Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/427/524
Timestamp: 2019-05-21 14:58:16
Document Index: 739118390

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 202', '§ 202', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 202', '§ 202', 'Art. 134', 'Art. 134', '§ 205', '§ 205']

Gregory NORTON, Jr., etc., Appellant, v. F. David MATHEWS, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
427 U.S. 524 (96 S.Ct. 2771, 49 L.Ed.2d 672)
The Social Security Act provides child survivor benefits only to a child who was "dependent" upon the deceased insured parent at the time of the parent's death. Appellant illegitimate child, who did not come under any of the statutory presumptions of dependency to which legitimate children and illegitimate children under some circumstances are entitled under the Act, could establish his status as a dependent child only by showing that his father lived with him or was contributing to his support at the time of death. Appellant was administratively denied benefits because he could not make such a showing, his father having been killed in military service and never having assumed support. After this denial was upheld on administrative appeal, a class action was brought on appellant's behalf against appellee Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, seeking relief against denial of the benefits and claiming, Inter alia, that by creating a presumption of dependency, and consequent qualification for benefits, for legitimate children generally, and for illegitimate children under certain circumstances, but denying the presumption to appellant and others similarly situated, the Act discriminated against appellant's class in violation of the equal protection guarantee implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Ultimately, a three-judge District Court, convened when classwide injunctive relief was requested against the allegedly unconstitutional operation of the Act's presumptions of dependency, ruled in appellee's favor on the merits of the constitutional claim and granted summary judgment in his favor. Held: Since the decision in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651, renders the merits of the present case a decided issue in favor of appellee and thus one no longer substantial in the jurisdictional sense, it is unnecessary to decide the jurisdictional question presented as to whether a three-judge court was properly convened upon appellant's demand for injunctive relief and hence whether this Court had jurisdiction over the direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1253. Pp. 528-533.
On the merits, this case raises the same question as to the constitutionality of §§ 202(d)(3) and 216(h)(3)(C)(ii) of the Social Security Act, 64 Stat. 484, as amended, and 79 Stat. 410, 42 U.S.C. 402(d)(3) and 416(h)(3)(C)(ii), as was presented in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651. The present litigation, however, also raises certain jurisdictional issues. It now has become apparent that the simultaneous submission of Lucas to the Court, and our decision in that case today, make it unnecessary for us specifically to decide the jurisdictional questions.
In September 1969 appellant's maternal grandmother filed on his behalf an application for a surviving child's benefits under § 202(d)(1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. 402(d)(1), based on the father's earnings record. An administrative hearing followed. The Hearing Examiner concluded that appellant was not entitled to benefits as a dependent child because his father, at the time of his death, was neither living with appellant nor contributing to appellant's support. 1 App. 13-19. The subsequent administrative appl was no more successful. Id., at 20-21.
Appellant's statutory claim was initially considered and rejected by a single District Judge. Norton v. Richardson, 352 F.Supp. 596 (Md.1972). In view of the complaint's request for certification of a class pursuant to Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 23(c)(1), and for class-wide injunctive relief against the alleged unconstitutional operation of the Act's presumptions of dependency, a three-judge court was convened under 28 U.S.C. 2282 and 2284 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV) to pass upon the constitutional claim. The three-judge court first agreed with, and reaffirmed, the single judge's rejection of appellant's statutory claim. Norton v. Weinberger, 364 F.Supp. 1117, 1120 (1973). The court went on to identify the plaintiff class, id., at 1120-1121, 2 but on the merits of the constitutional claim it ruled in favor of the Secretary and granted summary judgment in hisavor. Id., at 1121-1131.
Appellant, taking the position that the three-judge court had denied his request for an order enjoining enforcement of provisions of the Act, lodged a direct appeal here pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1253. While his jurisdictional statement was pending, Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, 94 S.Ct. 2496, 41 L.Ed.2d 363 (1974), was decided. This Court thereafter vacated the three-judge court's judgment and remanded the case for further consideration in the light of Jimenez. Norton v. Weinberger, 418 U.S. 902, 94 S.Ct. 3191, 41 L.Ed.2d 1150 (1974).
The question whether the three-judge court was properly convened upon appellant's demand for injunctive relief is relevant, of course, to our appellate jurisdiction. If the court was not empowered to enjoin the operation of a federal statute, then three judges were not required to hear the case under 28 U.S.C. 2282, and this Court has no jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1253. 3 Accordingly, appellant and the Secretary have debated whether the District Court possessed injunctive power under § 205(g) of the Act, 4 42 U.S.C. 405(g), and whether, in the light of § 205(h), 5 42 U.S.C. 405(h), relief was available under the mandamus statute, 28 U.S.C. s 1361, 6 or under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seqi 7 n
We think it unnecessary, however, to resolve the details of these difficult and perhaps close jurisdictional arguments. The substantive questions raised on this appeal now have been determined in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651. 8 This disposition renders the merits in the present case a decided issue and thus one noonger substantial in the jurisdictional sense.
