucette v. Ives, 947 F.2d 21, 24-25 (1st Cir.1991) (discussing origins and statutory background of "gap" payment obligation); see generally Wehunt v. Ledbetter, 875 F.2d 1558, 1569-70 (11th Cir.1989) (per curiam) (Clark, J., dissenting) (comprehensive analysis of Title IV-D legislative history).

"Gap" payments are considered supplemental AFDC disbursements under Title IV-A, see Fed.Reg. 29223-25 (August 15, 1988), and must be "furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals," 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(10), "without any delay attributable to the [State] agency's administrative process." See 45 C.F.R. § 206.10(a)(5). The $50 "pass-through" payments mandated by § 657(b) are disbursed under Title IV-D, not Title IV-A, and therefore are not covered by § 602(a)(10)'s "reasonable promptness" requirement. However, in 1988, responding to persistent reports of "long delays [by States] in distributing child support collections," see Cong.Rec. S7993 (June 16, 1988) (remarks of Senator Bradley), Congress amended Title IV-D, directing OCSE to establish specific time frames for "prompt" disbursement of "pass-through" payments by the States. 42 U.S.C. § 652(i). Pursuant to its statutory authority, OCSE adopted regulations requiring "pass-through" payment disbursements to eligible AFDC recipients, under 42 U.S.C. § 657, within fifteen days of

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the State's receipt of child-support payments from an absent parent or collecting agency. See 45 C.F.R. § 302.32(f)(2). ⁴ II PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Maine participates in the AFDC program as a "gap" state, i.e., one whose AFDC benefits do not fully meet the AFDC recipient's designated "level of need." ⁵ Accordingly, Maine must make "gap" payments, as well as "pass-through" payments, to eligible AFDC recipients. Plaintiffs Albiston and Wingert are eligible AFDC recipients who assigned their child-support rights to Maine under § 602(a)(26)(A), but experienced significant delays (two and six months, respectively) in receiving "gap" and "pass-through" payments. Alleging "systemic" administrative deficiencies, plaintiffs brought the present class action for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ⁶

Although Maine disputes the severity of its "systemic" problems, it acknowledges that "gap payment" disbursements are delayed in individual cases by a variety of administrative factors, including inadequate staffing, computer programming errors, clerical mistakes, and errors caused either by collection agencies or other states. Maine also acknowledges that, as of the initiation of this lawsuit, it missed OCSE's 15-day deadline for processing "pass-through" payments in approximately 66% of its qualifying AFDC cases. But it argues that Titles IV-A and IV-D, which require "substantial compliance" on penalty of cutbacks in federal funding, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 604(a)(2), 603(h), impose no corresponding, judicially cognizable obligation to make timely "gap" and "pass-through" payments in individual cases, and that plaintiffs therefore lack standing to enforce a timely-payment obligation in a private action under § 1983. ⁷

III DISCUSSION

The § 1983 remedy presumptively encompasses violations of federal statutory rights by state officials. See Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2504, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980) (finding private cause of action under § 1983 to enforce rights conferred by Social Security Act). Nevertheless, certain post-Thiboutot cases, see, e.g., Suter v. Artist M., --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1360, 118 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992); Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981), have been "difficult for lower courts to reconcile" with the presumptive availability of a private right of action for statutory enforcement. See Evelyn V. v. Kings County Hosp. Center, 819 F.Supp. 183, 190 (E.D.N.Y.1993) (surveying § 1983 caselaw from Thiboutot to Suter ).

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In Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 106, 110 S.Ct. 444, 448, 107 L.Ed.2d 420 (1989), and Wilder v. Virginia Hosp. Ass'n, 496 U.S. 498, 508-09, 110 S.Ct. 2510, 2516-17, 110 L.Ed.2d 455 (1990), the Supreme Court synthesized prior case law, reaffirming the presumptive availability of a § 1983 remedy for violations of federal statutory rights, but articulating several broad exclusions. ⁸ First, because "section 1983 speaks in terms of 'rights, privileges, or immunities, [rather than] violations of federal law," Golden State, 493 U.S. at 106, 110 S.Ct. at 448 (1989) (emphasis added), private relief is considered unavailable if the federal statute at issue does not "create enforceable rights." Wilder, 496 U.S. at 519, 110 S.Ct. at 2522 (citing Wright, 479 U.S. at 423, 107 S.Ct. at 770). Whether a statute creates "enforceable rights"

turns on [A] whether 'the provision in question was intend[ed] to benefit the putative plaintiff.' If so, the provision creates an enforceable right unless it [B] reflects merely a 'congressional preference' for a certain kind of conduct rather than a binding obligation on the governmental unit, or unless [C] the interest the plaintiff asserts is 'too vague and amorphous' such that it is 'beyond the competence of the judiciary to enforce.' "

Id. 496 U.S. at 509, 110 S.Ct. at 2517 (citations omitted). Second, § 1983 may be unavailable if "Congress ha[s] foreclosed private enforcement in the enactment" whose enforcement is sought, by providing an alternative, comprehensive administrative scheme for redressing individual plaintiffs' grievances under the statute. Middlesex County Sewerage Auth. v. National Sea Clammers Ass'n, 453 U.S. 1, 20, 101 S.Ct. 2615, 2626, 69 L.Ed.2d 435 (1981); Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 1010-20, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 3467-3472, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984).

The framework established in Golden State and Wilder continued to be used for several years in determining whether § 1983 permitted a private right of action for the enforcement of federal "spending" statutes. See, e.g., Playboy Enterprises v. Public Svce. Com'n, 906 F.2d 25, 32-33 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 959, 111 S.Ct. 388, 112 L.Ed.2d 399 (1990) (applying Wilder analysis; upholding private enforcement of "editorial control" provisions in Cable Communications Policy Act). Then, the Supreme Court appeared to depart from this framework in Suter v. Artist M., --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1360, where it considered whether an enforceable private right of action arose under the "reasonable efforts" provision of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act ["AACWA"]. The Suter Court acknowledged that the AACWA was "mandatory in its terms," in that it required States to "have a plan approved by the Secretary which ... provides that, in each case, reasonable efforts will be made (A) prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the child from his home, and (B) to make it...