Scott v. Parham

• Decision Date: 30 June 1976
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. C75-614A.
• Citation: 422 F. Supp. 111
• Parties: Willie Lee SCOTT, on behalf of himself and all other persons similarly situated, and Gussie Heath v. T. M. PARHAM, Individually and in his capacity as acting Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

422 F. Supp. 111

Willie Lee SCOTT, on behalf of himself and all other persons similarly situated, and Gussie Heath v. T. M. PARHAM, Individually and in his capacity as acting Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, et al.

Civ. A. No. C75-614A.

United States District Court, N. D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

June 30, 1976.

John L. Cromartie, Jr., and Wayne M. Pressel, Atlanta, Ga., Robert W. Cullen, Augusta, Ga., for plaintiffs.

Timothy J. Sweeney, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for Parham and Nolan.

Julian M. Longley, Asst. U. S. Atty., Carl H. Harper, Regional Atty., Alvin Jaffe, Asst. Regional Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for Mathews.

ORDER

EDENFIELD, Chief Judge.

This action challenging the state and federal administration of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701, et seq., is before this court for a ruling on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary and permanent injunction. In its order of December 2, 1975, 69 F.R.D. 324, this court tentatively certified this case as a class action, and on that same date, the court held an evidentiary hearing on plaintiffs' motions. In its order of March 31, 1976, the court found that the plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of unreasonableness in the state defendants' administrative guidelines and allowed the defendants an opportunity to present justification for such guidelines. The court is now prepared to certify the appropriate class and to make a final determination on the merits.

It is now apparent to the court that the class, as defined below, meets all of the requirements of Rule 23(a)(1-4), (b)(2), as outlined in this court's order of December 2. The court therefore CERTIFIES this case as a class action with the class defined as follows:

"All individuals in the State of Georgia who are currently or will be in the future recipients of diagnostic and/or rehabilitative services of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, and who are not now receiving `maintenance' payments, as defined in 15 C.F.R. § 1361.1(m), from the Department."

The plaintiffs challenge the Georgia Department of Human Resources' guideline which provides maintenance only to those individuals receiving vocational rehabilitation and who live outside the home or home community, Georgia Division of Rehabilitation Client Services Manual, §§ 8.02, 8.04. The plaintiffs have argued that the federal Act and regulations mandate that maintenance must be made available to all those accepted into the rehabilitation program. In its last order, this court reviewed the Act and regulations in detail and concluded that not all accepted individuals need to be provided with all available rehabilitative programs (for a list of the programs see 29 U.S.C. § 723(a)(1-11)), and that the state had fulfilled the mandatory requirements of the Act by making provision in its plans for, and in fact providing, maintenance to some rehabilitation clients. Moreover, the court found that the Act vests the state with reasonable discretion to determine which services shall be afforded to which individuals. The court must now decide whether the state's home/away from home classification is reasonable.

The plaintiffs contend that the reasonableness test is inappropriate here, since the court is determining whether there is compliance with a federal law, not whether the state has violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. The plaintiffs urge the court to strike down Georgia's maintenance guidelines because it adds a requirement — residence away from home — which is not contained in the federal Act. Such a view is overly simplistic. As pointed out in this court's last order, it was the intention of Congress to give the state considerable discretion in the allocation of maintenance funds. Obviously, the state must be able to establish certain rational guidelines to aid it in such allocation.

At the same time, the court refuses to adopt the defendant's suggestion that this case should be decided under the standards enunciated in such equal protection cases as Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U.S. 535, 545-551, 92 S.Ct. 1724, 32 L.Ed.2d 285 (1972), and Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). In those cases, the court declined to second-guess the social and economic decisions of the states and impose on them its own policy judgments as to what was just and humane. Here, the question is whether Congress has already imposed certain policy judgments on the state through the language of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act. Thus, the court cannot merely defer to the judgment of state officials, but must determine whether the administrative generalization that maintenance need not be provided to rehabilitation clients remaining at home is rationally related to the goals of the Act.

One of the paramount goals of the Act is to provide rehabilitation services which are tailored to each individual's...