Ibarra v. Texas Employment Com'n

• Decision Date: 04 October 1984
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. L-83-44-CA.
• Citation: 598 F. Supp. 104
• Parties: Fidel B. IBARRA, Jr., and Mario Esparza, Individually and in behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION and Ed Grisham, in his official capacity as Chairman of the Texas Employment Commission, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

598 F. Supp. 104

Fidel B. IBARRA, Jr., and Mario Esparza, Individually and in behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION and Ed Grisham, in his official capacity as Chairman of the Texas Employment Commission, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. L-83-44-CA.

United States District Court, E.D. Texas, Lufkin Division.

October 4, 1984.

Richard S. Fischer, East Texas Legal Services, Inc., Nacogdoches, Tex., for plaintiffs.

Lawrence J. King, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants.

ORDER

JUSTICE, Chief Judge.

This civil action is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. Plaintiffs have moved for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, Fed.R.Civ.P. The two named plaintiffs are citizens of Mexico seeking to represent a class of all past, present, and future alien claimants of unemployment insurance benefits in the State of Texas who have had or will have their claims denied on the basis of their alienage. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the Texas Employment Commission ("TEC") has engrafted, onto the relevant state and federal law, its own requirement that all applicants for unemployment benefits produce documentation showing that the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") has authorized the applicant to work. Plaintiffs allege that this requirement conflicts with the federal law regulating State Employment Security Administrations, and therefore must be struck down under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.

This action originally involved a broadgauged attack on TEC procedures. The parties have informed the court, however, that the only remaining issue involves INS work authorization.

Plaintiff Fidel B. Ibarra, Jr., is a forty year old citizen of Mexico, and a lawful permanent resident of the United States. He claims that he was granted permanent resident status on September 23, 1982, and reentered the United States under this status on October 1, 1982. He alleges that on October 4, 1982, he was laid off from his job at Texas Foundries, where he had been continuously employed since 1977. That same day he allegedly went to the TEC office in Texas to request unemployment benefits, and fell into a procedural imbroglio over his eligibility for benefits, which continued until approximately July 21, 1983. On that date, he allegedly received fourteen unemployment insurance claim checks totaling $4,033.00, as payment for claims from October 20, 1982 through June 20, 1983. Approximately one week later, the TEC reversed its position and demanded these payments back. Plaintiff Ibarra claims that the TEC's reversal is based on its erroneous interpretation of applicable federal and state law.

Plaintiff Esparza alleges that he was employed in the general business of construction in the Laredo, Texas area from November 1977 until March 1983. He further alleges that on or about June 7, 1983, he applied for unemployment benefits, and was denied on the basis of his immigration status.

This action presents a problem of statutory interpretation. The statute in question is 26 U.S.C. § 3304(a)(14), which allows aliens to receive unemployment benefits if they are "permanently residing in the United States under color of law." Both plaintiffs allege that they were permanently residing in the United States under color of law at the time they applied for their benefits, and were denied these benefits pursuant to TEC policy which conflicts with the controlling federal statute. Plaintiffs claim this status under the independent theories:

(a) They were protected, class members under the injunction in Silva v. Levi, 76 C. 4268 (N.D.Ill.) and the following measures taken by the INS with respect to so-called "Silva class members," and as such were protected against deportation;

(b) The INS knew where they were, knew their immigration status, and did not attempt to deport them.

(Fourth Amended Complaint, p. 9.) The proposed class is larger than that of applicants who are within the ambit of § 3304(a)(14), but are nevertheless denied benefits by the TEC. Instead, it includes all alien applicants, on the theory that all are subjected to an allegedly arbitrary requirement of producing documentation establishing INS work authorization in order to receive benefits. (Fourth Amended Complaint, p. 6.)

As a threshold matter, defendant has moved that this court abstain from this action until a Texas court has a chance to rule on issues of state law which, defendant asserts, are raised by plaintiffs' allegations. Defendants urge the court to apply the abstention doctrine of Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943), and Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941), to the case. These will be considered, in turn.

