Opinion ID: 422287
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: irreparable injury, the balance of hardships, and the public interest.

Text: 18 The Secretary's contention that the government will suffer substantial hardship in the absence of a stay pending appeal is premised solely on the financial and administrative costs of reinstating disability benefits to former recipients. According to the Secretary, 28,557 terminated recipients were notified on August 15, 1983, of their eligibility to reapply for benefits. The government estimates that if every one of these former recipients reapplies for benefits, the total monthly cost of restoring benefits pending readjudication of claims will be $12,000,000. The government puts the total administrative cost of implementing the district court order at $10,300,000. 5 19 The district court's injunction will undoubtedly impose some burden on the government. Even if we accept the Secretary's estimates at face value, however, the government has not demonstrated that the balance of hardships tips in its favor. 6 On the contrary, we agree with the district court's conclusion that the balance of hardships in this case strongly favors plaintiffs. 20 Plaintiffs do not attempt to match in dollars and cents the monetary harms that will allegedly be suffered by the government. Yet the physical and emotional suffering shown by plaintiffs in the record before us is far more compelling than the possibility of some administrative inconvenience or monetary loss to the government. We find ample support for Judge Gray's persuasive finding that some who have unexpectedly lost benefits have already suffered deprivation of life's necessities, further illness, or even death from the very disabilities that the Secretary deemed them not to have. Faced with such a conflict between financial concerns and preventable human suffering, we have little difficulty concluding that the balance of hardships tips decidedly in plaintiffs' favor. 21 We also consider it crucial that, because the members of plaintiffs' class are largely infirm and disabled, their resources and life spans are by definition extremely limited. Deprivation of benefits pending trial might cause economic hardship, suffering or even death. Retroactive restoration of benefits would be inadequate to remedy these hardships. 7 Following his thorough review of the record, Judge Gray reached a similar conclusion: Retroactive relief [for plaintiffs] would be inadequate, and perhaps too late, to ensure that the purpose of Social Security disability benefits, i.e., provision of a minimum standard of living for the poor and disabled, will be served. See also Leschniok v. Heckler, 713 F.2d 520, at 524 (9th Cir.1983) (We fail to comprehend the Secretary's argument that financial compensation at some future date, should the claimants survive and prevail, mitigates the hardship which is visited upon claimants and their families each and every day.); Caswell v. Califano, 583 F.2d 9, 14 (1st Cir.1978) (It is simply not true that a claimant for disability benefits, not infrequently in dire financial circumstances due to his disability, is truly made whole by retroactive payments which he has had to survive well over a year without.); Mental Health Association of Minnesota v. Schweiker, 554 F.Supp. 157, 165-66 (D.Minn.1982) ([C]lass members who have been denied [disability] benefits or have had benefits terminated have suffered serious harms ... [that] are not recompensable through a retroactive award of benefits.). 22 Here, the question of the public interest is inseparable from the issues relating to the relative hardship suffered by the litigants. Up to now, we have discussed the government's interest only in the narrowest terms--the administrative and financial impact of the preliminary injunction. For purposes of determining the relative hardship to the parties, it may be appropriate to do so--to judge the government's narrow interest in terms of its role as a litigant. In a broader sense, however, the government's interest is the same as the public interest. The government must be concerned not just with the public fisc but also with the public weal. In assessing this broader interest, we are not bound by the government's litigation posture. Rather, we make an independent judgment as to the public interest. 23 It is not only the harm to the individuals involved that we must consider in assessing the public interest. Our society as a whole suffers when we neglect the poor, the hungry, the disabled, or when we deprive them of their rights or privileges. Society's interest lies on the side of affording fair procedures to all persons, even though the expenditure of governmental funds is required. It would be tragic, not only from the standpoint of the individuals involved but also from the standpoint of society, were poor, elderly, disabled people to be wrongfully deprived of essential benefits for any period of time. It would be unfortunate, but far less harmful to society, were the government to succeed in overturning the preliminary injunction but be unable to recoup all or a portion of the funds. 24 In summary, the balance of hardships as between the litigants lies sharply in favor of the plaintiffs. When the public interest is included, that balance is overwhelming. 25