United States Ninth Circuit

In an action to enjoin California legislation that reduces the state contribution to wages paid to In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) providers as preempted by Section 30(A) of the Medicaid Act, a grant of the injunction is affirmed where: 1) both the legislature and the Department of Social Services recognized that reimbursement rates - that is, providers' wages and benefits - were directly correlated to ensuring that services were consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care, and sufficient to ensure access to services under the IHSS program; 2) the state should have studied the impact of its decreased contribution to providers' wages and benefits prior to passing Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code section 12306.1(d)(6), and the State was not ipso facto immunized from challenges to its actions because it had no system in place to make such an assessment; and 3) the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that plaintiffs established irreparable harm absent injunctive relief, as its finding regarding provider harm was not clearly erroneous.

Appellate Information

• Argued 01/19/2010
• Decided 03/03/2010
• Published 03/03/2010

Judges

• Before: STEPHEN REINHARDT, WILLIAM A. FLETCHER and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Stephen P. Berzon, Scotta A. Kronland, Stacey M. Leyton, Peder J. Thoreen, and Anne N. Arkush of Altshuler Berzon LLP, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellees., Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General of California, Douglas N. Press, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Susan M. Carson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Gregory D. Brown and Michael A. Zwibelman, Deputy Attorneys General, San Francisco, CA, for the State defendants-appellants.