Alessi by Alessi v. Commonwealth of Pa., Dept. of Public Welfare, 89-1277

• Decision Date: 07 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-1277,89-1277
• Citation: 893 F.2d 1444
• Parties: ALESSI, Cynthia, by her parents, and next friends ALESSI, Richard and Alessi, Enola v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE, White, John, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, both individually and in his official capacity. Appeal of John WHITE, Secretary of the Department of Public Welfare, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 1444

893 F.2d 1444

58 USLW 2421

ALESSI, Cynthia, by her parents, and next friends ALESSI Richard and Alessi, Enola v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE White, John, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, both individually and in his official capacity Appeal of John WHITE, Secretary of the Department of Public Welfare, Appellant.

No. 89-1277.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued July 12, 1989.

Decided Jan. 11, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing In Banc Denied Feb. 7, 1990.

Gwendolyn T. Mosley (Argued) Calvin R. Koons, Sr. Deputy Atty. Gen., John G. Knorr, III, Chief, Deputy Atty. Gen., Chief, Litigation Section, Office of the Atty. Gen., Harrisburg, Pa., for appellant.

Dennis C. McAndrews (Argued), Wayne, Pa., for appellee.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, BECKER and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, Jr., Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a grant of a preliminary injunction ordering the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare to fund an immediate residential placement for a blind and mentally retarded young woman. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare has insufficient funds to serve adequately all of the mentally retarded individuals in the state who qualify for residential services. It leaves to each county the determination as to how to allocate among needy individuals in that county the limited state funds that the Department provides. This case raises the question whether the Department violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by its procedures for requesting and allocating state funds and by its failure to provide special funds for an individual who is in dire need of appropriate residential services but is not now receiving them because she is on a waiting list. ¹ We conclude that it does not.

I. Facts and Procedural Background

Cynthia Alessi is a 23-year old woman who is profoundly mentally retarded and legally blind. She also suffers from other serious physical and behavioral disabilities. She has a congenital heart defect, is hyperactive, has an active seizure disorder, and experiences "significant behavioral difficulties." Appendix ("App.") at 105-6. From 1978 through June, 1986, Alessi resided at the Royer-Greaves School for the Blind ("Royer-Greaves"), in an educational placement by the Haverford School District of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. During those eight years, Cynthia made significant gains for a person with her disabilities and had become happy, emotionally stable, non-self-abusive and toilet trained. She could dress herself and perform simple vocational tasks. At the end of her educational placement, at age 21, Alessi was sent home to her parents. App. at 106; Appellee's Brief ("Apple's Br.") at 4.

Alessi's parents, realizing that her educational entitlement would end in June of 1986, and that the Delaware County Mental Health/Mental Retardation ("MH/MR") Association would be responsible for providing services to her thereafter, applied to a number of federally-funded facilities for the mentally retarded that seemed to be appropriate to Alessi's needs. Apple's Br. at 4-5. All of them rejected her, saying that they were unable to care for someone with her overwhelming disabilities. Id. Delaware County has some state facilities equipped to care for Alessi, but no places are available in them at present. The MH/MR Association says that there are no funds to place Alessi in a private facility such as the Royer-Greaves School, which remains willing and able to receive her, and that because of inadequate funds from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare ("DPW" or "Department"), it cannot provide her with any appropriate residential service at present. App. at 38-39. The DPW does not allocate money for individual cases; instead, it gives a lump sum to each county and the county distributes it. Delaware County maintains a waiting list of individuals who qualify for care, and provides care as funds become available. ² Since her discharge from the Royer-Greaves School, Alessi has been in a day program for six hours a day, and she spends the rest of her time at home with her parents. In three years of such care, she has lost virtually all of the training she had gained during her eight years at Royer-Greaves. App. at 106-07. She is no longer toilet trained and does not use the minimal sign language she had acquired. She engages in serious self-abusive behavior, awakens repeatedly at night screaming, has knocked a door off its hinges and is in danger of harming herself. Unrebutted expert testimony has established that unless she receives appropriate residential care in the near future, she may never be able to regain the basic skills she had so painstakingly acquired. App. at 110.