Assuming that the three-judge court was correctly convened, and that we have jurisdiction over the appeal, the appropriate disposition, in the light of Mathews v. Lucas, plainly would be to affirm the judgment entered in this case in favor of the Secretary. Assuming, on the other hand, that we lack jurisdiction because the three-judge court was needlessly convened, the appropriate disposition would be to dismiss the appeal. When an appeal to this Court is sought from an erroneously convened three-judge district court, we retain the power " 'to make such corrective order as may be appropriate to the enforcement of the limitations' " which 28 U.S.C. 1253 imposes. Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, 34, 82 S.Ct. 549, 551, 7 L.Ed.2d 512 (1962), quoting Gully v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 292 U.S. 16, 18, 54 S.Ct. 565, 566, 78 L.Ed. 1088 (1934). What we have done recently, and in most such cases where the jurisdictional issue was previously unsettled and we do not imply that our doing so is statutorily or otherwise compelled has been to vacate the district court judgment and remand the case for the entry of a fresh decree from which an appeal may be taken to the appropriate court of appeals. Gonzalez v. Employees Credit Union, 419 U.S. 90, 101, 95 S.Ct. 289, 295, 42 L.Ed.2d 249 (1974), is an example. In the present case, however, the decision in Lucas has rendered the constitutional issues insubstantial and so much so as not even to support the jurisdiction of a three-judge district court to consider their merits on remand. See, E. g., Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 343-345, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2287, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975); Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-538, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1378, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974). Thus, there is no point in remanding to enable the merits to be considered by a court of appeals. See McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U.S. 21, 95 S.Ct. 1365, 43 L.Ed.2d 699 (1975). 9
The jurisdictional statute, § 205(g) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 405(g), authorizes the claimant to commence a "civil action" against the Secretary to obtain review of an adverse decision. In such an action the Secretary is a litigant. If the Secretary's decision rested on a statutory provision which is challenged as unconstitutional, the District Court has jurisdiction to decide the constitutional issue. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S.49, 762, 764, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 2465, 2466, 45 L.Ed.2d 522. Before this Court raised the question on its own initiative in that opinion, id., at 763 n. 8, 95 S.Ct., at 2466, this Court, the lower federal courts, 1 and the Secretary himself, 2 had uniformly assumed that if the district court should hold the statute unconstitutional, it could then enter appropriate injunctive relief. I believe this uniform understanding of the meaning of the statute is correct.
Even assuming that equitable relief is unavailable to a plaintiff suing only on his own behalf, the Secretary's conclusions with respect to class actions in general, and with respect to the present class action in particular, do not follow. Indeed, the Secretary's argument proves too much. Injunctive relief in a class action is so similar to that expressly authorized by § 205(g) that Congress could not have intended to allow one but not the other. The Secretary suggests only one distinction between an order reversing or modifying the denial of benefits to the members of a plaintiff class and an injunction requiring payment of benefits to all such persons: if an official disobeys an order reversing or modifying a decision of the Secretary, he cannot be held in contempt without issuance of mandamus or injunctive relief compelling compliance with the order; but if he disobeys an injunction, he may be held in contempt immediately. 3 Surely Congress did not intend § 205(g) to provide reluctant federal officials with a means of delay in the remote eventuality that they might not feel bound by the judgment of a federal court. Assuming a district court may issue classwide relief reversing or modifying a decision of the Secretary, I see no reason why it may not issue injunctive relief of equal breadth and virtually identical effect.
Nor can I accept the Secretary's argument that a plaintiff class may never be properly certified in a § 205(g) action or that no class could properly be certified in this case. He contends that since § 205(g) permits review only of "any final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing to which (the plaintiff) was a party," it manifests a congressional intent that judicial review proceed only on a case-by-case basis. I fail to see, however, why the need for case-by-case adjudication is not fully satisfied by limiting the plaintiff class to those who have satisfied the prerequisites to an action under § 205(g). 4 By definition, such persons have been denied relief for failure to meet the statutory requirement under constitutional attack 5 and upon an administrative record sufficiently complete to permit judicial review. Once such persons are identified from their administrative records, relief may be granted expeditiously. 6 Although the plaintiff class in this case was erroneously defined to include persons who did not satisfy the prerequisites for judicial review specified in § 205(g), the overbreadth of the class did not deprive the District Court of jurisdiction over members of the class properly before it. 7 Nor would it prevent later certification of an appropriate, narrower class. Cf. Jiminez v. Weinberger, 523 F.2d, at 695. 8
Section 202(d)(1) provides survivorship benefits only to a child who was "dependent" upon the deceased insured parent at the time of the parent's death. A legitimate child, a child entitled under the intestacy laws of the insured parent's domicile to inherit personal property from the parent, a child whose illegitimacy results from a formal defect in the parents' purported marriage ceremony, and a child acknowledged in writing by the insured father as his son or daughter or judicially decreed (during the father's lifetime) to be such, are all deemed under the Act to be dependent upon the parent, unless the child has been adopted by some other individual, and thus are relieved of otherwise proving actual dependency. §§ 202(d)(1), 202(d)(3), 216(e), 216(h) (2), and 216(h)(3)(C)(i), 42 U.S.C. 402(d)(1), 402(d)(3), 416(e), 416(h)(2), and 416(h)(3)(C)(i) (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). Since appellant did not come within any of these categories, he could establish his status as a dependent child under the Act only by showing that his father lived with him or contributed to his support at the time of his death. §§ 202(d)(3) and 216(h) (3)(C)(ii), 42 U.S.C. 402(d)(3) and 416(h)(3)(C)(ii). See generally Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651.
