Appellants' suit under the Civil Rights Act, challenging the
California welfare law and regulations as unconstitutional, was
dismissed by a three-judge District Court for failure "to exhaust
adequate administrative remedies."
Held: One of the Act's underlying purpose was "to
provide a remedy in the federal courts supplementary to any remedy
any State might have," and "relief under the Act may not be
defeated because relief was not sought under state law which
provided [an administrative] remedy."
McNeese v. Board of
Education, 373 U. S. 668.
Reversed and remanded.
PER CURIAM.
The motion for leave to proceed
in forma pauperis is
granted.
Appellants, welfare claimants under California Welfare and
Institutions Code §§ 11250, 11254, and regulation C-161.20
thereunder, sought damages, a declaratory judgment of
unconstitutionality, and temporary and permanent injunctive relief
in this suit under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 28
U.S.C. § 1343. Their complaint alleges that the statute and
regulation are discriminatory and that the appellees, in
administering them and in applying them to appellants, deprived
appellant of equal rights secured by the United States
Constitution. The three-judge District Court dismissed the
complaint solely because "it appear[ed] to the Court
Page 389 U. S. 417
that all of the plaintiffs [had] failed to exhaust adequate
administrative remedies." This was error. In
McNeese v Board of
Education, 373 U. S. 668,
noting that one of the purposes underlying the Civil Rights Act was
"to provide a remedy in the federal courts supplementary to any
remedy any State might have,"
id. at
373 U. S. 672,
we held that
"relief under the Civil Rights Act may not be defeated because
relief was not first sought under state law which provided [an
administrative] remedy,"
id. at
373 U. S. 671.
See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167,
365 U. S.
180-183. We intimate no view upon the merits of
appellants' allegations, nor upon the other grounds not passed upon
by the District Court.
The judgment of the District Court for the Northern District of
California is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting;
California's Aid to Families with Dependent Children program
provides welfare assistance to mothers and children rendered
destitute through desertion by or separation from the fathers of
the children. The law requires that, unless a suit for divorce has
been filed, the desertion or separation be of at least three
months' duration before AFDC aid will be granted.
Appellants were informed by a social worker that, no suit for
divorce having been filed, they could not receive AFDC aid before
the end of the three-month period; they then brought this suit for
a declaration that the three-month requirement violated the Federal
Constitution. The District Court, without reaching the question
whether it should "abstain" pending appropriate state proceedings
for relief, and without reaching the merits, dismissed on the
ground that the plaintiffs had
Page 389 U. S. 418
failed to exhaust "adequate administrative remedies." This
Court, without.plenary consideration and without stating its
reasons, now reverses the District Court's dismissal, citing
McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U.
S. 668. In
McNeese, the Court held that Negro
students, seeking relief from alleged school racial segregation,
did not have to pursue and exhaust certain administrative remedies
available under state law before bringing their federal action.
Although I did not at the time and do not now fully understand the
Court's opinion in
McNeese, * the net result
of the case as I see it was that
Page 389 U. S. 419
the right to assert, in a federal court, that state officials
had acted in a manner depriving the plaintiff of clear
constitutional rights could not be delayed by he interposition of
intentionally or unintentionally inadequate state remedies for the
alleged discrimination.
If that is a correct description of the exhaustion problem in
McNeese, it bears little relation to the exhaustion
question here. State AFDC relief was created pursuant to the
provisions of the federal Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 627, 42
U.S.C. § 601
et seq. The Federal Government pays the major
share of the cost of state aid,
see 42 U.S.C. § 603, and
in return closely supervises both how it shall be administered and
what remedies shall be available to those who have complaints about
its operation. Each State receiving federal assistance (which
includes California) must formulate and submit to the Secretary of
Health, Education, and Welfare, for his approval, a plan of
operation of its AFDC program. 42 U.S.C. § 602. In particular, the
plan must provide that "aid to families with dependent children . .
. shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible
individuals," 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(9), and must
"provide for granting . . . a fair hearing before the State
agency [whose creation is required by a separate provision, 42
U.S.C. § 602(a)(3)] to any individual whose claim for aid to
families with dependent children is denied or is not acted upon
with reasonable promptness."
42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(4). The California plan approved by the
Secretary apparently includes both California's three-month
requirement and California's hearing procedure.
Page 389 U. S. 420
The Court simply ignores the highly successful federal-state
working relationship created by Congress in this area. The right of
these appellants to receive AFDC funds involves not only questions
of state law, but also the propriety of that law under federal
statutory law. For the determination of these questions Congress
has specified a state forum in the first instance. Today's holding,
made without benefit of briefs and oral argument and on a skimpy
record, that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 may be used to bypass 42 U.S.C. § 602
is a disservice to both of thee important statutes.
I would affirm the judgment below.
* The source of my difficulty is a compound of the occasional
use of language broader than was necessary or warranted by the
facts as the majority viewed them, and of my own disagreement with
the majority's view of the facts. In
Monroe v. Pape,
365 U. S. 167, in
an opinion which I joined, the Court declared that one complaining
of unlawful search and seizure by state officials could sue them in
a federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, notwithstanding the
availability of similar remedies under state law. That case did not
say that one who is engaged in a course of dealing with an
administrative agency may bypass the orderly procedures established
by that agency and the procedures for review of agency action and
sue its members individually at any stage. In
McNeese, it
was the prevailing view, with which I disagreed under the
circumstances, that the administrative procedure established by the
State were inadequate for the vindication of federal rights.
Reading
Monroe to have interpreted 42 U.S.C. § 1983
"to provide a remedy where state law was inadequate, [and] 'to
provide a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in
theory, was not available in practice,'"
373 U.S. at
373 U. S. 672,
the Court concluded that, "[w]hen federal rights are subject to
such tenuous protection, prior resort to a state proceeding is not
necessary."
Id. at
373 U. S.
676.
The majority opinion in
McNeese also, however,
attributed to
Monroe the establishment of the principle
that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a "supplementary" remedy to any a
State might have. This language is now interpreted by the Court to
mean that there can be no requirement that a person dealing with an
administrative agency continue to deal with it in an orderly
fashion, no matter how adequate his remedy there. If this is what
the majority opinion in
McNeese meant to say, its dictum
was gratuitous both in the sense that it was not compelled by the
facts as the Court viewed them and in the sense that it was an
incorrect interpretation of
Monroe.