Stowell v. Ives, 92-1342

• Citation: 976 F.2d 65
• Decision Date: 30 July 1992
• Docket Number: No. 92-1342,92-1342
• Parties: , Medicare & Medicaid Guide P 40,809 Christine STOWELL, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. H. Rollin IVES, etc., Defendant, Appellee. . Heard
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

Page 65

976 F.2d 65

61 USLW 2215, Medicare & Medicaid Guide P 40,809

Christine STOWELL, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. H. Rollin IVES, etc., Defendant, Appellee.

No. 92-1342.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard July 30, 1992.

Decided Sept. 28, 1992.

James R. Crotteau, with whom Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc., Machias, Me., was on brief, for appellants.

J. Paterson Rae, Springfield, Mass., and Hugh Calkins, Portland, Me., on joint brief, for Robert Avanzato, Michelle Turcotte, Maine Civil Liberties Union, and Maine Chapter of the Nat. Organization for Women, amici curiae (in support of the appeal).

Christopher C. Leighton, Deputy Atty. Gen., State of Me., with whom Michael E. Carpenter, Atty. Gen., and Thomas D. Warren, Deputy Atty. Gen., Augusta, Me., were on brief, for appellee.

Richard A. Olderman, Atty., Appellate Staff, Civil Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, with whom Stuart M. Gerson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Barbara C. Biddle, Atty., Appellate Staff, Washington, D.C., and Richard S. Cohen, U.S. Atty., Augusta, Me., were on brief, for U.S., amicus curiae (in support of the judgment below).

Before SELYA, CYR and STAHL, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Once the wheat is shaken from the chaff, this apparently complex appeal can be resolved by deciding a threshold question (albeit one that has not previously been confronted by the courts of appeals). Consequently, we affirm the district court's entry of judgment for the defendant on the basis that a recipient of benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-615 (1988 & Supp. I 1989), cannot bring an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988) to enforce the terms of 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(c)(1) (1988).

I. BACKGROUND

Since this matter turns on a discrete question of redressability, our burden of exegesis is considerably reduced. We content ourselves, therefore, with sketching the contours of the preliminary inquiry forgoing detailed exposition of the facts and substantive issues.

We start with section 1396a(c)(1), a statute enacted on July 1, 1988 as part of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act. The statute reads in pertinent part:

[T]he Secretary [of the United States Department of Health and Human Services] shall not approve any State plan for medical assistance if--

(1) the State has in effect [AFDC] payment levels that are less than the payment levels in effect under such plan on May 1, 1988.

42 U.S.C. § 1396a(c)(1).

On February 21, 1992, Christine Stowell brought suit for declaratory and injunctive relief in Maine's federal district court. She invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1983, named a Maine state official as a defendant, ¹ and claimed that Maine had violated section 1396a(c)(1). The claim rested on the premise that economy measures implemented by the Maine legislature had gone too far, resulting in a de facto reduction of AFDC payment levels below those in effect on May 1, 1988. The State contested Stowell's standing to sue and, moreover, asserted that payment levels had been increased rather than decreased. ² On Stowell's motion, the trial court certified a plaintiff class which it described as follows:

All families in the State of Maine who would be eligible for AFDC benefits and/or supplemental payments under 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(28) under the AFDC payment levels in effect in Maine on May 1, 1988 and who would receive a smaller total AFDC plus supplemental § 602(a)(28) payment under the AFDC payment levels proposed to be effective March 1, 1992 than they would have received under the May 1, 1988 payment levels.

Stowell v. Ives, 788 F.Supp. 40, 40 n. 1 (D.Me.1992).

In time, the case was submitted to the district court on a stipulated record. The court ruled that the amended complaint failed to state a cause of action cognizable under section 1983. Id. at 44. This appeal ensued.

II. DISCUSSION

Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action for "the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and [federal] laws." 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ³ A prospective plaintiff may bring suit under section 1983 not only for a state actor's violation of his or her constitutional rights but also to enforce federal statutory law in the face of infringing state officialdom. See Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4-8, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2504-2506, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980).