In contrast to the situation in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 763 n. 8, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 2466, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), there is no jurisdiction here under 28 U.S.C. 1252 since the District Court's decision was in favor of the statute's constitutionality.
The initiating judge observed that jurisdiction for his court was asserted under the general federal question provision of 28 U.S.C. 1331, and under 28 U.S.C. 1361, vesting the district courts with jurisdiction "in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff." Norton v. Richardson, 352 F.Supp. 596, 598 n. 2 (Md.1972).
In McLucas a single District Judge enjoined the enforcement of Art. 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 934, without convening a three-judge court. He did so because he considered the constitutional infirmity of the Article to be plain. See Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, 82 S.Ct. 549, 7 L.Ed.2d 512 (1962). On direct appeal, under 28 U.S.C. 1252, the propriety of proceeding without a three-judge court was questioned. We observed that if a three-judge court was originally required under 28 U.S.C. 2282, we ordinarily were bound to vacate the judgment and remand for the convening of a three-judge court. Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 607, 80 S.Ct. 1367, 1369, 4 L.Ed.2d 1435 (1960); FHA v. The Darlington, Inc., 352 U.S. 977, 77 S.Ct. 381, 1 L.Ed.2d 363 (1957). Concluding, however, that no purpose could be served by deciding whether a three-judge court was required originally, because intervening decisions of this Court sustaining the constitutionality of Art. 134 had rendered the merits issue plainly insubstantial by the time the case was before us, we vacated the judgment and remanded the case, directing dismissal. 421 U.S., at 32, 95 S.Ct., at 1371.
The Secretary has repeatedly asserted jurisdiction in this Court under 28 U.S.C. 1253 where a three-judge District Court has enjoined enforcement of provisions of the Social Security Act. See Jurisdictional Statement in Mathews v. Diaz, O.T.1973, No. 73-1046, p. 2; Jurisdictional Statement in Weinberger v. Salfi, O.T.1974, No. 74-214, p. 2; Jurisdictional Statement in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, O.T.1974, No. 73-1892, p. 2. Indeed, when the present case was first here, the Secretary moved to affirm, not to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, even though no greater basis for jurisdiction was present then than now. See Jurisdictional Statement in Norton v. Weinberger, O.T.1973, No. 73-5598, p. 2, Motion to Affirm 1. See also Brief for Appellee in Jiminez v. Weinberger, O.T.1973, No. 72-6609, p. 2.
The District Court certified the plaintiff class "to include all of those persons otherwise eligible for child's insurance benefits under 42 U.S.C. 402(d)(1) but who cannot qualify for such child's insurance benefits solely because they cannot meet the requirement of 42 U.S.C. 416(h)(3)(C)(ii) that they be living with or supported by their father on the date of his death." Norton v. Weinberger, 364 F.Supp. 1117, 1121 (Md.1973). Although this class is too broadly defined, it may be appropriately narrowed to include only those who satisfy the prerequisites to an action under § 205(g). See n. 7, Infra.
The Secretary argues to the contrary, relying upon a statement in Salfi that a similar defect in the class action allegations in that case deprived the District Court of jurisdiction over the entire class. Weinberger v. Salfi, supra, 422 U.S., at 764, 95 S.Ct., at 2466. However, the statement in Salfi was unnecessary to the decision in that case, since this Court possessed jurisdiction over the case on independent grounds and relief was ultimately denied on the merits. See 422 U.S., at 763 n. 8, 767-785, 95 S.Ct., at 2468. This Court has subsequently pointed out in a similar situation that the question whether a properly defined class may be certified need not be reached. Mathews v. Diaz, Supra, 427 U.S., at 71-72, n.3, 96 S.Ct., at 1887. Accordingly, I do not read the statement in Salfi to preclude certification of a more narrowly defined class in this case. The District Court possessed jurisdiction over those members of the certified class who satisfied the prerequisites of a § 205(g) action. It follows that it possessed jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief to that subclass and that the denial of such relief is appealable to this Court under 28 U.S.C. 1253.
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