Poder in Action v. City of Phx.

506 F.Supp.3d 725

PODER IN ACTION, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.CITY OF PHOENIX, Defendant.

No. CV-20-01429-PHX-DWL

United States District Court, D. Arizona.

Signed December 9, 2020

Brenda Munoz Furnish, Daniel Jay Adelman, Ellen Sue Katz, Orien Praiser Nelson, William E. Morris Institute for Justice, Phoenix, AZ, for Plaintiffs.

Cris A. Meyer, Phoenix City Attorneys Office, Emma Jane Cone-Roddy, Kristin Louise Windtberg, Mary Ruth O'Grady, Osborn Maledon PA, Leslie Steve Tuskai, City of Phoenix Law Department, Phoenix, AZ, for Defendant.

ORDER

Dominic W. Lanza, United States District Judge

INTRODUCTION

In March 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act ("CARES Act") came into effect. Among other things, the CARES Act allocated $150 billion to state, local, and tribal governments to assist those entities in covering "necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency" arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. See 42 U.S.C. § 801(d). This $150 billion allocation is known as the Coronavirus Relief Fund ("CRF").

The City of Phoenix, which received an allocation of CRF funds, chose to use $25.7 million of that money to create the COVID-19 Emergency Utility Rent and Mortgage Assistance Program ("the Program"). The purpose of the Program is "to assist Phoenix residents affected by the COVID-19 emergency ... by providing aid to eligible Phoenix residents for utility bills (water, electric and/or gas), mortgage and rental obligations." (Doc. 24-1 at 2.)

When formulating the Program's eligibility criteria, the City consulted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ("PRWORA"), a federal statute enacted in 1996. See 8 U.S.C. § 1611. Under PRWORA, "an alien who is not a qualified alien" is ineligible to receive any "federal public benefit" unless certain exceptions apply. The City concluded that the distribution of CRF funds via the Program constitutes a "federal public benefit" and further concluded that none of PRWORA's exceptions were applicable. Thus, the City concluded that it was required, as a matter of federal law, to require applicants to the Program to "provide proof of qualified legal status in the U.S." (Doc. 24-1 at 19.) As a practical matter, this excluded many Phoenix residents.

In this action, Plaintiffs Poder in Action ("Poder"), the Arizona Dream Act Coalition ("ADAC"), and Aurora Galan Mejia ("Ms. Galan Mejia") (collectively, "Plaintiffs") challenge the City's exclusion of unqualified aliens from the Program. They argue that the City isn't required by PRWORA, or any other federal law, to impose immigration-related eligibility restrictions under the Program and that the City's decision to impose such restrictions is therefore preempted by federal law.

Earlier this year, the Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. (Doc. 40.) Among other things, the Court concluded that Plaintiffs hadn't demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief because Arizona's governor had issued a pair of executive orders delaying evictions during the pandemic. The Court emphasized, however, that "[t]his outcome should not ... be interpreted as a sign that Plaintiffs’ challenge to the Program will ultimately fail" and recognized that Plaintiffs had established "serious questions going to the merits" of their challenge. To that end, the Court set an accelerated schedule for a merits resolution of Plaintiffs’ challenge.

On October 15, 2020, Plaintiffs filed their opening brief, seeking a permanent injunction and a declaratory judgment. (Doc. 64.) In support of their position, Plaintiffs proffered an array of evidence, including declarations from Jay Young, the executive director of the Southwest Fair Housing Council (Doc. 66), and David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University (Doc. 67). Afterward, the City filed a response brief (Doc. 77) and motions to exclude the opinions of Mr. Young and Professor Super (Docs. 75, 76); Plaintiffs filed a reply brief (Doc. 87) and responses to the exclusion motions (Docs. 85, 86); and the City filed replies in support of its exclusion motions (Docs. 90, 91).

For the following reasons, the Court concludes that Defendants’ standing challenge is unavailing, that the City is not required by PRWORA to exclude unqualified aliens from participating in the Program (because the Program falls within PRWORA's exception for "short-term, non-cash, in-kind emergency disaster relief"), and that the City's choice to exclude unqualified aliens from the Program is therefore preempted by federal law. Given these conclusions, it is unnecessary to resolve Plaintiffs’ other theories as to why PRWORA should be deemed inapplicable here. As for relief, Plaintiffs’ request for a declaratory judgment will be granted but the presence of that judgment, coupled with the City's avowal that it will comply with the judgment, makes it unnecessary to issue a permanent injunction. Finally, the City's motions to exclude the opinions of Mr. Young and Professor Super will be denied as moot.

