Thompson v. Walsh
| Decision Date | 19 December 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 75 CV 494-W-B-1.,75 CV 494-W-B-1. |
| Citation | 481 F. Supp. 1170 |
| Parties | Mabel THOMPSON et al., Plaintiffs, v. James F. WALSH et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
James S. Bolan, Legal Aid Society of Kansas City, Kansas City, Mo., Stuart R. Berkowitz, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Inc., St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiffs.
Robert R. Northcutt, Paul T. Keller, Dept. of Social Services, Jefferson City, Mo., for defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDERS GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTIONS FOR CIVIL CONTEMPT
On November 24, 1976, the Honorable William H. Becker, then Chief Judge of this Court, entered a preliminary injunction which required that defendants process applications for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) within 45 days as required by 45 C.F.R. § 206.10(a)(iii). That order provided in part that:
Defendants be, and they are hereby enjoined and restrained from failing to obtain substantial compliance with the Forty-Five day time limit for processing applications for benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program pending a determination of the merits.
This case now pends on two motions filed by plaintiffs for civil contempt, both of which allege that defendants are not in substantial compliance with the applicable 45 day time limit for processing AFDC applications, as required by applicable federal law and this Court's November 24, 1976 order.
The first motion was filed March 3, 1978 before this case was transferred to Division I of this Court on July 12, 1979. The second motion was filed September 24, 1979, subsequent to that transfer.
Appropriate pretrial proceedings were conducted which resulted in the execution of a stipulation under which the parties agreed in paragraph 13 thereof that:
The Stipulations contained in this document are full and complete for purposes of the pending motions for civil contempt. The parties expressly waive their right to offer any further evidence, by hearing or otherwise, in connection with the subject motions. The motions may be taken as submitted upon the filing of this document and the parties expressly waive any objection they may have to the resolution of these motions at this time. The parties, however, reserve their evidentiary objections to the relevance and materiality of the facts contained in these Stipulations.
The Court has considered the stipulated facts and the briefs filed by the parties. We find and conclude that plaintiffs' motions must be granted for reasons we now state.
It is stipulated that Appendices A and B attached to the stipulation are true and accurate summaries of information contained in computer printouts which have been produced on a monthly basis pursuant to an order entered on February 5, 1977. Appendix A reflects the percentage of approved applications pending longer than 45 days with respect to each month since November, 1976 until August, 1979, the last month covered by the stipulation. Appendix B reflects, on the same monthly basis, the number of approved and rejected applications which took longer than 45 days to process. Both Appendices A and B include various percentage figures.
The parties further stipulated in paragraphs 7 to 11, inclusive, the following factual data:
It is undisputed that in June, 1979, the month in which the Governor vetoed 133.5 staff positions from the appropriation bill passed during the 1979 session of the 80th Missouri General Assembly, 661 of 3,128 applications were not processed within the 45 day time period. 588 of those applications were eventually approved after the expiration of the 45 day time period. Only 73 were rejected.
Appendix B reflects that in the month of July, 1979, 3,606 applications were processed. 487 were not processed within the 45 day period; 403 were eventually approved and 84 were rejected. Appendix B reflects that of 4,499 applications for the month of August, 1979, 575 were processed after the expiration of the 45 day period. 391 were eventually approved; 184 were eventually rejected.
Appendix A reflects the percentage of approved applications which were in fact processed within the 45 day time period. Those percentages, in table form, are as follows for the months of June, July, and August, 1979:
Statewide
(Except St. Louis Jackson
Month St. Louis City) County County
June, 1979 68.1% 46.6% 45.6%
July, 1979 82.0% 78.4% 48.0%
August, 1979 83.1% 63.5% 39.5%
Appendix A also shows that defendants approved more than 90% of the Statewide (except St. Louis City) applications within the 45 day period in only 16 of 31 months from November, 1976 to May, 1979. More than 90% of the St. Louis County applications were processed within 45 days in only 3 of those 31 months. And in only 9 of those 31 months were more than 90% of the Jackson County applications approved within the 45 day period. Appendix B shows that the total number of applications each month during the period from November, 1976 to May, 1979 ranged from 2,088 to 3,601. That appendix also shows that there were 3,128 applications in June, 1979; 3,606 applications in July, 1979; and 4,499 applications in August, 1979. It is not unreasonable to assume that the ravages of inflation, which strikes the poor more harshly than any other segment of our society, will cause the number of applications to continue to rise.
Appendix D attached to the stipulation is a letter from Governor Teasdale to Director Freeman of the Missouri Department of Social Services, dated October 23, 1979. That letter establishes that for at least "several weeks" before October 23, 1979, the "work load problems of the Division of Family Services" required the personal attention of the Governor, members of the General Assembly, members of the staff of the Department of Social Services, and the Missouri Office of Administration. The Governor's October 23, 1979 letter reads as follows:
October 23, 1979 Mr. Dave Freeman, Director Department of Social Services Broadway Building Jefferson City, Missouri 65102
Dear Dave:
As you know, in the past several weeks I have been meeting with legislators, members of your staff and Office of Administration, to gain a clear picture of the workload problems of the Division of Family Services offices. As a result of these meetings, I am taking the following actions:
1. I am authorizing payment of overtime to employees of Jackson County, St. Louis, and St. Louis County to help reduce the backlog of applications. If necessary I will recommend supplemental appropriations to cover such expenditure.
2. I am authorizing the hiring of temporary employees in those jurisdictions for up to 90 days to reduce the backlog.
3. I am asking you to assist the Commissioner of Administration in a re-examination of the ten to twelve days time-lag required to process welfare checks and asking you both to take other administrative steps necessary to reduce that time.
4. I am asking the Commissioner of Administration to lend support from the Division of EDP Coordination to speed up the automation of case processing with the hope that we can accomplish automation at a much earlier date.
5. I plan to review the staffing pattern and workload of Division of Family Service employees as part of the supplemental package we will prepare in early December.
I hope you will communicate these actions to the appropriate staff members in your department.
The stipulated data establishes that hundreds of families who were eligible for AFDC benefits are being deprived of those benefits each month because of defendants' failure to comply with applicable federal law and this Court's November 24, 1976 order. When then Chief Judge Becker entered the November 24, 1976 order he stated that "most welfare applicants lack independent resources to obtain essential food, clothing, housing and medical care while their application is pending." In reliance upon the Supreme Court's opinion in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 264, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), then Chief Judge Becker concluded that "the delay in processing applications thus renders the applicants' situation `immediately desperate.'" This Court reiterates and expressly adopts the conclusions stated over three years ago by then Chief Judge Becker.
This case is not the first case in which the question of the State of Missouri's administration of the federal AFDC program has been presented to a federal court. In 1970, the State of Missouri successfully contended in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, see Like v. Carter, 318 F. Supp. 910 (E.D.Mo.1970), that questions relating to the performance of the State of Missouri in...
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...District of Missouri was reversed for failure to have permitted plaintiffs to maintain a class action. See also, Thompson v. Walsh, 481 F.Supp. 1170 (W.D.Mo. 1979), affirmed and remanded for revision of the injunction granted in Thompson v. Freeman, 648 F.2d 1144, 1148 (8th Cir.1981). See a......
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...the decree and laws in question, see Parts II B, V below, it is not at liberty to substitute these standards. Cf. Thompson v. Walsh, 481 F.Supp. 1170, 1176 (W.D.Mo.1979). The Department finally argues that its AFDC compliance rate should be deemed substantial because of the inaction of the ......
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