In October, 1986, Alessi's parents petitioned for her involuntary commitment to an appropriate residential facility pursuant to the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966 ("MH/MR Act"), Pa.Stat.Ann. tit. 50, Secs. 4101-4704, Sec. 4406 (Purdon 1969 & Supp.1989). ³ Neither the DPW nor any of its officials or employees was made a party to that action; the DPW was informed of the action, but did not intervene. App. at 107-108. At the conclusion of the commitment hearing, the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County ordered that Alessi be committed to the Royer-Greaves School at the expense of the DPW. App. at 108. The DPW appealed the order and the appeal was quashed by the Commonwealth Court on the ground that the DPW did not have party status to appeal because it had not intervened. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Alessi, 105 Pa.Commw. 453, 455, 524 A.2d 1052, 1053 (1987). In August, 1988, the DPW was held in contempt by the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas for failing to comply with its order, but the Commonwealth Court reversed the contempt order on the ground that the Court of Common pleas had no jurisdiction over the Department in the case. Dept. of Public Welfare v. Alessi, 119 Pa.Commw. 160, 163-64, 546 A.2d 157, 158-59 (1988). Alessi filed a Petition for Allowance of Appeal of that decision before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in September 1988, but the court had not ruled on the petition at the time of this appeal. Apple's Br. at 6. In May 1988, Alessi filed a civil rights action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and damages against the DPW in the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County, alleging violations of her Fourteenth Amendment rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983 and 1985 (1982). She filed a motion for a preliminary injunction at the same time. At the hearing on the motion for the preliminary injunction, the DPW challenged the jurisdiction of the court to determine claims against Commonwealth officers for declaratory and injunctive relief brought under those statutes, and the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas held that it had no jurisdiction with regard to those claims. App. at 109.

In December, 1988, plaintiff filed this motion for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983 and 1985 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and requested a preliminary injunction at the same time. Appellant's Brief ("Applt's Br.") at 7.

In granting the preliminary injunction ordering the DPW to provide funds for an immediate residential placement for Alessi, 710 F.Supp. 127, the district court found that Alessi had a constitutionally protected property interest in appropriate residential services under the Pennsylvania MH/MR Act, 50 Pa.Stat.Ann. Sec. 4406. App. at 119-22. It also found that there was a substantial likelihood that DPW's procedures for funding its residential programs, which regularly resulted in insufficient funds and in this case resulted in the denial of services for Alessi, were irrational and arbitrary. The court found that the DPW knowingly failed to request in its budget an amount adequate to cover cost of the residential services for all who were entitled to them. In addition, it found that the DPW failed to base allocations on projections of the counties' needs for a given year but instead made across the board cost-of-living increases to the county budgets for the previous year. App. at 122-23. The preliminary injunction that is appealed here ordered the DPW to provide the state funding necessary for Alessi's immediate placement at either the Royer-Greaves School or the Elwyn Institute. App. at 125-26. A stay of the preliminary injunction was granted pending this appeal. App. at 153.

II. Discussion

We have noted the following factors among those that guide the exercise of the trial court's equitable discretion in its decision to grant a preliminary injunction: (1) the probability of irreparable injury to the moving party in the absence of relief; (2) the possibility of harm to the nonmoving party if relief were granted; (3) the likelihood of success on the merits; and (4) the public interest. United States v. Price, 688 F.2d 204, 211 (3d Cir.1982). Our authority to review a district court's decision to issue a preliminary injunction is limited. We must affirm the decision unless the court has abused its discretion, committed an obvious error in applying the law or made a serious mistake in considering the proof. Id. at 210; Premier Dental Products v. Darby Dental Supply Co., 794 F.2d 850, 852 (3d Cir.1986). With this standard in mind, we shall review the factors to be considered with regard to the grant of the preliminary injunction.

The probability of irreparable injury to Cynthia Alessi if the preliminary injunction is not granted is beyond dispute. Unrebutted expert testimony established the tragic facts of Alessi's severe regression since her educational placement at Royer-Greaves ended three years ago. She has lost virtually all of the basic human skills and training she had acquired in her eight years at the school. The district court found that...