Case Name: Fannie JEFFERIES, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. Jule SUGARMAN, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the City of New York, and George K. Wyman, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the State of New York, Defendants
Court: United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1972-06-30
Citations: 345 F. Supp. 172
Docket Number: No. 71 Civ. 2060
Parties: Fannie JEFFERIES, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. Jule SUGARMAN, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the City of New York, and George K. Wyman, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the State of New York, Defendants.
Judges: Before HAYS, Circuit Judge, and TYLER and TENNEY, District Judges.
Reporter: Federal Supplement
Volume: 345
Pages: 172–179

Head Matter:
Fannie JEFFERIES, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. Jule SUGARMAN, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the City of New York, and George K. Wyman, as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of the State of New York, Defendants.
No. 71 Civ. 2060.
United States District Court, S. D. New York.
Argued July 6, 1971.
Decided June 30, 1972.
Toby Golick, New York City (Reginald S. Matthews, Jamaica, N. Y., Jonathan Weiss, New York City, Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law, of counsel), for plaintiff Jefferies.
John T. Hand, White Plains, N. Y. (Mark Chertok, Martin A. Schwartz, Jerald Slate, White Plains, N. Y., Legal Aid Society of Westchester County, of counsel), for intervenor-plaintiffs Maxine Handel, Pearl Woods, and Alice Woods.
Ronald D’Angelo, Brooklyn, N. Y. (William L. Reese, Jr., Bedford-Stuyvesant Community Legal Services Corp., of counsel), for applicant for intervention Patricia Carson.
Elliot P. Hoffman, New York City (J. Lee Rankin, Corp. Counsel, New York City, of counsel), for defendant Sugar-man.
Stephen P. Seligman, Asst. Atty. Gen., of the State of New York (Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), for defendant Wyman.
F. Sherwood Alexander, White Plains, N. Y., of counsel to John J. S. Mead, County Atty., for defendant Louis P. Kurtis, Commissioner of the Department of Social Services of Westchester County.
Before HAYS, Circuit Judge, and TYLER and TENNEY, District Judges.
. “4. No assistance or care shall be given to an employable person who has not registered with the nearest local employment agency of the department of labor or has refused to accept employment in which he is able to engage.
A person shall be deemed to have refused to accept such employment if he:
a. fails to obtain and file with the social services district at least semimonthly a new certificate from the appropriate local employment office of the state department of labor stating that such employment office has no order for an opening in part-time, full-time, temporary or permanent employment in which the applicant is able to engage, or
b. willfully fails to report for an interview at an employment office with respect to employment when requested to do so by such office, or
c. willfully fails to report to such office the result of a referral to emjjloyment, or
d. willfully fails to report for employment. Such willful failures or refusals as above listed shall be reported immediately to the social services district by such employment office.
For the purposes of this subdivision and subdivision five, a person shall be deemed employable if such person is not rendered unable to work by: illness or significant and substantial incapacitation, either mental or physical, to the extent and of such duration that such illness or incapacitation prevents such person from performing services; advanced age; full-time attendance at school in the case of [a] minor, in accordance with provisions of this chapter; full-time, satisfactory participation in an approved program of vocational training or rehabilitation; the need of such person to provide full-time care for other members of such person’s household who are wholly incapacitated, or who are children, and for whom required care is not otherwise reasonably available, notwithstanding diligent efforts by such person and the appropriate social services department to obtain others to provide such care. A person assigned to and participating in a public works project under the provisions of section one hundred sixty-four or three hundred fifty-k of this chapter shall be deemed to be employable but not employed.
Every employable recipient of public assistance or person who is deemed not to be employable by reason of full-time satisfactory participation in an approved program of vocational training or rehabilitation shall receive his public assistance grants and allowances in person from the division of employment of the state department of labor, in accordance with regulations of the department.” (Emphasis added.)
