Sanchez v. Maher, 871

• Decision Date: 02 September 1977
• Docket Number: D,No. 871,871
• Citation: 560 F.2d 1105
• Parties: Andriana SANCHEZ et al., and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edward MAHER et al., Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the State of Connecticut, Defendants-Appellants, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 76-7539.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 1105

560 F.2d 1105

Andriana SANCHEZ et al., and on behalf of all others

similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edward MAHER et al., Commissioner of the Department of

Social Services of the State of Connecticut,

Defendants-Appellants,

United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 871, Docket 76-7539.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued April 4, 1977.

Decided Sept. 2, 1977.

Angel Bello Billini, Alice Bussiere, New Haven Legal Assistance Association, New Haven, Conn., and Oscar Garcia-Riviera, Richard J. Hiller, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., New York City, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Carl R. Ajello, Atty. Gen. of Conn., Francis J. MacGregor, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hartford, Conn., for appellant.

J. Stanley Pottinger, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frank D. Allen, Jr., Judith E. Wolf, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for Federal defendants-appellees.

Before OAKES, Circuit Judge, WYZANSKI ^* and HOLDEN, ^** District Judges.

HOLDEN, District Judge:

On April 18, 1973, certain Spanish-speaking recipients of public assistance programs in Connecticut filed a class action complaint alleging discrimination by the Connecticut Welfare Department (CWD), (now the Department of Social Services) and its Commissioner in providing certain services to them on an unequal basis with English-speaking recipients. The Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) was joined as a defendant in the action. Following extensive discovery and several conferences in Judge Zampano's chambers, HEW and CWD entered into a stipulation, approved by the district court on June 10, 1974, which included an agreement by CWD to hire additional Spanish-speaking personnel. This stipulation was prepared by HEW and provides:

(1) The CWD will immediately seek to hire ten (10) additional all-purpose bilingual English-Spanish workers. This will be accomplished by going through the CWD's WIN lists and requesting another Interpreter's examination to increase its Interpreter capability . . ..

(2) The CWD will also proceed to hire ten (10) additional professional workers in the Social Services. This will be done by the CWD immediately requesting the State Personnel Commissioner to request that the Social Worker/Spanish-speaking classification be put on the next agenda of the Personnel Policy Board. The CWD will also request new classifications for Case Worker I Spanish-Speaking and Case Worker II Spanish-Speaking . . ..

After this agreement was made, a further stipulation was entered on July 11, 1974 which removed HEW as a party to the action.

At the time of the agreement the Commissioner of the Welfare Department was Nicholas Norton, who was named as a defendant in the action when filed. He was succeeded by the defendant Edward Maher on February 1, 1975.

At the time the stipulation was agreed upon, CWD employed fifty-seven (57) fluent all-purpose English-Spanish workers and five fluent English/Spanish-speaking Social Workers doing social work. This number is referred to in the court's order as the base figure and the court's order listed, by name, the employees in these two categories, for a total of sixty-two (62). In addition to the base figure of fifty-seven all-purpose workers then in service, there were twelve existing vacancies for workers in this category. And the parties are agreed that the stipulation required the State to hire ten (10) additional all-purpose workers. It is the position of the private plaintiffs and HEW that the State is required to have in its employ a total of seventy-nine all-purpose bilingual workers. The computation is reached by adding the number of fifty-seven (57) all-purpose Spanish-speaking workers employed on June 10, 1974; plus twelve (12) more called for by the unfilled vacancies and the additional ten (10) bilingual workers provided in the Paragraph (1) of the first stipulation.

The ten (10) additional workers provided for in the second paragraph of the stipulation of June 10, 1974, are in a different category, classified as professional social workers. In 1974, at the time the stipulation was filed, the State employed five (5) professional workers in CWD. The second paragraph of the stipulation required this number to be increased to a complement of fifteen.

Performance of the stipulation miscarried on the total number of all-purpose English-Spanish workers required to be employed by the stipulation. The State through CWD took the position that it was called upon to hire only ten (10) additional all-purpose workers above the base figure of fifty-seven (57) without regard to the vacancies that remained unfilled on that date. HEW reentered the controversy to resolve the conflict. After an evidentiary hearing conducted by Judge Zampano on the plaintiff's motion to enforce the stipulation, the court adopted the construction claimed by the plaintiffs and HEW.

The evidence presented at the hearing included a letter written by the defendant Edward W. Maher, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Social Welfare on August 15, 1975 to HEW. The letter establishes that at that time CWD substantially concurred with the interpretation of the stipulation advanced by the plaintiffs and HEW. ¹ On the strength of this and other evidence presented, the court found that at the time of the hearing in April, 1976 the State defendant had in its employ a total of seventy-one (71) fluent all-purpose bilingual English-Spanish workers and identified each by name. The court further found that in order to comply with the HEW-CWD stipulation, the State is required to immediately hire eight (8) additional all-purpose workers for a total complement of seventy-nine (79) and entered judgment to this effect. ² In this appeal from that decision CWD assigns error to the district court's reliance on evidence extrinsic to the stipulation and, more particularly, the use of the Maher letter of August 15, 1975.

The district court has not only the power, but the duty to enforce the stipulation which it had approved. See Meetings & Expositions, Inc. v. Tandy Corp., 490 F.2d 714, 717 (2d Cir. 1974). The court-approved agreement of the parties is to be construed according to principles governing construction of contracts in general. United States v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 420 U.S. 223, 238, 95 S.Ct. 926, 43 L.Ed.2d 148 (1975).

The provisions in the agreement for the hiring of "10 additional workers" is unclear. The parties are in dispute as to whether the number provided is inclusive or exclusive of the vacancies that existed at the time the stipulation was reached. The language adopted by the parties in their stipulation is susceptible of at least two fairly reasonable interpretations. This presented a triable issue of fact that could only be...