Massachusetts Coalition for Homeless v. Secretary of Human Services

• Citation: 400 Mass. 806,511 N.E.2d 603
• Parties: , 56 USLW 2158 MASSACHUSETTS COALITION FOR the HOMELESS & et al. 1 v. SECRETARY OF HUMAN SERVICES & et al. 2
• Decision Date: 18 August 1987
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 603

511 N.E.2d 603

400 Mass. 806, 56 USLW 2158

MASSACHUSETTS COALITION FOR the HOMELESS & et al. ¹ v. SECRETARY OF HUMAN SERVICES & et al. ²

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Suffolk.

Argued May 7, 1987.

Decided Aug. 18, 1987.

H. Reed Witherby, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Secretary of Human Services & another.

Barbara Sard (Lucy A. Williams, Marjorie Heins, Karen Slaney, Boston, and Belle Soloway, Brookline, with her), for plaintiffs.

Scott P. Lewis, Boston, and Rebecca P. McIntyre, for The Massachusetts Council

of Churches & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Gene K. Landy, Boston, for Massachusetts Committee for Children and Youth, amicus curiae submitted a brief.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

In December, 1985, the plaintiffs filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief as to the failure of the Massachusetts program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to pay benefits sufficient to enable parents to raise their children in their own homes.

The plaintiffs sought a declaration that then current AFDC payments did not reflect the level of needed AFDC assistance which, they contend, the Commissioner of Public Welfare (commissioner) must determine annually pursuant to G.L. c. 118, § 2 (1984 ed.), and G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ) (1984 ed.). They also sought an injunction directing the defendants to increase the AFDC standards of assistance for AFDC beneficiaries to reflect the requirements of G.L. c. 118, § 2, and G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ), and then to take steps to be able to make AFDC payments equal to the appropriate standards of assistance. At the heart of the plaintiffs' grievance is the argument that many families receiving AFDC assistance are or may become homeless because AFDC grants are insufficient to permit them to afford adequate housing. ³

After considerable discovery, the plaintiffs moved in May, 1986, for a preliminary injunction (1) ordering that the commissioner formulate "an AFDC standard budget of assistance, pursuant to G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ), consistent with the command of G.L. c. 118, § 2, that AFDC benefits be sufficient to enable parents to bring up their children properly in their own homes" and (2) directing the defendants "to pay, or take whatever steps are necessary to enable them to pay, AFDC benefits sufficient to enable parents to bring up their children properly in their own homes." On June 26, 1986, a Superior Court judge entered certain rulings and interlocutory orders granting partial relief to the plaintiffs. He declined to enter any order at that time concerning the payment of benefits or the taking of steps to enable certain payments to be made. He declared, however, that the current level of AFDC benefits did not meet the mandate of G.L. c. 118, § 2 ("[t]he aid furnished shall be sufficient to enable such parent to bring up such child or children properly in his or her own home"). He further declared that the Department of Public Welfare (department) had an annual duty pursuant to G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ) and G.L. c. 118, § 2, to review "the adequacy of the A.F.D.C. standards of assistance in light of the costs, among other items, of housing A.F.D.C. families in their own homes." He ordered the commissioner to formulate "a revised standard of assistance" which would comply with that statutory mandate.

On August 29, 1986, the commissioner served a notice of compliance accompanied by a report entitled "Report on Standard Budgets of Assistance and Efforts in the Commonwealth to Assist Families Receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children." The report asserted in a footnote that the Standard Budgets of Assistance formulated pursuant to G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ), were neither standards of AFDC payments nor standards of AFDC need under Federal or State law. The principal issue before this court arises because the parties disagree on this very point. The plaintiffs say that the commissioner's determination of a standard budget or budgets pursuant to G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ), and G.L. c. 118, § 2, has major significance in the operation of the AFDC program. The defendants deny this. We shall return to this question.

