Jenkins v. Massinga, Civ. A. No. M-83-4134.
| Decision Date | 03 August 1984 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. M-83-4134. |
| Citation | 592 F. Supp. 480 |
| Parties | Sharyn JENKINS; Wilhemenia Dorsey; Sandra L. Smith; Jacqueline E. Iaquinta; and Susan Timmerman Fagans Tepel Daugherty, for Themselves and, as Next Friends, for Their Minor Children, and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs, v. Ruth W. MASSINGA, in her Official Capacity as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources; Ann C. Helton, in her Official Capacity as Executive Director of the Maryland Child Enforcement Administration; Prince George's County, Maryland; Robert W. McCarthy, Jr., in his Official Capacity as Administrator of the Seventh Judicial Circuit of Maryland; and the Circuit Court For Prince George's County, in its Administrative Capacity, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Katherine P. Ransel, Nancy C. Crisman, Center for Law in the Public Interest, Washington, D.C., C. Christopher Brown, Baltimore, Md., and Donna Lenhoff, Women's Legal Defense Fund, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.
Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Md., Dennis M. Sweeney, James G. Klair and Joseph B. Spillman, Asst. Attys. Gen., Baltimore, Md., for defendants Ruth W. Massinga, Ann C. Helton, Robert W. McCarthy, Jr., and the Circuit Court for Prince George's County.
Thomas P. Smith, County Atty., Michael O. Connaughton and Carl A. Harris, Deputy County Attys., and Robert H. Drummer, Associate County Atty., Upper Marlboro, Md., for defendant Prince George's County, Md.
Four plaintiffs, Jenkins, Dorsey, Smith and Iaquinta, on behalf of themselves, their children, and all others similarly situated, filed a class action in this court on December 2, 1983, alleging that the defendants, Ruth W. Massinga, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources; Ann C. Helton, Executive Director of the Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration State defendants; Prince George's County; Robert W. McCarthy, Administrator of the Seventh Judicial Circuit; and the Circuit Court for Prince George's County County defendants, imposed a 5% surcharge on their child support payments which, they assert, violated state and federal statutory law as well as the United States Constitution (Paper No. 1).
On March 2, 1984, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add a class representative, Susan Daugherty, as next friend for her children, alleging against the State defendants only that the Baltimore City Bureau of the Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration imposed an illegal 3% surcharge on her child support payments (Paper No. 20).
All parties have filed motions for summary judgment1 (Paper No. 18, Plaintiffs' Summary Judgment; Paper No. 22, County defendants' Summary Judgment; Paper No. 23, State defendants' Summary Judgment). In addition, a motion to certify "Class A," the Prince George's County Class, is before this court (Paper No. 17). That motion is opposed by all defendants (Paper No. 23, State opposition; Paper No. 24, County opposition). No hearing is necessary to decide the issues before this court (Local Rule 6E).
In 1975, Congress amended the Social Security Act by adding Title IV-D, now codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 651-655, which established a federal and state cooperative program "for the purpose of enforcing the support obligations owed by absent parents to their children ... locating absent parents, establishing paternity, and obtaining child and spousal support...." 42 U.S.C. § 651.
The Act requires each state to adopt a state plan which must "be in effect in all political subdivisions of the state." 42 U.S.C. § 654(1). Under the plan, a state may enter into written agreements for cooperative arrangements with local courts and law enforcement officials to assist the state IV-D agency in carrying out the child support enforcement program. 42 U.S.C. § 654(7).
In order to meet the requirements of the Act, the state must establish a Title IV-D agency which "administers the plan uniformly throughout the state, or supervises the administration of the plan by its political subdivisions." 45 C.F.R. § 305.21(a). The Maryland General Assembly in 1976 responded to Title IV-D by creating the Child Support Enforcement Administration in the Department of Human Resources. Md.Code Ann., Art. 88A § 59 (1983 Cum. Supp.). The Bureau of Support Enforcement thus became the public agency responsible for support collection in all civil cases in which payments were ordered to be made through the agency. Md.Code Ann., Art. 88A, § 59(b)(5).
