Fifteen Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-Four Welfare Recipients v. King, FORTY-FOUR

• Decision Date: 06 December 1979
• Docket Number: No. 79-1454,FORTY-FOUR,79-1454
• Parties: FIFTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED ANDWELFARE RECIPIENTS, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Edward J. KING et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 32

610 F.2d 32

FIFTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR WELFARE RECIPIENTS, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Edward J. KING et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 79-1454.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Oct. 3, 1979.

Decided Dec. 6, 1979.

Barbara Sard, Roxbury, Mass., Deborah L. McCutcheon, East Boston, Mass., Allan G. Rodgers, Winchester, Mass., and Paul R. Collier, III, Boston, Mass., on brief, for appellants.

Betty E. Waxman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., with whom Francis X. Bellotti, Atty. Gen., and E. Michael Sloman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., were on brief, for appellees.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, ALDRICH and BOWNES, Circuit Judges.

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

Appellants appeal from the district court's denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction. Appellants initiated this action on behalf of 15,844 recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) and General Relief (GR). Their complaint focussed on the efforts of the state of Massachusetts to use a "computer match" prepared by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to schedule AFDC and GR eligibility redeterminations and possible fraud investigations of the plaintiff class members.

The "computer match" consisted of a comparison of AFDC and GR recipients with an SSA list of individuals for whom earnings were reported during the last quarter of 1977. Based upon the results of this match, the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare (DPW) mailed notices to the members of the plaintiff class in March of 1979. The notices instructed the individuals who received them to attend "redetermination interviews" to which they were to bring evidence of their earnings from 1977 on. DPW workers were instructed to use the results of the interviews to refer the names of recipients who received overpayments which were not the result of internal DPW error to the Bureau of Welfare Auditing (BWA) for criminal fraud investigations.

Appellants claimed that these procedures employed by the state violated federal regulations and impermissibly blended the state's dual functions of investigating welfare fraud and ascertaining the current eligibility of welfare recipients. Following a hearing on these claims, the district court granted appellants' request for temporary relief, concluding that the state was conducting criminal fraud investigations in the guise of eligibility redeterminations. The court ordered the defendants to suspend any adverse actions against members of the plaintiff class and to mail to each class member a notice "curing" the defects of the previously mailed notice. The court further indicated that the "computer match" follow-ups could only be reactivated if the eligibility redeterminations and fraud investigations were properly segregated. The court's order set forth rough guidelines and specific requirements regarding any possible future actions by the state.

Defendants issued the notices specified in the court order and vacated all prior adverse actions against members of the plaintiff class. They then established new procedures for recommending the eligibility redeterminations and fraud investigations. DPW interviewers were instructed under the new procedures to limit their inquiries to present rather than past earnings. Procedures were established for segregating DPW and BWA files and for purging DPW files of the results of the redetermination interviews.

Following the commencing of DPW interviews and BWA investigations under the new procedures, appellants returned to the district court seeking further temporary relief and a preliminary injunction against the new procedures. They claimed that the new procedures were not purged of the original defects, that they violated their constitutional and statutory rights, and deviated from defendants' normal procedures.

After reviewing appellants' claims, the district court ordered several minor adjustments in the new procedures, but otherwise denied the motion for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that appellants failed to demonstrate a probability of success on the merits. This appeal followed.

To prevail on this appeal from the denial of the motion for a preliminary injunction, appellants must meet the heavy burden of establishing that the denial was an abuse of discretion or the clear result of an error of law. See Grimard v. Carlston, 567 F.2d 1171, 1173 (1st Cir. 1978). In attempting to meet this burden, appellants put forward three different theories upon which they base their claim of likelihood of success on the merits. First, they assert that the DPW and BWA proceedings are not in fact separated, but instead are used to whipsaw members of the plaintiff class into self-incrimination. Second, they claim that the procedures used for referring cases to the BWA for fraud investigations violate federal and state regulations. Finally, they contend that class members have a right to appointed counsel at the BWA interviews and that they must be notified of this right in writing prior to the interview.

Concerning the appellants' first theory, the district court did not disagree with the proposition that the state could not use the DPW redetermination interviews as a subterfuge for gathering evidence to be used in an ongoing BWA criminal investigation. Indeed, it was precisely because the court regarded the original procedures as evidencing such a blending of the civil and criminal functions that it granted the temporary relief which resulted in the revamping of the state's plans.

Appellants' dispute with the district court findings is a dispute over the facts. Appellants contend that the DPW and BWA proceedings are still not segregated. The district court, however, found that "the defendants' efforts to separate DPW and BWA activities and records, and the very limited scope of examination in DPW interviews...