Cronen v. Texas Dept. of Human Services

• Decision Date: 23 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-6091,91-6091
• Citation: 977 F.2d 934
• Parties: Charles D. CRONEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, Jean Roberts, Ann Valdez-Haines, Donna L. Burns, Socorro Alonzo, and the State of Texas, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 934

977 F.2d 934

Charles D. CRONEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, Jean Roberts, Ann

Valdez-Haines, Donna L. Burns, Socorro Alonzo, and

the State of Texas, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-6091.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 23, 1992.

Elizabeth Tepikian, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Johnson & Williams, and Lawrence P. Hampton, Houston, Tex. (Court-appointed not under act), for plaintiff-appellant.

Lydia Kimble-Wright, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before GOLDBERG, SMITH, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Charles Cronen brought suit against the defendants seeking relief for denial of food stamp benefits. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on grounds of Eleventh Amendment and qualified immunity. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand.

I.

Cronen, an indigent Vietnam veteran, resides in Harris County, Texas, where he owns a parcel of land. ¹ Cronen also owns an old inoperative van that he keeps on the property. Around the van, Cronen has constructed a series of shacks which, along with the van, sometimes serve as his shelter. These shacks, unfortunately, do not keep out thieves, who stole some of the tools he uses to build his shacks.

To prevent further theft of what few possessions he has, Cronen rented private storage space. Cronen also claims that he lives in his storage space from time to time because it has electricity, which he cannot afford to have in his shacks. Because, according to Cronen, the postal service will not deliver mail to his property, he also rents a post office box.

Cronen works when he can find employment. His work, however, does not provide sufficient resources for him to rent an apartment. He also finds work more easily during certain periods of the year, causing his income to fluctuate from month to month.

II.

Since April 1985, Cronen periodically has received food stamp benefits. He alleges, however, that the Texas Department of Human Services improperly calculated his benefits. Cronen wished to deduct the following expenses as shelter costs for purposes of computing his food stamp benefits: building materials used to construct his shacks, storage rental, and his post office box. He also desired to have his benefits calculated using income averaging and contended that he should be able to deduct the cost of travel to the food stamp office. Cronen raised these claims in several unsuccessful administrative appeals. Defendants Jean Roberts, Ann Valdez-Haines, and Donna Burns conducted the hearings on Cronen's claims; defendant Socorro Alonzo served as the other defendants' supervisor and Cronen's caseworker.

In February 1989, Cronen filed a pro se complaint alleging that defendants wrongfully denied him food stamps to which he was entitled. He sought restoration of his past benefits, an injunction against future violations of the Food Stamp Act (the "Act"), $25,000 for suffering as a result of lost benefits, and costs and attorney's fees. His complaint alleged violations of numerous federal statutes, the Constitution, and the common law.

On September 1, 1989, the district court dismissed Cronen's suit for want of prosecution pursuant to its Local Rule 13(b). He appealed, and we vacated and remanded for further proceedings. On January 15, 1991, defendants moved to dismiss on grounds of improper service, limitations, sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, and quasi-judicial immunity. Cronen then filed a supplement to his complaint alleging 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7, 28 U.S.C. § 1337, and various sections of the Act, 7 U.S.C. § 2011 et seq., as additional sources of jurisdiction and relief.

The district court treated the motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment. Defendants submitted no summary judgment evidence, relying solely upon Cronen's complaint. The district court granted the motion, holding that the Eleventh Amendment barred the claims against Texas and the Texas Department of Human Services and that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Cronen appeals each of these holdings.

III.

Because this case comes to us on summary judgment, we review the district court's ruling de novo to determine whether there is any genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Williams v. Adams, 836 F.2d 958, 960 (5th Cir.1988). We view the evidence, and reasonable inferences from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, Cronen, and will affirm only if the defendants "ha[ve] established [their] right to the judgment with such clarity that the nonmoving party cannot recover ... under any discernible circumstances." Id. at 961 (citations and single quotation marks omitted).

A.

We first address Cronen's claims against Texas (the "state") and the Texas Department of Human Services (the "agency") for damages and injunctive relief. The state and the agency properly argue that they are not "persons" for purposes of liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). See Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2312, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). The district court properly dismissed this claim pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6).

Cronen asserts an implied cause of action under the Act as a further basis for relief. ² In Victorian v. Miller, 813 F.2d 718 (5th Cir.1987) (en banc), we decided that a private right of action is available under section 1983 to remedy violations of the Act. We reserved judgment, however, on the question of whether the Act itself creates an implied cause of action. Id. at 724 n. 13. Because we hold that the Eleventh Amendment bars Cronen's claims against the state and the agency, we again decline to address this issue. ³

B.

"It is clear, of course, that in the absence of consent a suit in which the State or one of its agencies or departments is named as the defendant is proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment." Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100, 104 S.Ct. 900, 908, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984) (citations omitted). "This jurisdictional bar applies regardless of the nature of the relief sought." Id. On the other hand, Congress may abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity in certain circumstances. See Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 2273, 105 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 105 S.Ct. 3142, 87 L.Ed.2d 171 (1985); Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 (1976).

Cronen argues that Congress abrogated Eleventh Amendment Immunity for violations of the Act in passing 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000d-7 (West Supp.1992), which provides in part,

(a) General provision

(1) A State shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States from suit in Federal court for a violation of section 794 of Title 29, title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 [42 U.S.C.A. § 6101 et seq.], title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [42 U.S.C.A. § 2000d et seq.] or the provisions of any other Federal statute prohibiting discrimination by recipients of Federal financial assistance.

Cronen contends that the Act constitutes a "Federal statute prohibiting discrimination by recipients of Federal financial assistance." As authority for this proposition, he relies upon 7 U.S.C.A. § 2020(c) (West 1988), which provides, "In the certification of applicant households for the food stamp program, there shall be no discrimination by reason of race, sex, religious creed, national origin, or political beliefs."

We find this argument unpersuasive. Section 2000d-7(a)(1) lends itself to at least two interpretations. One can, as Cronen urges, interpret the final clause as abrogating Eleventh Amendment immunity under any federal statute prohibiting discrimination and involving the distribution of any federal financial assistance. ⁴ Under Cronen's interpretation, the general subject matter of the statute makes no difference.

We find a second interpretation of the statute more persuasive, concluding that Congress intended to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity only for statutes that deal solely with discrimination by recipients of federal financial assistance. Each of the four statutes listed in section 2000d-7 aims to prevent various types of discrimination by recipients of any type of federal financial assistance; they are "antidiscrimination" statutes. The Act, on the other hand, constitutes a comprehensive federal entitlement program that happens to include a provision prohibiting discrimination in disbursing these entitlements. In other words, this statute prohibits discrimination in the disbursement of a specific type of federal financial assistance and cannot be deemed an "antidiscrimination" statute; thus, the Act is not the kind of statute Congress was referring to in section 2000d-7.

Even if this were not so, our holding would not change. In order for Congress to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity, it must make "its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute." Atascadero State Hosp., 473 U.S. at 242, 105 S.Ct. at 3147. Congress may have done so for the four specifically enumerated statutes in section 2000d-7. Given the two possible (and we think reasonable) interpretations of the last phrase of section 2000d-7, however, we conclude that Congress has not sufficiently expressed itself to support a finding of abrogation for claims brought under the Act.

Cronen also argues that the Act itself abrogates the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity, citing 7 U.S.C. §§ 2016(f), 2020(e), and 2023(b) (1988). Basically, Cronen asserts that because these sections provide for a restoration of wrongfully withheld benefits, Congress must have meant to abrogate immunity, as these provisions otherwise would be...