On December 8, 1986, the plaintiffs sought further relief, moving for an order that the defendants develop "a plan for legislative appropriation requests sufficient at least to raise AFDC grants to the level of the standard budgets of assistance" submitted by the commissioner in August, 1986, and that the defendants request the Governor to submit a request for a supplemental appropriation for fiscal year 1987. After a hearing, the judge entered further interlocutory orders on January 5, 1987. He directed that, if any of the individual plaintiffs and their families had been in hotels, motels, or emergency shelters for more than ninety days, the commissioner should provide them with nontransient housing and, if subsidized public housing or certain subsidies were not available, the commissioner should spend AFDC funds to obtain housing in the private rental market. Effective thirty days from his order, (1) the department was enjoined from placing AFDC families in hotels, motels and emergency shelters for more than a total of ninety days and (2) the commissioner was ordered to expend funds to provide sufficient assistance for those families to obtain public housing or other nontransient housing. The judge also ordered the commissioner "to raise the level of AFDC benefits according to its [sic ] revised budgetary standards."

The defendants immediately sought relief from the judge's order of the previous day, by filing a petition in the Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk (single justice session). The petition, purportedly under G.L. c. 231, § 118, first par. (1984 ed.), sought relief from the judge's order, which the defendants construed as directing "them to pay [AFDC] benefits at levels substantially in excess of the levels specifically established by the Legislature." The defendants also sought the transfer of the Superior Court action to the single justice session (G.L. c. 211, § 4A [1984 ed.] ), and a reservation and report of the case to the full bench.

On the following day, January 7, 1987, the plaintiffs filed an opposition to the defendants' petition, stating that they had sought clarification of the judge's interim order of January 5. In their motion to clarify the interim order, the plaintiffs disclaimed any right to require an immediate increase in the level of AFDC payments, but rather they interpreted the judge's order to "raise the level of AFDC benefits" as one requiring the defendants to use all available means to secure the funds necessary to pay benefits at the level of the revised budgetary standards. The Superior Court judge held a hearing on that same day to consider the request for clarification of his interim order of January 5.

On March 4, 1987, the judge issued an order of clarification. He appears to have ordered the department to raise the level of benefits (payments), by an amount it was to determine, to coincide with the revised standard budgets of assistance the commissioner described in his August, 1986, report, but he stayed the immediate effectiveness of this aspect of his order. He reaffirmed his conclusions about barring the use of transient housing for more than ninety days and vacated an earlier stay of his January 5, 1987, interim order in this respect.

The defendants promptly renewed their petition for relief before a single justice of this court. The parties stipulated to certain facts and agreed to the reservation and report of the Superior Court action to the full court by the single justice, if he should transfer it to the single justice session. The single justice transferred the Superior Court action, reserved and reported the case, and stayed the Superior Court judge's orders pending review. We treat the single justice's action as a report of the propriety of the various interim orders.

We have before us the lawfulness of the judge's interim orders. We shall consider them only to the extent that they are challenged by the defendants and defended by the plaintiffs. ⁴ We thus will not consider aspects of the judge's order that either the plaintiffs do not defend or the defendants do not challenge. The plaintiffs are not arguing here, for example, that the order properly could and does direct the immediate payment of AFDC benefits across the board at levels in excess of the level established by the Legislature in its 1987 fiscal year budget. The defendants' concern, expressed in their brief, that the judge's order violated separation of powers principles, expressed in art. 30 of the Declaration of Rights, by ordering the expenditure of funds without prior appropriation will be met by vacating the order and directing the entry of declaratory and injunctive relief consistent with this opinion.

Similarly, the defendants do not object to the direction in the judge's June 26, 1986, order that the commissioner should annually review the department's standard (or standards) of assistance pursuant to G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ). What the product of that annual review must be and what effect, if any, it may have on the operation of the AFDC program are issues which we must resolve in this proceeding.

We conclude that (1) the Legislature has established the AFDC standard of need in recent budgets and that the department acting under G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ), has not; (2) the department nevertheless has an annual duty under G.L. c. 18, § 2(B)(g ) to review its budgets of assistance; (3) the department has an obligation to advise the Legislature whenever the department concludes the AFDC funds are not sufficient to permit it to provide the level of financial aid described in G.L. c. 118, § 2; (4) the department is directed by G.L. c. 118, § 2, to provide aid sufficient to permit AFDC recipients to live in homes of their...