Stinson v. Finch, Civ. A. No. 13370.

• Decision Date: 03 August 1970
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 13370.
• Citation: 317 F. Supp. 581
• Parties: Mrs. Pinkie STINSON, Mrs. Ethel M. Matthews and Mrs. Gussie C. McMullen v. Robert FINCH, Secretary, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare and William Burson, Director, Georgia Department of Family and Children Services.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

317 F. Supp. 581

Mrs. Pinkie STINSON, Mrs. Ethel M. Matthews and Mrs. Gussie C. McMullen v. Robert FINCH, Secretary, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare and William Burson, Director, Georgia Department of Family and Children Services.

Civ. A. No. 13370.

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

August 3, 1970.

Frederic S. Le Clercq, Emory Community Legal Services Center, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff.

Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harold N. Hill, Jr., Robert J. Castellani, John W. Hinchey, and Alex Crumbley, Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., John W. Stokes, U. S. Atty., Robert L. Smith, Asst. U. S. Atty., for defendant.

Before MORGAN, Circuit Judge, and HOOPER and EDENFIELD, District Judges.

EDENFIELD, District Judge:

Plaintiffs in this civil rights suit are public assistance recipients who challenge (1) the adequacy of the standards of need used by the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services in administering its public assistance program for Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and (2) the constitutionality of § 1007 of the Social Security Amendments of 1969. Jurisdiction is alleged under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343(3), 1346 (a) (2), 2281, 2282, and 2284, for claims allegedly arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In addition to declaratory relief, plaintiffs seek to enjoin enforcement of the above-named Social Security provision and to compel Defendant Burson to adopt standards of assistance "which reflect present costs of living and are sufficient for human subsistence in health and dignity."

Defendant Finch, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction over the Secretary, and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Plaintiffs have filed a motion for summary judgment. Following a hearing on July 2, 1970, the case was taken under advisement by the court. For the reasons set forth below the court concludes that the action must be dismissed as to both defendants.

The record shows that Plaintiff Stinson receives benefits under both the Federal Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Benefits program (OASDI), which is operated pursuant to Title II of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 401-429), and the Georgia program for Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled (AABD), which is operated with federal financial assistance pursuant to Title XVI of the Social Security Act (42 U.S. C. §§ 1381-1385). Plaintiff Matthews receives benefits under both the Federal OASDI program and the Georgia Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which is operated with federal financial assistance pursuant to Title IV, Part A, of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.). It is not clear from the record what forms of public assistance, if any, Plaintiff McMullen receives.

The allegations of the complaint appear to relate to two completely separate and independent claims. The first claim is that of Plaintiff Stinson relating to the constitutionality of § 1007 of the Social Security Amendments of 1969 (as to which Plaintiff Matthews has no interest since she does not receive public assistance funds under any program which is affected by that statute),¹ and the second is that of Plaintiff Matthews regarding the inadequacy of standards of assistance used by the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services. It is not clear from the record whether the other plaintiffs, Stinson and McMullen, are also challenging the inadequacy of standards, but for purposes of this opinion the court assumes that they are.

ADEQUACY OF STANDARDS OF NEED

We deal first with plaintiffs' claim that the standards of assistance for welfare budgets enforced under the authority of Defendant Burson do not comport with present costs of living and do not accurately reflect the actual amounts which must be spent by welfare recipients for items such as shelter, food and clothing. Plaintiffs' contention that a state's inadequate standards of assistance violate rights accruing under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the AFDC sections of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.), and the peonage prohibition of 42 U.S.C. § 1994, is without merit. It has long been recognized that the states have undisputed power to determine both the standard of need and the level of benefits for their public assistance programs:

"There is no question that States have considerable latitude in allocating their AFDC resources, since each State is free to set its own standard of need and to determine the level of benefits by the amount of funds it devotes to the program." King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968).

In the instant case it is not contended that the state is using a discriminatory classification scheme which prefers one group of welfare recipients over another. Rather, plaintiff merely contends that the standards of need are inadequate— an argument which is foreclosed by the United States Supreme Court's decisions in such cases as King v. Smith, supra; Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970), and Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970). We therefore hold that in challenging the state standards of assistance plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF § 1007 OF SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENTS OF 1969

As a general rule federal law requires that in determining need for purposes of federally subsidized public assistance programs all of an applicant's other income and resources must be taken into consideration.² As a result, when a welfare recipient's other income is increased his welfare benefits ordinarily will be decreased. But when Congress enacted the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which among other things increased OASDI benefits by approximately 15% to compensate for recent increases in the cost of living, it took steps to insure that individuals who receive both OASDI and other public assistance funds would not have their "other" welfare funds cut by the full amount of their OASDI increase. To this end, § 1007 of the Social Security Amendments provides that for those individuals who are concurrent beneficiaries of OASDI benefits and state adult public assistance programs the State must provide that the total amount received monthly by such individuals under the two programs be increased by $4.00 or by the actual amount of the increase in their OASDI benefits if that increase was less than $4.00.³ In other words, § 1007 varies the general rule that all income must be considered in determining need for certain federally subsidized welfare programs by providing that the first $4.00 of the OASDI increase is not to be counted as "other income." The statute thereby gives concurrent recipients an over-all increase in benefits which without the statute they could not have had.

The gist of Plaintiff Stinson's complaint is that although the Social Security Amendments provide for a 15% increase in OASDI benefits she, as a recipient of both AABD and OASDI benefits, does not realize a 15% increase in over-all income because the increase in her OASDI benefits results in a corresponding decrease in her AABD benefits except for the $4.00 over-all increase required by § 1007. She contends, therefore, that § 1007 of the Social Security Amendments discriminates invidiously against those whose "other income" is derived from public assistance programs, thereby denying equal protection under the laws and giving rise to a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 over which this court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343 (3), 1346(a) (2), 2281, 2282, and 2284.⁴

The jurisdictional allegations as to the last four sections are patently without merit: § 1346(a) (2) does not provide jurisdiction where equitable relief is sought but by its express terms provides jurisdiction only as to money claims not exceeding $10,000 in amount, while §§ 2281, 2282, and 2284 are not jurisdictional statutes at all.⁵ Furthermore, the first-named section, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), cannot give this court jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claim that the Social Security Act is unconstitutional, because that section provides a federal forum without regard to jurisdictional amount only when constitutional rights allegedly have been violated by those acting under color of State law. It, like 42 U.S.C. § 1983, has no application whatever when the acts complained of are done pursuant to or under color of federal law.⁶

Plaintiffs in the instant case recognize this distinction but contend that the requisite "color of state law" can be found in the State's implementation of the provisions of the challenged federal statute. Under their view of the matter Defendant Finch, a federal employee, is acting under color of state law because he is acting in concert with state officials who are acting under color of state law (i. e., state policies formulated to give effect to the federal statute), but this circuitous reasoning does not bring either Finch or Burson within the provisions of § 1983 for purposes of challenging the constitutionality of the Social Security Amendments.⁷ Indeed, this court can conceive of no circumstances in which a § 1983 claim can have its origin, and federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) can be predicated upon, a deprivation of rights resulting from an allegedly unconstitutional federal statute. This is obviously true with regard to a federal employee whose every official act is done pursuant to or under color of federal law, but it is equally true as to a state official who is carrying out at the state level the mandate of an Act of Congress. To the extent that a state official's authority to act in a particular matter derives from federal law he is acting under color of federal law rather than under color of state law and a constitutional...