. “Section 385.1 Definition of an employable person, (a) Each ADO or HR applicant or recipient age 16 and Over shall be determined employable except by reason of:
(1) full-time employment;
(2) attendance at school, including a vocational or technical school, a college or a university, for a minor other than an emancipated minor;
(3) attendance full-time in grade or high school for an emancipated minor;
(4) full-time, satisfactory participation in an approved program of vocational training or rehabilitation which shall include bu,t not be limited to participation in the work incentive program or a two-year college program with a specific vocational objective;
(5) part-time employment to the extent permitted by medical verification, or to the extent permitted by inability to secure adequate care for children or other incapacitated members except on a part-time basis;
(6) mental or physical illness or incapacity medically verified to be of such significant or substantial nature as to prevent such person from engaging in employment; age shall be a basis of unemployability only when it is verified that the individual is potentially hazardous to himself or others with whom he is associated; and persons with a history of drug addiction shall be deemed employable only when determined medically to be free of drug use or to be participating in a methadone maintenance program or a rehabilitation program; or
(7) the need of such person to provide full-time care for other members of such person’s household who are verified to be wholly incapacitated, or who are children, and for whom required care is not otherwise reasonably available, notwithstanding diligent efforts by such pei-son and the social services district to obtain services or the assistance of others to provide such care.
(b) A HU recipient participating in a public work project established under section 164 of the Social Services Law shall be deemed employable but not employed.” (Emphasis added.)
“385.7 [formerly § 385.6] Sanctions.
(a) A person who (1) voluntarily terminates employment or reduces his earning capacity for the purpose of qualifying for assistance or a larger amount thereof, or (2) without good cause fails or refuses to undergo a necessary medical examination or treatment, or to accept referral to and participate in a vocational rehabilitation or training program, including the work incentive program, or refuses to accept referral to and work in employment, including work relief, in which he is able to engage, shall be:
(i) disqualified from receiving assistance for 30 days thereafter and until such time as he is willing to comply with the requirements of this Part; except that
(ii) an applicant for or recipient of HR who voluntarily terminated employment or reduced his earning capacity shall be disqualified from receiving assistance for 75 days thereafter and until such time as he is willing to comply with the requirements of this Part.
(b) Any person who applies for HR or requests an increase in his grant, within 75 days after voluntarily terminating employment or reducing his earning capacity or similarily within 30 days for ADC, shall be deemed to have voluntarily terminated employment or reduced his earning capacity for the purpose of qualifying for such assistance or larger amount thereof in the absence of evidence to the contrary supplied by such person.”

Opinion:
HAYS, Circuit Judge:
In this class action Mrs. Jefferies challenges the validity of New York Social Services Law § 131(4) (McKinney's Consol.Laws, c. 55, Supp.1971 and regulations adopted pursuant thereto, 18 N.Y.C.R.R. § 385.1, 385.7. Mrs. Jef feries claims that the application of these provisions allows mothers who are enrolled in "vocational" training programs to receive welfare benefits if they are otherwise eligible, and denies such benefits to mothers who, except that they are enrolled in an "academic" course of instruction, are similarly situated and that these provisions thus applied violate her rights to due process and equal protection of the law, infringe her first amendment rights by penalizing her for going to college, and conflict with the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq. (1970). Maxine Handel, Pearl Woods, and Alice Woods (hereinafter referred to as the Westchester plaintiffs), were permitted to intervene over the defendants' objections.
Mrs. Jefferies purports to represent the class of "parents of minor children who are otherwise eligible for public assistance [AFDC] but who are denied such assistance on the grounds that they are enrolled in 'academic' rather than 'vocational' education programs and [are] therefore deemed available for employment." She is the mother of one child, and the father is absent. Before September, 1969 she was employed as a typist at a salary of $125 per week, and was not receiving any public assistance. She left her job to enter Queens Community College with the aim of becoming a teacher, aided by a full-tuition scholarship under the federally sponsored "College Discovery Program." She received emergency assistance from the New York City Department of Social Services from September 11 to December 11, 1969, at which time benefits to both her and her child were terminated, pursuant to the provisions of state law challenged here, because she refused to accept employment. In a Decision After Fair Hearing, benefits for the child were reinstated, but the denial of benefits to Mrs. Jefferies was affirmed. The defendants urge that since she already has shown the ability to be self-supporting, she is not "otherwise eligible for welfare" and thus does not adequately represent the class she claims to represent. We disagree; since her child is "both needy and dependent," Doe v. Swank, 332 F.Supp. 61, 63 (N.D.Ill.) (three-judge court), aff'd mem. sub nom. Weaver v. Doe, 404 U.S. 987, 92 S.Ct. 537, 30 L.Ed. 2d 539 (1971); Doe v. Shapiro, 302 F.Supp. 761, 764 (D.Conn.1969) (three-judge court), appeal dismissed as untimely docketed, 396 U.S. 488, 90 S.Ct. 641, 24 L.Ed.2d 677 (1970), the household is within the purview of the AFDC program, and she has standing to raise the issue of whether she can be denied benefits for refusal to accept employment while attending college, while those attending vocational schools and who refuse employment continue to receive benefits.
