DAMICO et al. v. CALIFORNIA et al.
No. 629,
Misc.
Decided December 18, 1967.
George F. Duke for appellants.
Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General of California, and Richard L. Mayers and Elizabeth Palmer, Deputy Attorneys General, for appellees.
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 appellants 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 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 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 671. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 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.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations