NORTON v. MATHEWS, 427 U.S. 524 (1976)

96 S.Ct. 2771

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
No. 74-6212.
Argued January 13, 1976 Decided June 29, 1976

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, ante, p. 495, 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

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whether this Court had jurisdiction over the direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1253. Pp. 528-533.

390 F. Supp. 1084, affirmed.

BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and STEWART, WHITE, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 533.

C. Christopher Brown argued the cause and filed briefs for appellant.

Deputy Solicitor General Jones argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Lee, Harriet S. Shapiro, and William Kanter.[*]

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

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, ante, p. 495. The present litigation, however, also raises certain jurisdictional issues. It now has become apparent that the simultaneous submission o Lucas to the Court, and our decision in that case today, make it unnecessary for us specifically to decide the jurisdictional questions.

I
Appellant Gregory Norton, Jr., was born out of wedlock in February 1964. Both his father and his mother then were high school students, aged, respectively, 16 and 14, who lived separately at home with their parents.

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The two never married and, indeed, never lived together. Appellant always has resided with his maternal grandmother and has been cared for by her. When Gregory was born, his father contributed six dollars and some clothing and other habiliments for the baby, but, being so young and unemployed, he never assumed appellant’s actual support.

In February 1965 the father entered military service. He was killed in Vietnam on May 19, 1966, at age 19. Before his death, the father apparently took some initial steps (the procurement of a birth certificate and other items) necessary for the processing of a dependent child’s military allotment. The father failed, however, to complete the required procedures before he was killed.

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

Page 527

administrative appeal was no more successful Id., at 20-21.

The present action was then instituted on behalf of appellant against the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. By the complaint, relief was sought alternatively on statutory and constitutional grounds. First, it was asserted that, by his attempt to secure a military allotment for appellant, the father, at the time of his death, in fact was contributing to appellant’s support, within the meaning of § 216(h)(3)(C) (ii) of the Act, and that appellant therefore was a dependent of the father, under §§ 202(d)(1) and (3) (1970 ed. and Supp. IV), and entitled to benefits. Second, it was asserted that, by creating a presumption of dependency, and consequent qualification for benefits, for legitimate children generally, and for illegitimate children under certain circumstances, see n. 1, but denying the presumption to appellant and others similarly situated, the Act discriminated against appellant’s class, in violation of the guarantee of equal protection implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

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 classwide 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

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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 his favor. 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 (1974), was decided. This Court thereafter vacated the three-judge court’s judgment and remanded the case for further consideration in the light o Jimenez. Norton v. Weinberger, 418 U.S. 902 (1974).

On the remand, the same three-judge court, with one judge now dissenting, adhered to its earlier conclusion in favor of constitutionality. Norton v. Weinberger, 390 F. Supp. 1084 (1975). Appellant has again appealed. We postponed the question of jurisdiction to the hearing of the case on the merits, 422 U.S. 1054 (1975), and, in doing so, cited Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 763 n. 8 (1975), which just then had been decided. Subsequently, we set the case for oral argument with Mathews
v. Lucas, ante, p. 495. 423 U.S. 819 (1975).

II
The question whether the three-judge court was properly convened upon appellant’s demand for injunctive relief

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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. § 1361,[6]

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or under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.[7]

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, ante, p. 495.[8] This disposition renders the merits in the

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present case a decided issue and thus one no longer 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 (1962), quoting Gully v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 292 U.S. 16, 18 (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 (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 (1975); Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-538 (1974). Thus, there is no point in remanding to enable the merits to be considered by a court of

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appeals. See McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U.S. 21
(1975).[9]

It thus is evident that, whichever disposition we undertake, the effect is the same. It follows that there is no need to decide the theoretical question of jurisdiction in this case. In the past, we similarly have reserved difficult questions of our jurisdiction when the case alternatively could be resolved on the merits in favor of the same party. See Secretary of the Navy v. Avrech, 418 U.S. 676 (1974). The Court has done this even when the original reason for granting certiorari was to resolve the jurisdictional issue. See United States v. Augenblick, 393 U.S. 348, 349-352 (1969). Although such a disposition would not be desirable under all circumstances, we perceive no reason why we may not so proceed in this case where the merits have been rendered plainly insubstantial. Cf. McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U.S., at 32. Making the assumption, then, without deciding, that our jurisdiction in this cause is established, we affirm the judgment in favor of the Secretary

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on the basis of our decision in Mathews v. Lucas, ante, p. 495.

It is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL join, dissenting.

In Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, this Court held, sub silentio, that a three-judge court was properly convened in a case raising the same jurisdictional issue this case raises. See Jimenez v. Weinberger, 523 F.2d 689, 693 n. 5 (CA7 1975).

In 1974 when this Court vacated the judgment of the three-judge court in this case and remanded for further consideration in light of the Jimenez case, Norton v Weinberger, 418 U.S. 902, the Court again implicitly held that the three-judge court had been properly convened. See ante, at 529 n. 3.

Today the Court enters a judgment of affirmance which it has no power to enter unless the three-judge court was properly convened. For we have no jurisdiction over a direct appeal from a district court order denying an injunction unless a three-judge district court wa required. 28 U.S.C. § 1253. Since I believe such a court was required to consider the appellant’s constitutional claim, I am satisfied that we have jurisdiction over this appeal.

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,

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422 U.S. 749, 762, 764. Before this Court raised the question on its own initiative in that opinion, id., at 763 n. 8, 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.

The Secretary argues, however, that injunctive relief is superfluous in an action by an individual plaintiff, since he can obtain all the relief to which he is entitled by an order “affirming, modifying, or reversing” the administrative decision. The Secretary also argues that the same reasoning applies to class actions, since an application for benefits by unnamed members of the plaintiff class and a denial of benefits are jurisdictional prerequisites to an action under § 205(g). Alternatively, the Secretary contends that a plaintiff class will never

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be proper in a § 205(g) action, and in any event, that a plaintiff class could not properly be certified in this case.

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,

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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

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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. Jimenez v. Weinberger, 523 F.2d, at 695.[8]

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Accordingly, I would hold that the District Court had power to issue injunctive relief after certification of the plaintiff class and that an appeal from denial of such relief lies under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.

On the merits, I dissent for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Mathews v. Lucas, ante, p. 516. I would reverse the judgment of the District Court.

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