Bennett v. Lopeman

• Decision Date: 04 December 1984
• Docket Number: No. C83-769.,C83-769.
• Citation: 598 F. Supp. 774
• Parties: Gerald D. BENNETT, Judith Grimm, Intervenor-Plaintiff. v. Samuel LOPEMAN, Rollin D. Jauchius, Raymond Ross, Roberta Steinbacher, Ohio Bell Telephone Company.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

598 F. Supp. 774

Gerald D. BENNETT Judith Grimm, Intervenor-Plaintiff. v. Samuel LOPEMAN, Rollin D. Jauchius, Raymond Ross, Roberta Steinbacher, Ohio Bell Telephone Company.

No. C83-769.

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, E.D.

December 4, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert H. Bonthius, Jr., David B. Dawson, Thomas W. Weeks, Cleveland, Ohio, for Bennett.

Pat Booth Rosenthal, Youngstown, Ohio, for Grimm.

Rita S. Eppler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Columbus, Ohio, for Lopeman, Jauchius, Ross and Steinbacher.

Thomas A. Linton, Cleveland, Ohio, for Ohio Bell Telephone Co.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BATTISTI, Chief Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment and Plaintiff's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment, both pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. This Court denies Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment and grants Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment for the reasons outlined below.

I.

A. FACTS

Plaintiff, Gerald Bennett, was a maintenance employee of the Ohio Bell Telephone Company until May 11, 1982 when he was discharged. On June 1, 1982. Plaintiff applied for unemployment benefits at the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services (OBES). On July 2, 1982, Robert Steinbacker, the OBES Administrator, denied Plaintiff's application for benefits on the ground that his discharge was for just cause and that he was therefore ineligible for unemployment compensation under Ohio Revised Code § 4141.29(D)(2)(a).

Plaintiff Bennett filed a timely reconsideration request under Ohio Revised Code § 4141.28(G)(1). On September 20, 1982, the OBES administrator reversed the initial denial of benefits. Mr. Bennett began receiving unemployment benefits. Ohio Bell Telephone Company appealed the OBES reconsideration decision to the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (hereinafter referred to as the "Board") pursuant to O.R.C. § 4141.28(H). On October 8, 1982, a hearing was held before a Board referee. On October 18, 1982, the referee issued a decision reversing the OBES administrator's reconsideration decision and thereby denied Plaintiff's benefits. On October 22, 1982, Mr. Bennett filed an application with the Board for further appeal pursuant to O.R.C. § 4141.28(L). Defendant Charles S. Lopeman is Chairman of the Board of Review; Defendants Rollin D. Jauchius and Ray Ross are members of that Board.

On November 24, 1982, the Board denied Plaintiffs' application for further appeal. This decision in effect affirmed the referee's denial of benefits to Plaintiff. It is undisputed that the Board's records indicate that the Board's decision was mailed to Bennett's correct address on November 24, 1982.

Bennett, however, never received this letter. He continued to receive benefit checks up to and including January 8, 1983. On or about January 22, 1983, Plaintiff Bennett received from OBES a notice dated January 21, 1983, stating that he had been overpaid $3,381.00 in unemployment benefits since November 24, 1982, the date on which Bennett's last appeal had been denied. Plaintiffs contend and Defendants do not dispute that this was the first time Mr. Bennett learned that his application for further appeal had been denied. Plaintiff did not file an appeal with the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas within 30 days of the date the Board's decision was mailed.¹

B. PROCEDURAL HISTORY.

On February 22, 1983, Mr. Bennett filed a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and a complaint in this action in this Court. Later on February 22, 1983, Mr. Bennett filed a notice of appeal in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court appealing the Board's determination of his appeal and application to institute further appeal. Bennett v. Administrator, et al., No. 55512. On April 13, 1983, Defendant Administrator moved to dismiss Bennett's state court appeal. On June 7, 1983, Bennett filed a Motion for Stay of Proceedings and Reservation of Federal Constitutional Questions in the Common Pleas Court. On June 17, 1983, the Court of Common Pleas granted the stay.

II.

