SHAPIRO, WELFARE COMMISSIONER OF CONNECTICUT
v.
DOE

U.S. | 1970-01-26
No. 805
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,
396 U.S. 488 Supreme Court of the United States (1970) Caution
Also reported at: 24 L. Ed. 2d 677 · 90 S. Ct. 641 · SCDB 1969-036 · 1970 U.S. LEXIS 3136
Cited by 24 cases
Per_curiam
Per Curiam.

Per Curiam.

The motion of the appellee for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted. The motion to dismiss is also granted and the appeal is dismissed for failure to docket the case within the time prescribed by Rule 13.

Dissent
Mr. Justice Black,

Mr. Justice Black,

with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,

dissenting.

In this case a three-judge United States District Court invalidated a Connecticut state welfare regulation requiring the mother of an illegitimate child to reveal the name of the child’s father as a precondition to receiving welfare assistance on the ground that the regulation imposed an additional condition of welfare eligibility not required or authorized by the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 620, as amended, 42 U.

S. C. §§ 601-610 (1964 ed. and Supp. IV). The case comes to this Court on direct appeal taken by Connecticut welfare officials pursuant to the authorization in 28 U.

S. C. § 1263. There can be no doubt about the fact that this appeal presents a federal question which should be decided here and that this Court has jurisdiction over the appeal since appellee’s statutory claim was initially joined with a constitutional attack upon the Connecticut regulation. Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73 (1960). Yet, the Court today dismisses this appeal on the ground that it was not timely docketed in accordance with Rule 13 (1) of the Rules of the United States Supreme Court.

Rule 13 (1) provides that in cases appealed pursuant to 28 U.

S. C. § 1253 the time limit for docketing the appeal shall be 60 days from the filing of the notice of the appeal. In this case the notice of appeal was properly filed pursuant to 28 U.

S. C. § 2101 (b) on September 2, 1969. The 60-day time limit thus expired on November 1,1969, but appellants did not docket the appeal until Novem-. ber 3, 1969, two days later, one of which was a Sunday. It is because of this minor and essentially technical infraction of its own Rules that the Court today dismisses this important appeal. I cannot agree with such a result. Time defects such as this one involving only a failure to comply with the Rules of this Court do not rise to jurisdictional proportions and can be waived by the Court when the interests of justice so require. Taglianetti v. United States, 394 U. S. 316, n. 1 (1969).

Given the importance of the issue in this case and the harmless, undoubtedly inadvertent nature of appellant’s error, this case seems to me an altogether appropriate one for the waiver of Rule 13 (1).

The Court hardly puts its best foot forward when it dismisses so substantial an appeal on so technical a ground. I would waive the time defect, note probable jurisdiction, and consider the issue presented in this appeal on the merits.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By

  • Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471 (U.S. 1970)
    …needy dependent children in order to correct an arguable fault of their parents. [*526] Cf. Levy v. Louisiana, supra; King v. Smith, supra, at 334-336 (Douglas, J., concurring); Doe v. Shapiro, 302 F. Supp. 761 (D. C. Conn. 1969), appeal dismissed, 396 U. S. 488 (1970). Even if the invitation of the State to focus upon the heads of AFDC families is accepted, the minimum rationality of the maximum grant regulation is hard to discern. The District Court found that of Maryland’s more than 32,000 AFDC families…
  • Rothstein v. Wyman, 467 F.2d 226 (2d Cir. 1972)
    …have in terms remanded the issue of retroactive payments to the state welfare agency for consideration of such complaints as may be filed under the fair hearing regulations. See Doe v. Shapiro, 302 F.Supp. 761, 768 (D.Conn. 1969), appeal dismissed, 396 U.S. 488, 90 S.Ct. 641, 24 L.Ed.2d 677 (1970); Solman v. Shapiro, 300 F.Supp. 409, 416 (D.Conn.), aff’d, 396 U.S. 5, 90 S.Ct. 25, 24 L.Ed.2d 5 (1969).…
  • DOE v. Stegall, 653 F.2d 180 (5th Cir. 1981)
    …F.Supp. 482 (N.D.Iowa 1972) (challenging state welfare regulations conditioning AFDC assistance on recipients’ cooperation with prosecutions of spouses for nonsupport); Doe v. Shapiro, 302 F.Supp. 761 (D.Conn.1969) appeal dismissed on other grounds, 396 U.S. 488, 90 S.Ct. 641, 24 L.Ed.2d 677 (1970) (challenging state welfare regulations conditioning assistance payments to illegitimate children on recipient-mother’s disclosure of the father’s identity). We think the factors common to anonymous party suits i…

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