The Westchester intervenors are in a different situation, and they perhaps present the issues in this case more clearly than does Mrs. Jefferies. They have from three to six minor children each and, since their husbands left the home, have continuously been receiving welfare benefits even when they have been employed. Thus, unlike Mrs. Jefferies, they have no history of being self-supporting in the regular economy. Each of them, with the approval of her caseworker, enrolled as a full-time student in a four-year college program, with a specific vocational objective. In June, 1971 each was advised that her welfare benefits would be terminated unless she enrolled in vocational training courses under the federal Work Incentive Program (WIN), 42 U.S.C. § 602(a) (19), 630 et seq. (1970).
By now it is well settled that legislative classifications in the welfare area are not subject to the rule requiring "strict scrutiny." "If the classification has some 'reasonable basis,' it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' " Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970), quoting Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78, 31 S.Ct. 337, 55 L.Ed. 369 (1911). See also Jeffer son v. Hackney, U.S., 92 S.Ct. 1724, 32 L.Ed.2d 285 (1972). Applying this standard to the case at hand, we cannot find that the "academic-vocational" distinction embodied in New York's welfare practices violates the equal protection clause. See Money v. Swank, 432 F.2d 1140 (7th Cir. 1970). Plaintiffs urge that the distinction is irrational in view of the purpose of the AFDC program to make families self-supporting, because college graduates are more employable than persons who have merely received vocational training. The statistics cited to us show that of approximately 25,000 welfare recipients receiving vocational training, only about 2,000 have become employed, and of those many continue to receive assistance, though this is principally because of the income exemption provisions of the Work Incentive Program, 42 U.S.C. § 602(a) (8) (A) (ii) (1970). However, this proves only that the WIN program in New York is not working very well, not that it would work any better if the state disregarded the distinction between academic and vocational training.
Furthermore, it appears from the deposition of defendant Wyman, and from the regulations, 18 N.Y.C.R.R. § 385.1(4) (a recipient is not "employable" if enrolled in an approved "two-year college program with a specific vocational objective") that the distinction in New York is really between, two-year and four-year programs. It is urged that even this classification operates irrationally, since some recipients will need pre-vocational training before they enter a two-year program, and thus will receive assistance for more than two years, while a recipient who has less than two years of a four-year program to complete is denied benefits. However, it is clear that the distinction is based upon the state's desire to use its limited welfare funds to secure at least some useful training to a larger number of people, and not to assist persons whose education has gone beyond a certain point. We cannot say that such a policy is irrational. It is true that there is dictum in Townsend v. Swank, 404 U.S. 282, 291-292, 92 S.Ct. 502, 30 L.Ed.2d 448 and n. 8 (1971) that might be thought to be contrary, but at least as applied to these facts it is entitled to little or no weight.
The plaintiffs' contention that New York is infringing on their first amendment rights is plainly frivolous and need not detain us further.
Having found the plaintiffs' constitutional claims to be without merit, we remand the case to Judge Tenney, who sought the three-judge court, for consideration of the pendent statutory claims. Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 402-403, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970). See also Wyman v. Rothstein, 398 U.S. 275, 90 S.Ct. 1582, 26 L.Ed.2d 218 (1970); Boddie v. Wyman, 434 F.2d 1207, 1208 (2d Cir. 1970), aff'd mem., 402 U.S. 991, 91 S.Ct. 2168, 29 L.Ed.2d 157 (1971).
TENNEY, J., dissents in part in separate opinion.
I
. Mrs. Jefferies' name is erroneously spelled "Jeffries" in the complaint.
. A Mrs. Patricia Carson also moved to intervene, but the court did not rule on her motion at the time of argument. Mrs. Carson and her husband, the parents of an infant child, are both enrolled in four-year college programs and are studying to become teachers. Neither has employment skills, and the family has been receiving APDC benefits since July 1970. In 1971 Mrs. Carson, but not her husband, was informed by the New York City Department of Social Services that her public assistance would be discontinued unless she left college to seek employment. Mrs. Carson asserts that the only difference between her situation and that of her husband is that he is enrolled in the SEEK program (a special program of the City University of New York providing remedial assistance to students to enable them to earn college degrees) while she is not.
Mrs. Carson thus challenges state practices in addition to those challenged by the main plaintiffs, and we therefore deny her motion to intervene. To the extent that she is a member of plaintiffs' class, her rights are determined in accordance with this opinion.