LeBeau v. Spirito, 82-1510

• Citation: 703 F.2d 639
• Decision Date: 28 March 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1510,82-1510
• Parties: Elizabeth LeBEAU, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Thomas SPIRITO, etc., Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

Page 639

703 F.2d 639

Elizabeth LeBEAU, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Thomas SPIRITO, etc., Defendant, Appellee.

No. 82-1510.

United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.

Argued Oct. 8, 1982.

Decided March 28, 1983.

Mary C. Gallagher, Boston, Mass., with whom Lucy A. Williams, Richard Zorza and Barbara E. Lybarger, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for plaintiffs, appellants.

James A. Aloisi, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom Francis X. Bellotti, Atty. Gen., was on brief, for defendant, appellee.

Before PECK, Senior Circuit Judge, ^* CAMPBELL and BOWNES, Circuit Judges.

JOHN W. PECK, Senior Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction to restrain the Department of Public Welfare of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Department) from reducing or terminating benefits from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program without giving detailed notification. Plaintiffs, Massachusetts AFDC recipients contend that they are entitled to receive timely notices that specify the action to be taken, explain the specific change in the law that requires the action, cite the specific regulation supporting the action, and explain the significance and relevance of any figures used in making the calculations upon which such action is based before such reduction or termination of benefits can occur. Plaintiffs brought this class action on behalf of all recipients of AFDC who have received or will receive computer-generated termination or reduction notices from the Commonwealth as a result of eligibility and benefit level rule changes enacted into law by Secs. 2301 and 2303 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (OBRA), Pub.L. 97-35. In denying the preliminary injunction, the district court held that plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of demonstrating that they will suffer irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted. The district court also held that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the notices fail to satisfy federal and state regulatory, as well as due process, requirements. Without reaching the issue of irreparable injury, we affirm the denial of the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction.

I.

The notice challenged by the plaintiffs was the Department's first official attempt to inform AFDC grant recipients of changes in the calculations of grants mandated by OBRA. Section 2321 of OBRA made the changes effective on October 1, 1981 unless the Department demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Secretary of Health and Human Services that compliance with the changes could not be made by that date by reason of state law.

In an attempt to comply with the October 1, 1981 deadline for implementing the OBRA-mandated, across-the-board reductions in AFDC benefits, the Department in early October 1981 sent notices concerning the reductions to approximately 20,000 Massachusetts families receiving AFDC payments. The notices were computer-generated and provided substantially identical information to all recipients.

The notices contained the following:

(1) the amount of the old grant;

(2) the amount of the new grant;

(3) the effective date of the grant change;

(4) the statement, "The reason for these changes is the federal law for grant calculations has changed";

(5) citations of the Massachusetts regulations that embody all of the changes;

(6) the name or the telephone number of the recipient's caseworker;

(7) a statement in both English and Spanish that if the recipient disagrees with the action, the recipient has 30 days to request a hearing and that if the recipient's appeal request is received by the Department within 10 days of the date the notice was sent, AFDC benefits will not be terminated or reduced;

(8) a statement in both English and Spanish that if the appeal request is received within 10 days and the AFDC grant is not terminated or reduced, but the action of the Department is upheld, the continued benefits are subject to recoupment;

(9) a statement that if the recipient has "any questions regarding this notice, call your worker";

(10) a quantitative presentation under the heading "Grant Explanation", purporting to be a calculation of each recipient's grant and listing figures for the recipient's gross earned income, gross unearned income, deductions allowed, total deductions, net income, other adjustments and the standard of assistance for the recipient's family; and

(11) a form for requesting an appeal as well as the address to which the form should be sent.

II.