Like the federal law, the Maryland statute authorizes cooperative agreements with circuit courts and law enforcement officials as well as public and private agencies to operate support enforcement units. Md. Code Ann., Art. 88A, § 59(b)(4). At the present time, five Maryland subdivisions, of which Prince George's County is one, administer their own support collection units (see Paper No. 23 at 3).
Under federal regulations, "if the IV-D agency the Bureau of Support Enforcement delegates any of the functions of the IV-D program to any other state or local agency or official ... the IV-D agency shall have the responsibility for securing compliance with the requirements of the state plan by such agency or official." 45 C.F.R. § 302.12(3).
Congress has provided that services established under the state plan must be made available to any individual upon application by that individual. 42 U.S.C. § 654(6). A reasonable application fee may be charged, 42 U.S.C. § 654(6)(B), and costs in excess of the fee may be collected from the parent who owes the support or from the individual receiving the IV-D services. 42 U.S.C. § 654(6)(C). If the state opts to impose a fee for services on the recipients of the service, it may do so "only if such state has in effect a procedure whereby all persons in such state having authority to order child or spousal support are informed that such costs are to be collected from the individual to whom such services were made available." 42 U.S.C. § 654(6)(C)(ii).
When the Maryland General Assembly enacted the legislation to implement IV-D, Md.Code Ann., Art. 88A § 59, it provided that:
Md.Code Ann., Art. 88A § 59(b)(5)(iii). (Emphasis added).
The Maryland Plan, however, as adopted provides that no application fee is to be charged for services and that excess costs for provision of support services are not recovered either from the parent who owes support or from the individual receiving services (Paper No. 18, Ex. 4, State Plan § 2.5). That plan, which "is in effect in all political subdivisions of the State" (Paper No. 18, Ex. 3, State Plan § 1.2) governs both the state administered and the locally administered support enforcement units. See 45 C.F.R. § 305.21.
On February 23, 1983, the Circuit Court of Prince George's County and the Prince George's County Government imposed a 5% fee for collection, disbursement, and other services performed by the County Support Collection Unit (Paper No. 18, Ex. 2, Administrative Order of the Court). That surcharge took effect in July 1, 1983, and was collected from the recipients of the child support payments.
Each of these plaintiffs is a non-AFDC recipient whose children receive support payments from the absent parent through the Prince George's County Support Enforcement Unit. Five percent was deducted from each child support payment before the money was disbursed to the plaintiffs. (See Letters attached to Paper No. 11).
On December 1, 1983, the Attorney General of Maryland issued an opinion advising that the 5% fee violated federal and state law (Paper No. 20, Ex. 6). Shortly thereafter, on December 19, 1983, the County defendants rescinded the order imposing the fee and stopped collecting the surcharge. Later in the month, Mr. McCarthy, the Administrator for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, outlined a plan to James Klair, Assistant Attorney General, to refund the fees collected with 10% interest per annum (Paper No. 20, Ex. 8).
Prince George's County implemented the refund plan on January 20, 1984, mailing a total of 5,630 refund checks representing $211,878.39 in fees collected (Paper No. 29, Ex. B affidavit of McCarthy, ¶ 2). Mr. McCarthy has averred that, as of March 20, 1984, 53 checks representing refunds of $720.59 remain undeliverable, but that efforts to locate the recipients will continue2 (Paper No. 29, Ex. B, ¶¶ 5 & 6).
The Bureau of Support Enforcement in Baltimore City3 began in 1970 to charge a fee of approximately 3% to offset the cost of collecting and distributing support checks in cases in which the absent parent paid the support through the agency. The plaintiff Daugherty has received payments through that agency since 1976 (Paper No. 18, Ex. 11, affidavit of Daugherty ¶ 2) from which a 3% fee has been deducted (Paper No. 18, Ex. 11, attachment B & C).
On March 1, 1984, on the advice of counsel the Executive Director of the Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration, Ann Helton, directed the Baltimore City Bureau of Support Enforcement to cease collecting the 3% fee (Paper No. 23, Ex. 5 & attachment). None of the fees collected has been refunded to the participants.
The plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the State and County defendants have violated and are violating:
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