Gould v. Sullivan

131 F.R.D. 108, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19207, 1989 WL 206482
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedJune 6, 1989
DocketNo. C2-87-0964
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 131 F.R.D. 108 (Gould v. Sullivan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gould v. Sullivan, 131 F.R.D. 108, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19207, 1989 WL 206482 (S.D. Ohio 1989).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

GEORGE C. SMITH, District Judge.

The background of this case is more fully set forth in this court’s opinion and order of August 24, 1988, and will not be repeated here unnecessarily. Briefly stated, plaintiffs, Rhonda Gould, Richard Conkey, Sr., and Shawn Spencer, seek certification of a class and class-wide relief relating to the former practice of the Secretary of Health and Human Services in calculating the amount of supplemental security income (“SSI”) benefits. The amount of SSI benefits will vary according to other income being received by the successful SSI claimant. Until a statutory amendment in 1988, the Secretary had considered Aid to Families with Dependent Children (“AFDC”) benefits being received by a person who then became eligible for SSI benefits as relevant income, and used that income in calculating the first two months’ of SSI benefits, even though the Secretary was aware that AFDC benefits would terminate when SSI benefits began. This method of calculation, which treated AFDC benefits in the same manner as other income being received by the SSI recipient at the time SSI benefits commenced, had the result of reducing the first two months’ SSI payments. Thereafter, when the Secretary recalculated entitlement to benefits, AFDC payments would not appear and SSI benefits would increase for the balance of the time that the recipient was eligible for SSI payments. The plaintiffs contend that the Secretary’s failure to promulgate regulations to implement the so-called “reliable information” exception to the benefits calculation method, found in 42 U.S.C. § 1382(c)(4)(B), was a violation of that statutory duty, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act and the due process clause, and that such failure led to the two-month reduction in SSI benefits experienced by the named plaintiffs and others similarly situated.

This court’s August 24,1988 opinion and order declined to dismiss this case on grounds that the named plaintiffs, or other class members had failed to present their claims to the Secretary or had failed to exhaust available administrative remedies. The opinion and order also permitted plaintiffs Conkey and Spencer to intervene. Since the date of that order, a number of additional motions have been filed, all of which will be disposed of by this opinion and order. They include:

(1) Plaintiffs' motion for class certification, filed on September 26, 1988, opposed on November 21, 1988, and further supported by a reply memorandum filed January 4, 1989;
(2) The motion of Theodora Lowe for intervention, filed on January 10, 1989, opposed on February 9, 1989, and further supported by a reply brief filed on April 18, 1989;
[110]*110(3) Defendant’s memorandum of February 9, 1989 asking for reconsideration of the August 24, 1988 order, which was addressed by plaintiffs’ supplemental memorandum filed on April 18, 1989; and
(4) A number of procedural motions, including plaintiffs’ motion to strike various of the Secretary’s filings as untimely, and the Secretary’s corresponding motions for leave to file his February 9, 1989 memoranda instanter, and his motion for leave to file his answer to the intervenors’ complaint.

Although plaintiffs correctly point out that the Secretary made a number of filings which are not authorized by or were untimely under the Local Rules, because of the importance of the question presented, and the lack of prejudice to plaintiffs, the court will consider the Secretary’s filings and will also permit the Secretary to file his answer to the intervenors’ complaint. Consequently, plaintiffs’ motion to strike is DENIED and the Secretary’s February 28, 1989 and March 2, 1989 motions for leave to file are GRANTED. The court now proceeds to the more difficult questions of whether its earlier orders should be reconsidered, whether a class should be certified, and whether an additional intervenor should be permitted to participate as a named plaintiff in this case.

I. RECONSIDERATION OF THE AUGUST 24, 1988 ORDER

The Secretary made two arguments in support of his previous motion to dismiss the complaint. First, he asserted that those potential class members who had never sought reconsideration or other administrative review of their assertion that their SSI benefits had been improperly calculated had not “presented” a claim to the Secretary, and that such a presentment is a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Secondly, he argued that any potential class member who had presented such a claim, but who had not yet received a final decision from the Secretary because the administrative review process had not been completed, had not exhausted administrative remedies, which is also a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit. The court concluded, following the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U.S. 467, 106 S.Ct. 2022, 90 L.Ed.2d 462 (1986), and Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required in a case such as this where exhaustion would be futile and would not serve any of the purposes underlying the exhaustion requirement. The court also concluded that each potential class member had adequately presented his or her claim to the Secretary because the Secretary had the opportunity to calculate benefits properly when making an SSI award, and that such a situation was distinguishable from a case where the claimant never provided the Secretary with any opportunity to take appropriate action with respect to the claim at issue.

In asking for reconsideration of that issue, ostensibly in connection with his opposition to certification of a class, the Secretary asserts that the subsequent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Pittston Coal Group v. Sebben, 488 U.S. 105, 109 S.Ct. 414, 102 L.Ed.2d 408 (1988) indicates that the court erroneously concluded that presentment'had occurred in this case, and that exhaustion of administrative remedies was not required.

Sebben was a case involving the Black Lung Act, rather than a claim for social security disability benefits. However, it did present issues similar to those raised in social security cases. Nevertheless, the issue decided by the Supreme Court in Sebben was not whether an appropriate claim had been presented to the Secretary of Labor by the absent class members, nor whether such members had fully exhausted their administrative remedies. Rather, the only issue addressed by the Supreme Court, in reversing the decision to certify a class of claimants who had not sought review individually in the Court of Appeals, was whether the failure to do so within 60 days after having received a final decision from the Secretary prevented the court from awarding them relief because their [111]*111claims were time-barred.

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Related

Medellin v. Shalala
23 F.3d 199 (Eighth Circuit, 1994)
Gould v. Secretary of Health & Human Services
819 F. Supp. 692 (S.D. Ohio, 1993)
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811 F. Supp. 1271 (S.D. Ohio, 1992)
Anderson v. Sullivan
806 F. Supp. 134 (E.D. Texas, 1992)
Farley v. Sullivan
793 F. Supp. 1267 (D. Vermont, 1992)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
131 F.R.D. 108, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19207, 1989 WL 206482, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gould-v-sullivan-ohsd-1989.