Cornelius v. Minter

• Decision Date: 20 December 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 73-4261-F.
• Citation: 395 F. Supp. 616
• Parties: Cora CORNELIUS et al. v. Steven MINTER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

395 F. Supp. 616

Cora CORNELIUS et al. v. Steven MINTER et al.

Civ. A. No. 73-4261-F.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

October 21, 1974.

Opinion Modified December 20, 1974.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gershon M. Ratner, Boston Legal Assistance Project, Boston, Mass., Ellice Fatoullah, Brighton, Mass., for plaintiffs.

Danielle E. deBenedictis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., for defendants.

OPINION

FREEDMAN, District Judge.

This is an action in which plaintiff welfare recipients and the class they purport to represent seek declaratory and injunctive relief against the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare and the Secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Human Services alleging a denial of their rights under Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Constitution of the United States, as well as under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., by defendants' failure to provide essential and supportive welfare services with reasonable promptness. The case is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and its jurisdictional counterpart 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202. After extensive discovery, plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on a statement of agreed facts. Defendants had previously moved for summary judgment and had also filed a motion to dismiss. These motions were heard by the Court on June 12, 1974. After due consideration of the pleadings, oral arguments, memoranda, statement of agreed facts and pertinent authorities, the Court determines the matter to be ripe for summary judgment and hereinafter enters its findings and conclusions.

Plaintiffs have brought this action pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 on their own behalf and on behalf of all other public assistance recipients in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who have been, are, or will be denied financial, supportive or emergency services with reasonable promptness. It appears from the pleadings and from the statement of agreed facts that there is an appropriate class for certification. It is not precisely the one requested by plaintiffs, however, for reasons which appear below. Accordingly, the Court has made the requisite findings in accordance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 and by separate order filed herewith has certified the class.

Findings of Fact:

One of the named plaintiffs is Cora Cornelius, a mother of five minor children and a recipient of Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("A.F.D.C."). A.F.D.C. is one of the forms of public assistance administered by the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare ("Department") pursuant to the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq. The other named plaintiff is Patrick Bontempo, formerly a recipient of Disability Assistance ("D.A.") which was, at the time of filing of the complaint, another of the forms of public assistance authorized by the Social Security Act and administered by the Department. Public Law 92-603, enacted on October 30, 1972, repealed Title XIV of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1351 et seq.,¹ the statute under which the D.A. program was operated, effective January 1, 1974. Services formerly administered under D.A. are now provided by the federal government through the Social Security Administration.

The parties have stipulated to further facts which the Court, with some minor modifications, adopts as further findings herein:

1. There are currently approximately 35,000 Massachusetts welfare recipients who have no specific social worker assigned to them to process their requests for financial, supportive and emergency services. The Department designates these recipients as "uncovered cases."

2. Recipients found themselves without a specific social worker or "uncovered" when social workers throughout the state returned cases in excess of existing caseload limitations. Most cases were returned in the following manner:

a. Newer cases were returned, while older cases were kept; and

b. All cases in certain geographic areas were returned depending on what street or what block the recipient lived on.

3. In order to provide some help to the thousands of recipients without social workers, most of the larger welfare offices have established skeleton crews to respond to client initiated requests.

4. In substance, a recipient will request either financial, supportive or emergency services. Emergency requests are requests in response to disaster situations, lost and stolen checks and immediate address change. Financial service requests include, for example, requests for changes in the recipient's budget because of a change in living situation, or the birth of a new child. Supportive service requests include, for example, requests for medical needs such as physical therapy, new orthopedic shoes, and a request for job training.

5. There are 115 welfare service offices scattered throughout the Commonwealth. However, the majority of all welfare recipients in the Commonwealth, including the majority of all "uncovered cases" are served by 34 offices in the large metropolitan areas, including but not limited to the Greater Boston Metropolitan area, Springfield, Worcester and New Bedford. Of the 35,000 "uncovered cases," approximately 18,000 are concentrated in the Boston Regional Office.

6. Recipients who are without social workers who request financial or supportive services can expect to wait from two to six months or more to have their services needs met. Emergency requests for these recipients are generally met in one to two weeks.

7. In the Roxbury Crossing Welfare Service Office, serving 20% of the City of Boston with 4,000 "uncovered cases" in that office alone, statistics compiled show that:

a. 25% of recipient requests, which are emergencies, are met within one week from the date of request;

b. 15% of the recipient requests are met within one month from the date of request;

c. 20% of recipient requests are met within two months from the date of request;

d. 10% of recipient requests are met in three months from the date of request;

e. 10% of the recipient requests are met within four months from the date of request;

f. 10% of recipient requests are met within five months from the date of request;

g. 10% of recipient requests are met within six months or more from the date of request.

The backlog of current requests increases weekly. It is agreed that a backlog of recipient requests similar to that in the Roxbury Crossing Welfare Service Office is also occurring throughout the Commonwealth in several of the large welfare offices of the Department.

8. Of the 35,000 "uncovered cases" throughout the Commonwealth, approximately 3,500 call the Department weekly to request services.

9. Whether a recipient receives the assistance for which he is eligible promptly or not depends on such factors as whether he is a covered or uncovered case and in what geographical areas of the state he lives. "Uncovered cases" generally are the ones who must wait months for service, whereas covered cases generally are served promptly.

10. Those Massachusets recipients who are covered cases generally receive financial and supportive services for which they are eligible in as short a time as two or three weeks, whereas Massachusetts recipients who are "uncovered cases" must wait two to six months or more to receive the financial and supportive services for which they are eligible.

11. The reason it takes the Department months to provide services to certain recipients is that the Department does not have enough staff to process all requests promptly.

Conclusions:

Plaintiffs assert both constitutional and statutory bases for relief. Since the Court is of the opinion that the matter can be decided on statutory grounds, the constitutional issues need not be reached. Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). Adens v. Sailer, 312 F.Supp. 923 (E.D.Pa., 1970).

A.F.D.C., the category of public assistance under which plaintiff Cornelius' claim arises, is the product of a federal/state cooperative venture. See 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq. The statutory scheme is such that the federal government provides most of the funding in return for the state's agreement to conform to federal requirements. Mr. Chief Justice Warren, in King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 316, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 20 L. Ed.2d 1118 (1968), more fully describes this "scheme of cooperative federalism." See also Banner v. Smolenski, 315 F. Supp. 1076 (D.Mass., 1970). It is clear that while the states have wide latitude in designing their particular programs, there are certain immutable requirements which they must meet to qualify for federal money and to maintain this eligibility. Dandridge v. Williams, supra; King v. Smith, supra.

Plaintiffs' principal statutory contention is that defendants have failed to comply with the law in that financial and supportive services are not rendered with "reasonable promptness." The A.F.D.C. statute provides in relevant part:

. . . that aid to families with dependent children shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals. 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(10).

The stipulated facts provide the time frame: ". . . recipients who are `uncovered cases' must wait two to six months or more to receive the financial and supportive services for which they are eligible." Finding No. 10. Finding No. 6 mentions the two to six month waiting period and further indicates that emergency requests are handled in one to two weeks.

The issue is clear: do these time periods satisfy the requirement for "reasonable promptness" under the statute?² Defendants argue that Congress has not defined the term in this context and that, therefore, courts are without power to determine the meaning. On the contrary, courts are uniquely suited to determining what is reasonable in such a situation. Like v. Carter, 448 F.2d 798 (8th Cir., 1971), and Adens v. Sailer, supra, are two recent cases in which just such a task has been undertaken by the...