The issue before this Court is whether Ohio Revised Code § 4141.28(O)² violates the due process and equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. The statute preserves an unemployment benefits claimant's right to appeal upon the claimant's filing a notice of appeal within 30 days of the date of mailing of the last administrative decision on the claim. The instant case is essentially a story of a wayward letter and whether Plaintiff should be denied his appeal rights because of the circumstance of his not receiving the letter.

This Court will first determine the jurisdictional and procedural issues raised in Defendants' Summary Judgment Motion before moving to the merits.

A. THE ELEVENTH AMENDMENT

Defendants Lopeman, Jauchius, Ross, and Steinbacher (hereinafter referred to as "State Defendants") contend that the Eleventh Amendment bars Plaintiff's suit against them. The Eleventh Amendment states:

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or in equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.

Defendant misapprehends the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment and its relationship within the Constitutional framework, particularly with regard to the 14th Amendment. The core meaning of the Eleventh Amendment, and the impetus for its adoption, was the protection of state treasuries from the enforcement of judgments by out-of-state creditors. See Chisolm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793); see also H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 253-54 (2d ed. 1973). Since in the instant case, Plaintiffs do not seek monetary damages but only injunctive and declaratory relief, the core meaning of the Eleventh Amendment is not implicated.³

As the Supreme Court has developed Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, the proposition that any claim against a state is barred has been all but destroyed. In Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), the Court ruled that the attorney general of Minnesota could be sued to enjoin the enforcement of state statute which violated the Constitution. Justice Peckham's majority opinion for the Court states:

The act to be enforced is alleged to be unconstitutional, and if it be so, the use of the name of the State to enforce an unconstitutional act to the injury of complainants is a proceeding without the authority of and one which does not affect the state in its governmental capacity .... If the act which the state official seeks to enforce be a violation of the Federal Constitution, the officer in proceeding under such enactment comes into conflict with the superior authority of that Constitution, and he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The State has no power to impart to him any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States.

Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. at 454.

In the instant case, plaintiffs are proceeding against the state officials responsible for enforcing what they allege is an unconstitutional state statute. Plaintiffs are acting consistent with the "stripping doctrine" as stated in Ex Parte Young. Subsequent cases have affirmed the Ex Parte Young doctrine. See Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 102 S.Ct. 3304, 73 L.Ed.2d 1057 (1982); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057, 57 L.Ed.2d 1114 (1978); Georgia R.R. & Banking v. Redwine, 342 U.S. 299, 72 S.Ct. 321, 96 L.Ed. 335 (1952).

As to the equitable relief sought, two cases frame the parameters of the 11th Amendment analysis. In Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), the Court ruled that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar prospective injunctive relief, only retroactive injunctive relief. The distinction between prospective relief and retroactive relief is often puzzling. However, the fact situation in Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979), is sufficiently analagous to the instant case to serve as a guide. In Quern, class action plaintiffs claimed that they had been wrongfully denied welfare benefits by a public official in Illinois. Although plaintiffs were not entitled to receive retroactive welfare benefits, Edelman, 415 U.S. at 651, 94 S.Ct. at 1347, the district court and Seventh Circuit ordered state officials to send to each member of the plaintiff class a notice informing the recipient that he had been denied benefits⁴ and a notice of appeal by which he could request a hearing on the denial of benefits.

The Supreme Court ruled in Quern that such a notice of appeal constitutes permissible prospective relief which does not violate the Eleventh Amendment. "We think this relief falls on the Ex parte Young side of the Eleventh Amendment line rather than on the Edelman side." Quern, 440 U.S. at 347, 99 S.Ct. at 1148. The Supreme Court's dicta in that case is relevant:

Whether a recipient of notice decides to take advantage of those available state procedures is left completely to the discretion of that particular class member; the federal court plays no role in that decision. And whether or not the class member will receive retroactive benefits rests entirely with the State, its agencies, courts and legislature, not with the federal court.

Quern, 440 U.S. at 348, 99 S.Ct. at 1149.

While state defendants are correct in citing Quern for the proposition that § 1983 was not intended to override the traditional sovereign immunity of the states, the case does not deny all relief against the state but only on retroactive monetary awards from the state treasury.⁵ Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 102 S.Ct. 3304, 73 L.Ed.2d 1057 (1982).

It is true that...