Walker v. O'BANNON

• Decision Date: 10 April 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 80-353.
• Citation: 487 F. Supp. 1151
• Parties: Geraldine WALKER, Linda Neff, Ronald Moculski and Todd Clark, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Helen O'BANNON, Individually and in her capacity as Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

487 F. Supp. 1151

Geraldine WALKER, Linda Neff, Ronald Moculski and Todd Clark, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Helen O'BANNON, Individually and in her capacity as Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 80-353.

United States District Court, W. D. Pennsylvania.

April 3, 1980.

Memorandum Granting Final Judgment April 10, 1980.

Edward J. Feinstein and Lucinda Bush, Neighborhood Legal Services, Pittsburgh, Pa., for plaintiffs.

Robert S. Englesberg, Deputy Atty. Gen., Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendant.

OPINION

SNYDER, District Judge.

This Court has before it the equal protection challenge by recipients of assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) to the Pennsylvania Legislature's elimination of certain individuals from such assistance by Act No. 1979-102, passed December 7, 1979 and effective 60 days thereafter, which provides:

"No general assistance shall be paid to any full-time student at a college or university who has not participated in a federally subsidized program for dependent children within the previous five years." (Amending 62 P.S. § 403)

The debate leading up to the passage of this statute charged that able bodied (capable of working) young people were "emancipating"¹ themselves from parents financially able to support them by going to college, and thus becoming eligible for assistance payments.² The Legislature chose to use a yardstick of a previous need in the family as evidenced by participation in a federally funded program for needy dependent children within the past five years.³

All of the named Plaintiffs, as well as others who testified were given written notice of termination of their benefits effective March 27, 1980, or shortly thereafter.⁴ All of the witnesses would otherwise have qualified for assistance at the time of their termination notice. Action was promptly filed, individually and on behalf of a class,⁵ and on March 20, 1980, after notice and hearing, an injunction was issued. A second hearing was held on March 28, 1980, at which both parties were given ample opportunity to develop the record; the injunction was to continue until final adjudication on the merits.⁶

I.

As previously analyzed by our Court of Appeals in Medora v. Colautti, 602 F.2d 1149 (3rd Cir. 1979),⁷ Pennsylvania provides general assistance welfare benefits to all of its needy and distressed citizens, administered by the DPW.

Thus, in Pa.Stat.Ann., Title 62, Section 401 et seq. (Purdon 1968), the purpose of Public Welfare is given:

"To promote the welfare and happiness of all the people of the Commonwealth, by providing public assistance to all of its needy and distressed; that assistance shall be administered promptly and humanely with due regard for the preservation of family life, and without discrimination on account of race, religion or political affiliation; and that assistance shall be administered in such a way and manner as to encourage self-respect, self-dependency, and a desire to be a good citizen and useful to society."

And, in 62 P.S. § 408, the DPW is given:

"The duty to take measures not inconsistent with the purposes of this article Public Assistance; and when other funds or facilities for such purposes are inadequate or unavailable to provide for special needs of individuals eligible for assistance; to relieve suffering and distress arising from handicaps and infirmities; to promote their rehabilitation; to help them if possible to become self-dependent; and, to cooperate to the fullest extent with other public agencies empowered by law to provide vocational training, rehabilitative or similar services."

On March 8, 1980, in order to implement the statutory change, DPW published modifications to its regulations pertaining to general assistance eligibility, to deny general assistance benefits to any full-time college student who has not "participated in a federally subsidized program for dependent children" in the past five years.⁸ 55 Pa. Code § 141.61.

The testimony of the named Plaintiffs and several nonnamed members of the class was that they could not continue their college education if general assistance benefits were terminated. (See Addendum to this Opinion as to each witness.) Several were handicapped and attending college under the guidance of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, and were presently unable to be employed. Most were 21 years of age or older, the age beyond which parents are no longer required to support them.

Counsel for both sides introduced evidence to give some statistical understanding of the characteristics of full-time college students receiving general assistance which was not specific enough to be of much guidance. There appears, however, to be approximately 1,700 general assistance recipients who are full-time college students and who have not participated in federally subsidized programs for dependent children. Of these, 257 are attending a college or university as part of their vocational rehabilitation. An undetermined number in the Commonwealth are attending school under a joint federal-state program — the Comprehensive Educational Training Act (CETA). Some 300 CETA employees attend Allegheny Community College and 44 of these are on general assistance. The Commonwealth also offered the testimony of the Director of Financial Aid for a state college who outlined federal and state programs available for funding the college educations of needy students, including tuition, room and board.⁹

II. Standard of Review

There is no constitutional right to receive public welfare, Smith v. Reynolds, 277 F.Supp. 65 (E.D.Pa.1967), aff'd 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969), nor is there a constitutional right to an education. Guadalupe Organization, Inc. v. Tempe Elementary School District, 587 F.2d 1022 (9th Cir. 1978), citing San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973).

Where the challenge is to state regulation in the social and economic field (because the result is disparity in grants of welfare payments), not affecting freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights:

"A State does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classifications made by its laws are imperfect. If the classification has some `reasonable basis,' it is does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification `is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' `The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations — illogical, it may be, and unscientific' `A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.'"

Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491, 501-02 (1970) (citations omitted).

As previously noted, the Third Circuit precisely defined in Medora v. Colautti, 602 F.2d 1149 (3rd Cir. 1979), traditional equal protection analysis where the regulation purposefully created discrepant treatment involving denial of all benefits of a certain welfare program. Then, the courts are to "more closely examine the rationality of the underlying classification," and determine whether the classification advances some state interest.

We do not believe this case is controlled by the heightened scrutiny standard of Medora. Significantly, if a full-time student were to drop to part-time status or cease college studies, general assistance benefits resume. The legislation is not so much a denial of all benefits to a class of individuals, as it is a denial of a college education financed, in part, through general assistance without a previous history of family need. There are, as noted, other forms of state and federal assistance available only to college students. The Commonwealth has not denied all benefits, and this distinction becomes important as noted by the Third Circuit in Medora:

"The reasoning of the Supreme Court cases dealing with non-suspect but sensitive classifications is that no group should be singled out and burdened because of a characteristic over which they have no control . . .."

602 F.2d at 1155 n. 12. See also Rasmussen v. Toia, 420 F.Supp. 757 (S.D.N.Y.1976).

Thus, we proceed to determine if there is a reasonable basis to justify the classification established by the Pennsylvania Legislature.¹⁰

III. Rational Relation to the State Interest

The legislative intent in passing the Pennsylvania Public Welfare Code is embodied in 62 P.S. § 401:

"To promote the welfare and happiness of all the people of the Commonwealth, by providing public assistance to all of its needy and distressed; . . .."

The legislation on which we are focusing is an attempt to remove undeserving individuals from the public welfare rolls — undeniably a legitimate governmental objective.

On the one hand, a "needy" person does not lose that status simply by enrolling full-time in college. However, looking deeper into the Public Welfare Code, we see that encouraging self-support and employment are integral to the statutory scheme.

Under 62 P.S. § 405.1, Pennsylvania Employables Program, every individual, as a condition of continuing eligibility for general assistance, must register for employment, and any individual who fails to register or refuses a bona fide offer of employment is ineligible for general assistance. See also 55 Pa.Code §§ 165.23-.24. And, under 62 P.S. § 432.3, a person who voluntarily terminates his employment for purposes of qualifying for assistance is disqualified from receiving assistance until he is willing to comply with 62 P.S. § 405.1, noted above. The state has a legitimate interest in encouraging those of its citizens who can work to do so and thus contribute to the societal well-being in addition to their personal and family support. New York State...