Stanberry v. Sherman, 94-8048

• Decision Date: 24 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-8048,94-8048
• Citation: Stanberry v. Sherman, 75 F.3d 581 (10th Cir. 1996)
• Parties: Lisa Marie STANBERRY, Gale Yvonne Schnee, Carole Palmer, Michelle Weik, Cathleen Lee McCann, and Sandra C. Patterson, individually and on behalf of a class of persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and Johnna Ruder, Katherine Ann Wilson, Jane Mari Back, and Deborah Campbell, Plaintiffs, v. K. Gary SHERMAN, Director of Wyoming Department of Family Services; The State of Wyoming, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 581

75 F.3d 581

Lisa Marie STANBERRY, Gale Yvonne Schnee, Carole PalmerMichelle Weik, Cathleen Lee McCann, and Sandra C. Pattersonindividually and on behalf of a class of persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants and Johnna Ruder, Katherine Ann Wilson, Jane Mari Back, and Deborah Campbell, Plaintiffs, v.K. Gary SHERMAN, Director of Wyoming Department of Family Services; The State of Wyoming, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 94-8048.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

Jan. 24, 1996.

Walter Urbigkit, Cheyenne, Wyoming, for Plaintiff-Appellants.

Patrick E. Hacker, Cheyenne, Wyoming, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before BRISCOE, COFFIN¹ and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Six single mothers who receive public assistance appeal from a summary judgment in favor of the state of Wyoming and the director of its Department of Family Services in a suit, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging various policies of the state in implementing the Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) program, 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-687.We affirm.

Specifically, appellants claimed that (1) failure by Wyoming to adopt a "standard of need"(SON) reflecting current living costs violated federal law and improperly skewed a reduction in benefits authorized by the statelegislature; (2) a correct standard of need would entitle them to receive additional child support funds collected by the state from absent fathers; (3) there has been improper accounting and mismanagement of such child support funds; (4) a number of welfare "reforms" enacted by the Wyoming legislature in 1993 violate federal statutory and constitutional provisions; and (5) incomplete discovery should have precluded summary judgment.

Standard of Need

The amount of AFDC benefits paid to a family is determined by two variables: (1) the standard of need, which is an amount set by a state reflecting basic subsistence needs and which is considered a "yardstick" of eligibility, and (2) the formula that is applied to the SON to determine the actual level of benefits.Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 408, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 1215-16, 25 L.Ed.2d 442(1970).At the time relevant to this litigation, the standard of need in Wyoming was subject to reevaluation every two years.In 1989 a recomputed SON was adopted, applicable to 1990 and 1991.In 1991 and 1993, updated SONs were computed but never adopted or used as the basis for budgeting.Instead, in 1993, the legislature effected a reduction in benefits, limiting them to 87.5% of the 1989 SON.Had the 1993 SON been used, argue appellants, the actual level of benefits would appear as a much smaller percentage of the amount needed; by the same token the visible reduction would be dramatically larger than 12.5%.The thrust of appellants' claim is that although the state is permitted to make any across the board ratable reduction, it must be based on a current SON, in order to reflect accurately the extent to which the state is not meeting actual needs.

The district court considered a recent decision of the Wyoming Supreme Court, Davidson v. Sherman, 848 P.2d 1341(Wyo.1993), in which the court, dealing with Wyoming's then practice of arbitrarily equating the standard of need figure with the level of benefits, held, as a matter of federal law, that "the standard of need must be set at a level reflecting actual need."Id. at 1349.The district court in this case, however, ultimately disagreed with Davidson and concluded that federal law since 1969 has not required states to adjust standards of need to reflect changes in living costs.It noted the legislative history set forth in Guidice v. Jackson, 726 F.Supp. 632(E.D.Va.1989), aff'd, 915 F.2d 1564(4th Cir.1990), and also cited other circuits that have viewed the relevant statute as interpreted in Rosado, as mandating only a one-time adjustment.²

The district court found even more "troublesome" an argument that does not appear in Davidson: that the statute governing state obligations as to SONs, 42 U.S.C. § 602(h)³, does not create a right of action enforceable by plaintiffs-appellants.It relied on an unpublished decision of this court, Johnson v. Beye, 17 F.3d 1437, 1994 WL 64357(10th Cir.1994), in which AFDC recipients similarly sought to compel adoption of a more realistic standard of need.The district court in Johnson had relied on Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347, 112 S.Ct. 1360, 118 L.Ed.2d 1(1992), andWright v. Roanoke Redevel. and Hous. Auth., 479 U.S. 418, 107 S.Ct. 766, 93 L.Ed.2d 781(1987), to hold that 42 U.S.C. § 602(h) imposed no "requirement that [states] do anything with the reevaluation save make the required reports" and therefore created no enforceable rights, privileges, or immunities.We agreed, saying:

Section 1983 provides a "cause of action for 'the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws' of the United States."Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Association, 496 U.S. 498, 508[110 S.Ct. 2510, 2516-17, 110 L.Ed.2d 455](1990).In Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4[100 S.Ct. 2502, 2504, 65 L.Ed.2d 555](1980), the Supreme Court observed that "suits in federal courts under 1983 are proper to secure compliance with the provisions of the Social Security Act on the part of the participating States."