Nevertheless, not every violation of federal law gives rise to a section 1983 claim. See Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 106, 110 S.Ct. 444, 448, 107 L.Ed.2d 420 (1989). Exceptions include situations where "Congress has foreclosed such enforcement ... in the enactment itself" or where "the statute [does] not create enforceable rights, privileges, or immunities within the meaning of § 1983." Suter v. Artist M., --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 1360, 1366, 118 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992) (quoting Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment & Housing Auth., 479 U.S. 418, 423, 107 S.Ct. 766, 770, 93 L.Ed.2d 781 (1987)); accord Wilder v. Virginia Hosp. Ass'n, 496 U.S. 498, 508, 110 S.Ct. 2510 2517, 110 L.Ed.2d 455 (1990). Because 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(c)(1) does not expressly outlaw section 1983 actions, the first of these exceptions is inapposite here. Accordingly, we focus the lens of our perlustration on the second exception, bent on determining to what extent (if at all) section 1396a(c)(1) creates any enforceable rights.

A.

Prior to 1992, cases such as Wilder, Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981), and Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970), guided judicial inquiry into whether a federal law did, or did not, create a right falling within the ambit of section 1983. Under that framework, a court's first duty was to satisfy itself that "the [statutory] provision in question was intend[ed] to benefit the putative plaintiff." Wilder, 496 U.S. at 509, 110 S.Ct. at 2517 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). If no such benefit could be gleaned, the court's inquiry ended. If, however, the court perceived an intended benefit, then it was bound to find that the provision created an enforceable right unless one of two conditions obtained: either (1) the statute, fairly read, "reflect[ed] merely a congressional preference for a certain kind of conduct rather than a binding obligation on the governmental unit," or (2) the interest asserted by the putative plaintiff was so "vague and amorphous" that enforcement would be "beyond the competence of the judiciary...." Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Accord Playboy Enters., Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n, 906 F.2d 25, 32 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 388, 112 L.Ed.2d 399 (1990).

During the last term, the old regime fell on hard times. The Court decided Suter, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1360, a case which shed new light on this fuliginous area of the law. Although some respected jurists believe that Suter effected a sea change in the Court's approach to section 1983, e.g., id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1371 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) ("In my view, the [rationale of the Suter majority] is plainly inconsistent with this Court's decision just two years ago in Wilder...."), we think it is much too early to post epitaphs for Wilder and its kin. For one thing, Suter offered no analytic framework to replace the structure erected in the Court's previous decisions. For another thing, the Suter Court, while weakening earlier precedents in certain important respects, was careful not explicitly to overrule them. Indeed, the majority relied on those precedents as pertinent authority. See, e.g., Suter, at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1366-68 (citing, inter alia, Wilder, Pennhurst, and Wright ). Because we believe that it is both prudent and possible to synthesize the teachings of Suter with the Court's prior precedents, we examine appellants' claims under the Wilder framework as reconfigured by the neoteric principles announced in Suter.

B.

AFDC and Medicaid, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396-1396u (1988 & Supp. I 1989), as amended by Acts of Nov. 5, 1990 and Dec. 19, 1989, 42 U.S.C.S. §§ 1396-1396u (Law. Co-op. Supp.1992), the programs at issue here, are part of the Social Security Act. Both endeavors represent examples of cooperative federal-state social service programs which, though federally funded in whole or in part, are administered by the States. See Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 289 n. 1, 105 S.Ct. 712, 714 n. 1, 83 L.Ed.2d 661 (1985) (Medicaid); Doucette v. Ives, 947 F.2d 21, 23 (1st Cir.1991) (AFDC). "Although participation in [such programs] is voluntary, participating States must comply with certain requirements imposed by the [federal statutes] and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services." Wilder, 496 U.S. at 502, 110 S.Ct. at 2513; see also King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 316, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 2132, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968).

To be sure, "the Supreme Court has implicitly and explicitly held that rights under various provisions of the Social Security Act are enforceable under section 1983." Lynch v. Dukakis, 719 F.2d 504, 510 (1st Cir.1983). But that generality, without more, does not boost the appellants' stock. Suter reminded us that each provision of the Social Security Act "must be interpreted by its own terms." Suter, --- U.S. at ---- n. 8, 112 S.Ct. at 1367 n. 8. In performing this tamisage, the abecedarian principle is that statutory interpretation always starts with the language of the statute itself. Pennsylvania Dep't of Pub. Welfare v. Davenport, 495 U.S. 552, 557-58, 110 S.Ct. 2126, 2130-31, 109 L.Ed.2d 588 (1990); Consumer Prod. Safety Comm'n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102, 108, 100 S.Ct. 2051, 2056, 64 L.Ed.2d 766 (1980). A court should "assum[e] that the ordinary meaning of [the statutory] language accurately expresses the legislative purpose," see Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., --- U.S. ----, ----, 112...