Benjamin v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF PENN.

768 F. Supp. 2d 747, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40100, 2011 WL 1261542
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 27, 2011
Docket09-cv-1182
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 768 F. Supp. 2d 747 (Benjamin v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF PENN.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benjamin v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF PENN., 768 F. Supp. 2d 747, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40100, 2011 WL 1261542 (M.D. Pa. 2011).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

JOHN E. JONES III, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This is a class action, asserted by Franklin Benjamin 1 , Richard Grogg 2 , Frank Edgett 3 , Sylvia Baldwin 4 , and Anthony Beard 5 on behalf of all persons who: (1) currently or in the future will reside in on of Pennsylvania’s state-operated intermediate care facilities for persons with mental retardation; (2) could reside in the community with appropriate services and supports; and (3) do not or would not oppose community placement. {See Doc. 9, Amended Complaint; Doc. 17, Order Certifying Class.) Plaintiffs assert that the Department of Public Welfare of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (“DPW”) and Harriet Dichter, the Secretary of DPW 6 (collectively, “Defendants”), have failed to provide appropriate community services in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134 (“Title II”), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (“RA”), 29 U.S.C. § 794 (“Section 504”). Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief.

Presently before the Court are two motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Summary Judgment (“Plaintiffs’ Motion”) on June 23, 2010 (Doc. 48) and Defendants filed their Motion for Summary Judgment (“Defendants’ Motion”) on June 29, 2010 (Doc. 51). Both Motions have been fully briefed, including an amicus brief filed by the United States in support of Plaintiffs’ Motion {see Doc. 62), and thus each is ripe for disposition. The parties agree that there is no material factual dispute in this action and each asks the Court to answer one legal question— whether DPW has violated Title II and Section 504 by failing to provide Plaintiffs with community support and services. Because one common question predominates, we will resolve both Motions in this Memorandum. For the reasons that follow, we hold that Defendants have not complied with the integration mandates of the relevant statutes. An appropriate Order shall enter after our analysis.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiffs filed the Complaint in this action on June 22, 2009 (Doc. 1) and an *749 Amended Complaint on July 14, 2009 (Doc. 9). Plaintiffs filed an unopposed Motion to Certify the Class on August 31, 2009, and the Court granted the Motion on September 2, 2009 and certified the above-named class. (Doc. 17.) On January 25, 2010, the Court denied Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 38), and Defendants then filed their Answer to the Amended Complaint on February 24, 2010 (Doc. 39). In the meantime, a group of individuals filed a Motion to Intervene pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24, asserting that they had interests in the litigation that were not adequately represented by the class. (See Doc. 27.) The Court denied that Motion on March 10, 2010, 267 F.R.D. 456 (Doc. 41), and the proposed intervenors filed their notice of appeal of that decision on March 30, 2010 (Doc. 42).

As noted above, Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Summary Judgment on June 23, 2010 (Doc. 48) and Defendants filed their Motion for Summary Judgment on June 29, 2010 (Doc. 51). We referred the action to Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson for settlement discussions on October 6, 2010, but those discussions have thus far been unsuccessful. Though the parties have not foreclosed the possibility of further settlement negotiations, we believe the most prudent course is to resolve the motions that have been pending for months and to thereafter grant the opportunity to the parties to settle on the ultimate remedy themselves prior to additional and possibly unnecessary mandates by the Court.

III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

DPW is responsible for providing services to Pennsylvanians with mental retardation under the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966, 50 P.S. § 4201(1). One of the means by which DPW provides services to individuals with mental retardation is through the operation of five state Intermediate Care Facilities for Persons with Mental Retardation (“ICFs/MR”). 7 The services provided at these facilities are covered by Medical Assistance, and, thus, DPW receives a federal government funding match for their costs. The five state ICFs/MR housed a total of 1,272 individuals in 2008 and 1,224 individuals in 2009. In the five fiscal years between 2004 and 2009, fifty-four residents were discharged to community-based services, and two-hundred residents died. The anticipated census reduction in 2009-2010 is expected to be attributable almost exclusively to deaths rather than discharges. The average cost to provide services in the state ICFs/MR is approximately $240,000 per resident per year, and is expected to increase to approximately $256,000 per resident per year in the following fiscal year. In addition to the state-run ICFs/MR, DPW also funds privately-operated ICFs/MR that service approximately 2,500 persons with mental retardation.

DPW also funds community-based mental retardation services in addition to the state-operated or -funded institutions. These residential services can include small group homes, family living, vocational training, supported employment, development of skills, socialization, therapies, home health-care, and other support services. The services are funded primarily through Medical Assistance through a waiver system, of which the federal government pays a portion of costs. Though there is a limit to the number of persons *750 who can receive services under these programs, the federal government can grant permission to increase that limit and has readily done so in the past.

Plaintiff Benjamin has been institutionalized at the Ebensburg ICF/MR since 1966. Plaintiffs Grogg and Edgett have been institutionalized at the Selinsgrove ICF/MR for twenty (20) years each. Plaintiff Baldwin has been institutionalized at the Polk ICF/MR since 1990. Plaintiff Beard has been institutionalized at the Ebensburg ICF/MR for forty-two (42) years. All named Plaintiffs’ mental retardation limits one or more of their major life activities but, with proper support, they could reasonably live in the community-

With appropriate community services, all of the named Plaintiffs could live in more integrated community settings rather than institutions because they would still have available all services and supports that are currently available to them. Further, pursuant to the principle of “normalization” that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has embraced 8

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Related

Thorpe v. District of Columbia
894 F. Supp. 2d 1 (District of Columbia, 2012)
Benjamin v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF PA
807 F. Supp. 2d 201 (M.D. Pennsylvania, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
768 F. Supp. 2d 747, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40100, 2011 WL 1261542, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benjamin-v-department-of-public-welfare-of-penn-pamd-2011.