Eaton v. Lyng

• Decision Date: 29 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. C 87-4073.,C 87-4073.
• Citation: 669 F. Supp. 266
• Parties: James K. EATON, Mary Ann Eaton, Douglas Brown and Connie Thompson, Plaintiffs, v. Richard E. LYNG, in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, and Nancy A. Norman, in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Human Services, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa

669 F. Supp. 266

James K. EATON, Mary Ann Eaton, Douglas Brown and Connie Thompson, Plaintiffs, v. Richard E. LYNG, in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, and Nancy A. Norman, in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Human Services, Defendants.

No. C 87-4073.

United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, W.D.

June 29, 1987.

Thomas A. Krause, Dennis McElwain, Sioux City, Martin J. Ozga, Des Moines, Iowa, for plaintiffs.

Dan W. Hart, Des Moines, Iowa, James A. Gardner, Sheila Lieber, Washington, D.C., for defendants.

DONALD E. O'BRIEN, Chief Judge.

This matter comes to the Court on plaintiffs' resisted motion for a preliminary injunction, a motion to stay proceedings filed by Defendant Lyng and joined by Defendant Norman, and a subsequent motion to dismiss filed by Defendant Lyng and joined by Defendant Norman.¹ Defendant Norman has also filed a motion to join Local 1142 of the United Food and Commercial Workers as a necessary and indispensable party under Rule 19. This motion will be ruled upon in a separate order. The Court has considered these motions in telephonic hearings in which all parties were represented. For the reasons stated below, the Court finds that the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and cannot show the substantial likelihood of success on the merits which is necessary to warrant a preliminary injunction. Therefore, the plaintiffs' motion must be denied, and the defendants' motion to dismiss is granted.

The plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of a 1981 amendment to the Food Stamp Act of 1977 which precludes a household from becoming eligible for food stamps if a member of that household is on strike and that household would not have been eligible prior to the strike.² Under this amendment, which was enacted as § 109 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, Public Law No. 97-35, 95 Stat. 361, households which include a striker are evaluated on the basis of their income immediately prior to the strike, and decreases in income during a strike will not entitle such households to an increased allotment. A USDA regulation defines "striker" and establishes a formula for calculating pre-strike income. 7 C.F.R. § 273.1(g) (1987).

The report of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry which accompanied the amendment is the best evidence of its purposes:

Granting benefits to strikers can be seen as encouragement to workers to "wait out" management rather than compromise....

Denying benefits (or denying increased benefits) to households containing members on strike is consistent with the underlying policy of tying receipt of food stamps to the ability and willingness to work, as exemplified by provisions requiring work registration, denying benefits to those voluntarily quitting a job without good cause, and allowing the establishment of workfare programs.

A person who leaves his job to go on strike has given up the income from the job of his own volition. A person making such a choice and participating in a strike must bear the consequences of his decision without assistance from the food stamp program.

S.Rep. No. 139, 97 Cong., 1st Sess. 62, reprinted in 1981 U.S.Cong. & Admin.News 396, 452.

Plaintiffs James Eaton and Doug Brown are employees of John Morrell & Company's Sioux City plant and are members of Local 1142 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which struck the Sioux City plant on or about March 9, 1987. (Exhibit 1 at 1, Exhibit 4 at 1). Plaintiff Mary Ann Eaton is the wife of James Eaton, and the Eatons have two children. Robert Kammerer, an income-maintenance supervisor for the Iowa Department of Human Services, testified that the Eatons applied for food stamps on February 23, 1987. On April 21, 1987, the Iowa Department of Human Services issued a Notice of Decision finding the Eatons eligible for $25.00 per month in food stamps. Under the "strikers amendment", this finding was reached on the basis of pre-strike income. But for the strikers amendment, the Eaton family would have been eligible for a monthly allotment of $268.00, the maximum allotment for a family of four.

James Eaton believes he would be able to stay out on strike longer with a full food stamp allotment. He stated that he has been thinking a lot about leaving his family so that they could obtain food stamps and AFDC benefits, and that he would leave them rather than return to work at Morrell during the strike. Mr. Eaton believes he would lose his union membership if he crosses the picket line and returns to work at Morrell, and does not believe he could transfer to another work place represented by the UFCW union. (Exhibit 2).