DISCUSSION

I. Standing

As a preliminary matter, the City argues that two of the three Plaintiffs in this action, Poder and ADAC (the "Organizational Plaintiffs"), lack standing. (Doc. 77 at 2-8.) Specifically, the City argues that (1) the Organizational Plaintiffs lack organizational standing because they are not experiencing any current injury and will not experience a future injury, as "both organizations have moved on" and are no longer "divert[ing] any resources to aid with the economic consequences of COVID for City-resident immigrants ineligible for the fund"; and (2) the Organizational Plaintiffs lack associational standing because they have not proffered any admissible evidence of members suffering harm from the Program restrictions. (Id. , emphasis omitted.) Plaintiffs respond that the City focuses on the wrong timeframe, because standing is determined at the time the complaint is filed, and that the Organizational Plaintiffs have organizational and associational standing regardless of which timeframe is used. (Doc. 87 at 2-6.)

The City's standing challenge is unavailing. The Ninth Circuit has repeatedly stated that it is unnecessary to address the standing of each plaintiff in a multi-plaintiff case, at least where all plaintiffs seek the same form of relief, so long as one of the plaintiffs has standing. See, e.g., Preminger v. Peake , 552 F.3d 757, 764 (9th Cir. 2008) ("Because we conclude that Preminger has direct standing to bring an as-applied challenge, we need not and do not consider whether the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee has standing and whether either Plaintiff has associational or third-party standing."); Leonard v. Clark , 12 F.3d 885, 888 (9th Cir. 1993) ("The general rule applicable to federal court suits with multiple plaintiffs is that once the court determines that one of the plaintiffs has standing, it need not decide the standing of the others."); Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp. , 429 U.S. 252, 264 n.9, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977) ("Because of the presence of this plaintiff [with standing], we need not consider whether the other individual and corporate plaintiffs have standing to maintain the suit."). Here, the City doesn't appear to argue that Ms. Galan Mejia, the individual Plaintiff, lacks standing. (Doc. 77 at 2 [first section of the City's brief, with the heading "Organizational Plaintiffs Lack Standing"].)¹

The Court has, at any rate, evaluated whether Ms. Galan Mejia possesses standing and concludes that she does. Article III of the Constitution limits the judicial power of the United States to the resolution of cases and controversies. See U.S. Const., art. III, § 2, cl. 1. "[O]ne of the controlling elements in the definition of a case or controversy under Article III is standing. The requisite elements of Article III standing are well established: A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief." Hein v. Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. , 551 U.S. 587, 598, 127 S.Ct. 2553, 168 L.Ed.2d 424 (2007) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Put another way, "[t]he plaintiff must show that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as a result of the challenged official conduct and the injury or threat of injury must be both real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical." City of Los Angeles v. Lyons , 461 U.S. 95, 101-02, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Because this case is no longer at the pleading stage, Plaintiffs "cannot rest on mere allegations, but must set forth [standing] by affidavit or other evidence specific facts." Sierra Club v. Trump , 977 F.3d 853, 865 (9th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, although "the proof required to establish standing increases as the suit proceeds ... the standing inquiry remains focused on whether the party invoking jurisdiction had the requisite stake in the outcome when the suit was filed. " Gonzalez v. U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enf't , 975 F.3d 788, 803 (9th Cir. 2020) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).

These standards are satisfied here. Ms. Galan Mejia contends that she was wrongfully denied the opportunity to apply to, and potentially receive benefits under, the Program. Bradley v. T-Mobile US, Inc. , 2020 WL 1233924, *8 (N.D. Cal. 2020) ("It is well-established that the denial of an opportunity to obtain a benefit is itself an injury in fact."). The City states that applicants must meet the following requirements: they must provide "acceptable documentation of both a COVID-19 crisis and Phoenix residency." (Doc. 77 at 6.) Ms. Galan Mejia stated in her declaration that she lives in Phoenix and that she has been financially harmed by the pandemic. (Doc....