On October 16, 1981 plaintiffs filed this class action suit to restrain the Department from reducing or terminating the benefits to recipients of AFDC grants until the Department issued a new notice to recipients that provided: (1) a more detailed explanation of the OBRA-mandated changes; (2) a statement of factual assumptions not contained in the "Grant Explanation", including family size, hours of work, and actual dependent care costs; and (3) a statement of the time period for which the facts are assumed. On November 5, 1981 the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. On May 21, 1982, following the submission of affidavits, depositions and memoranda, but without oral argument, the district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction. ¹

The district court based its denial of the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction on two grounds. First, the district court held that plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that denial of the preliminary injunction would result in irreparable injury because the notices contained sufficient information concerning the appeal rights of the plaintiffs to support the finding that an administrative legal remedy was reasonably available. Second, the district court, without adopting a position on the ultimate merits of the plaintiffs' claims, held that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they were likely to succeed on their claims that the notices violated statutory or constitutional due process requirements.

III.

The standard to be applied in reviewing the decision of a district court concerning the issuance of a preliminary injunction is clear:

The decision to grant or deny a preliminary injunction is a matter for the discretion of the district court and is reversible, of course, only for an abuse of discretion. It is also well-settled, however, that the application of an improper legal standard in determining the likelihood of success on the merits is never within the district court's discretion. Similarly, misapplication of the law to particular facts is an abuse of discretion.

Massachusetts Association for Retarded Citizens, Inc. v. King, 668 F.2d 602, 607 (1st Cir.1981) (quoting Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts v. Bellotti, 641 F.2d 1006, 1009 (1st Cir.1981)).

The standard to be used by the trial court to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction is similarly well-settled in this circuit:

"In the First Circuit, a plaintiff must satisfy four criteria in order to be entitled to a preliminary injunction. The Court must find: (1) that plaintiff will suffer irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted; (2) that such injury outweighs any harm which granting injunctive relief would inflict on the defendant; (3) that plaintiff has exhibited a likelihood of success on the merits; and (4) that the public interest will not be adversely affected by the granting of the injunction." Women's Community Health Ctr., Inc. v. Cohen, 477 F.Supp. 542, 544 (D.Me.1979) (citations omitted).

Planned Parenthood League, supra at 1009. This court has noted that with respect to the application of this standard:

None of these criteria should be slighted. The moving party must exhibit a likelihood of success on the merits; indeed, the probability-of-success component has loomed large in cases before this court. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood League v. Bellotti, 641 F.2d at 1009-1022; Conservation Law Foundation of New England, Inc. v. Andrus, 623 F.2d 712 (1st Cir.1979); Grimard v. Carlston 567 F.2d 1171 (1st Cir.1978).

Auburn News Co. v. Providence Journal Co., 659 F.2d 273, 277 (1st Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 921, 102 S.Ct. 1277, 71 L.Ed.2d 461 (1982). See also Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 654 F.2d 838, 841 (1st Cir.1981) (even where irreparable injury is "excruciatingly obvious", plaintiffs must show probability of prevailing on claims to obtain preliminary injunction).

As a final point, we emphasize that the issue that we face is not simply whether the notices sent by the Department to the plaintiffs are constitutionally infirm. Rather, the issue we face in reviewing this denial of plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction is whether the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion on the ground that plaintiffs' arguments on the probability of success issue were not persuasive. See University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U.S. 390, 393, 101 S.Ct. 1830, 1833, 68 L.Ed.2d 175 (1981). Accordingly, our "findings" and "holdings" as to the merits of the case are not final but should be understood to be merely statements of probable outcomes based on the record as it existed before the district court. Planned Parenthood League, supra at 1009.

IV.

We first consider the critical question of whether the plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. The basic theory of the plaintiffs is that the notices sent by the Department violate federal and state regulations and due process requirements. We turn initially to the plaintiffs' statutory argument in an effort to avoid the unnecessary resolution of a constitutional issue. Blum v. Bacon, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2355, 2359, 72 L.Ed.2d 728 (1982).

Under federal regulations, a notice of a proposed reduction of AFDC benefits by a state agency is adequate if it includes:

a statement of what action the...