Section 1983"... speaks in terms of 'rights, privileges, or immunities,' not violations of federal law."Wilder, 496 U.S. at 509[110 S.Ct. at 2517](quotingGolden State Transit Corp. v. City of Los Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 106[110 S.Ct. 444, 448-49, 107 L.Ed.2d 420](1989))."In deciding whether a federal right has been violated, we have considered whether the provision in question creates obligations binding on the government ... [and] whether the provision in question was 'intend[ed] to benefit' the putative plaintiff."Golden State Transit Corp., 493 U.S. at 106[110 S.Ct. at 448](citations omitted).Section 1983"is not available to enforce a violation of a federal statute where Congress has foreclosed such enforcement of the statute in the enactment itself and where the statute did not create enforceable rights, privileges, or immunities within the meaning of 1983."Suter v. Artist M., , 112 S.Ct. 1360, 1366[118 L.Ed.2d 1](1992)(quotingWright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U.S. 418, 430[107 S.Ct. 766, 773-74, 93 L.Ed.2d 781](1987)).

We then quoted with approval the district court's reading of 42 U.S.C. § 602(h):

It's straightforward.It requires only the reevaluation of the need and payment standards and the filing of the report....There is no requirement that the states are just in meeting payment standards as a result of the reevaluation, and there's no requirement that they do anything with the reevaluation save make the required reports.

* * * * * *

We concluded:

We hold that the district court properly relied upon Suter and Wright in dismissing appellants' 1983 cause of action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

As it happens, we cannot simply rest on this earlier opinion of ours.Oddly--and unhappily--neither side has called our attention to a Congressional amendment to the Social Security Act in 1994, enacted in an adverse reaction to Suter.See42 U.S.C. § 1320a-2.Basically, the Congress disavowed Suter's approach, while not purporting to change the decision.It also reaffirmed the approach taken in Supreme Court decisions prior to Suter.This requires us briefly to analyze both the case and the amendment to see what, if any bearing, the latter has on the case before us.

Suter involved a section of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(15), which, as a precondition of federal reimbursement, required a state plan to provide that "reasonable efforts" be made to prevent removal of a child from his home before placing him in foster care.The Court cited all of the cases appearing in the above quoted passages from our earlier opinion, plus Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694(1981).503 U.S. at 355-357, 112 S.Ct. at 1366-67.It then proceeded to analyze the statute in detail.In contrast to Wright, id. at 357, 112 S.Ct. at 1366-67, and Wilder, id. at 359, 112 S.Ct. at 1368, where both statute and regulations had set forth factors to be considered in calculating rent (Wright ) or reimbursement (Wilder ), the Court found "[n]o further statutory guidance ... as to how 'reasonable efforts' are to be measured" and thus that states could exercise discretion "within broad limits."Id. at 360, 112 S.Ct. at 1368-69.Yet the phrase was not "a dead letter" in the light of various enforcement mechanisms contained in the statute.Id. at 360-361, 112 S.Ct. at 1368-69.The only requirement placed on a state, therefore, was that it submit a plan to be approved by the Secretary.Id. at 361, 112 S.Ct. at 1369.The Court concluded that the statutory language in context did not "unambiguously confer an enforceable right upon the Act's beneficiaries."Id. at 363, 112 S.Ct. at 1370.

District courts subsequently differed in their opinion as to whether Suter changed prior law.In Jeanine B.By Blondis v. Thompson, 877 F.Supp. 1268, 1282-83(E.D.Wis.1995), the court felt that Suter "announced a new approach to federal funding statutes requiring plans, stating that the only private right arising from such statutes is a right to the plan itself, and not to the implementation of the plans' required provisions."In Harris v. James, 883 F.Supp. 1511, 1519(M.D.Ala.1995), the court, after reciting the above reasoning of the Court, stated that the points on which the Court relied "bring new considerations to the analysis of the appropriateness" of invoking section 1983 to remedy violations of a federal statute.On the other hand, the D.C.Circuit in LaShawn A. v. Barry, 69 F.3d 556, 569-70(D.C.Cir.1995), citing earlier cases from the...