Burford-type abstention is "appropriate where there have been presented difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar." Palmer v. Jackson, 617 F.2d 424, 428 n. 7 (5th Cir.1980) quoting Colorado River Water Cons. District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 814, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 1244, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976). In Burford, the Supreme Court upheld a district court's abstention in a case where exercise of jurisdiction would have meant interference with an extremely elaborate scheme of state law regulating Texas's natural gas resources. Scrutiny of plaintiff's claims and legal theories reveal that the underlying considerations of comity which controlled in the Burford case are of no relevance here.

The statutory scheme here in question is not peculiarly, or even primarily, state. It is a cooperative state-federal venture, through which the federal government gives financial assistance to the state unemployment compensation systems which are administered in conformity with federal law. In order to receive federal tax credits for unemployment insurance programs, states programs must be certified by the United States Secretary of Labor as being in compliance with the standards set out in the Social Security Act. 26 U.S.C. § 3304(c); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 590, 57 S.Ct. 883, 892, 81 L.Ed. 1279 (1936). The law here at issue is overwhelmingly federal law. The Texas statute, art. 5221b-1(h), passed in conformity with 26 U.S.C. § 3304(a), is copied word-for-word from the federal statute. In fact, the Texas law is accompanied by two provisos to insure that Texas law will always be the exact-mirror image of federal law: art. 5221b-1(h) (Vernon Supp.1984) (Texas statute automatically adopts changes in parent federal statute); and Acts 1977 65th Leg., ch. 368, § 22, 1977 Tex.Gen.Laws. (Texas statute automatically repealed to the extent federal parent statute adjudged invalid or unconstitutional). Thus the interpretation of federal law will be dispositive of the interpretation of state law. As plaintiffs point out, this is in sharp contrast to the studied and complex system of local regulation in the Burford case (Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants' Motion for the Court to Abstain, p. 14). The central issue in the resolution of plaintiffs' claim is not Texas law, but the extent to which Texas practices differ from those required by the Social Security Act. Defendants' justifications for their actions—in this case the contention that their policies are required by state law—are irrelevant to this inquiry. See O'Leary v. Social Security Bd., 153 F.2d 704, 707 (3rd Cir.1946) (federal unemployment insurance is a nationwide program overriding local laws which may conflict with its provisions); Fahs v. Tree-Gold Co-op. Growers of Florida, 166 F.2d 40 (5th Cir.1948) (local law of what constitutes "employee" irrelevant to inquiry of what constitutes "employee" under Social Security Act).

Finally, the magnitude of the potential intrusion into TEC operation which this action threatens is nowhere near that of the intervention at stake in the Burford case. In that case, the court noted that federal court decisions had disrupted state government to the extent that the Governor felt it necessary to declare martial law, id., at 329, 63 S.Ct. at 1105. Here, the relief requested—modification of the state's working definition of which aliens are in the United States under "color of law"— will obviously not threaten the functional integrity of Texas's unemployment compensation system. According to plaintiffs, the requested relief will affect how the TEC handles .000382% of the claims it receives. (Memorandum on Abstention at p. 20.) Clearly, abstention here would further none of the policies set out in the Burford decision.

An alternative abstention doctrine to which defendants refer is Pullman abstention. "The Pullman case establishes two prerequisites for Pullman abstention: (1) there must be an unsettled issue of state law; and (2) there must be a possibility that the state law determination will moot or present in a different posture the federal constitutional question raised." Palmer v. Jackson, 617 F.2d 424, 428 (5th Cir.1980). Defendants argue that both requirements have been met, in that a state court determination that TEC practice does not conform to the Texas unemployment statute could possibly give plaintiff the same relief that is sought in this court. The analysis for purposes of Pullman abstention, however, is not concerned with the issues in a hypothetical state court suit which theoretically could be brought¹, but with the law and issues actually before this court.

The basis rationale of Pullman abstention, the avoidance of unnecessary constitutional issues, is inapplicable to this case. The issues presented here are overwhelmingly those of statutory construction. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has considered the question of the propriety of Pullman abstention in a case concerning Medicaid benefits,...