Plaintiffs Doug Brown and Connie Thompson reside together in an apartment, but are having trouble making rent payments. Mr. Kammerer testified that the couple has been denied food stamps altogether. In a recent affidavit, Mr. Brown stated that he would have to move out of the apartment and live in his car, and Thompson would have to move in with her parents. He also believes that he would lose his union membership if he returned to work at Morrell and does not believe that he could transfer to another UFCW work place. (Supplemental Affidavit of Doug Brown at 2).

The plaintiffs allege that the strikers amendment is unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the substantive due process and equal protection components of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They contend that the strikers amendment is a penalty imposed upon them in an attempt to stifle their rights to free speech and association by tearing apart the families of strikers. They assert that the law violates the First Amendment because it infringes upon their rights to associate with their families and their union without being the least restrictive means to achieving a compelling governmental interest. In the alternative, they assert that the law denies due process and equal protection because it creates arbitrary and irrational legislative classifications. They seek a preliminary injunction on this basis.

Defendant Richard Lyng's Department of Agriculture jointly administers the food stamp program in Iowa with Defendant Nancy Norman's Iowa Department of Human Services. Lyng's department pays for benefits and at least half of the administrative costs of the program; Norman's department pays for a portion of the administrative costs. 7 U.S.C. § 2025(a). Each defendant asserts that, as a matter of law, the strikers amendment does not violate any of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights and each has moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' claims under Rule 12(b)(6) on this basis.

In deciding whether the strikers amendment is unconstitutional, the Court has the benefit of previous rulings on this precise question by two well-respected district court judges—Judge Louis Oberdorfer's rulings in International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers v. Lyng, 648 F.Supp. 1234 (D.D.C.1986), prob. juris. noted, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 1970, 95 L.Ed.2d 811 (1987), and Judge Richard Enslen's unpublished decision in Ledesma v. Block, No. G82-94 (W.D.Mich.1985), appeal pending, No. 85-1730 (6th Cir.1987).³ Unfortunately, these judges reached opposite conclusions; the law was upheld in Ledesma and declared unconstitutional in UAW. While the Supreme Court will resolve this conflict during its next term, the plaintiffs seek emergency relief and deserve an expedited ruling from this Court.

The Plaintiffs' First Amendment Claim

The plaintiffs' First Amendment theory is nearly identical to the theory underlying the UAW decision. The UAW court held that the strikers amendment may "confront a striker with a complex associational dilemma." 648 F.Supp. at 1252. A striker can improve his family's lot by (1) crossing a picket line and returning to work, (2) successfully pressuring his union to reach a settlement, (3) quitting his job and finding work elsewhere, or (4) leaving his family and forming a separate household. The plaintiffs believe that the first and third alternatives would require them to disassociate with their union, that the second would require them to suppress their protected expressions of support for the strike, and that the fourth alternative would require them to disassociate themselves from their families. Because no alternative exists which would permit strikers to receive food stamps for poverty resulting from the strike without waiving these constitutional rights, the UAW court held that the amendment must be given the closest scrutiny, and permitted only if the government could demonstrate a substantial or compelling interest which could not be narrowly accommodated. 648 F.Supp. at 1253. Because the government's objectives could be advanced by a more carefully tailored law, the UAW court found the statute unconstitutional.

The parties do not appear to disagree about which activities are protected by the First Amendment. The rights of citizens to associate with each other in unions and to organize for political and social action are protected by the First Amendment. Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, 441 U.S. 463, 464, 99 S.Ct. 1826, 1827, 60 L.Ed.2d 360 (1979). The rights of citizens to associate with their families and choose particular family living arrangements are also protected. Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 386-87, 98 S.Ct. 673, 681, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977). The real dispute in this case concerns the meaning of the First Amendment protection. The plaintiffs emphasize that the strikers amendment is the "proximate cause" of the dilemma which pressures them to disassociate with their union or families, and rely upon the UAW decision, which held that "any state action having such effect of curtailing the right to associate should be subject to the...