Plaintiffs have pointed to numerous decisions in which the use of section 1983 to enforce rights pursuant to Title IV-D has not been questioned. See, e.g., Bennett v. White, 865 F.2d 1395 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S.Ct. 3247, 106 L.Ed.2d 593 (1989); Mosley v. Bowen, 703 F. Supp. 1288, 1292 (S.D.Ohio 1989). In contrast, plaintiffs argue that Title IV-D was enacted for the benefit of custodial parents and their children.
III. A. After a hearing on the parties' cross motions for summary judgment, the district court granted the plaintiff's motion 703 F. Supp. 1288 (1989). The court found that there was no dispute as to material facts and that the plaintiff was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The Beasley decision has found some support in subsequent district court cases. For example, inMosley v. Bowen, 703 F. Supp. 1288, 1292-93 (S.D. Ohio 1989),rev'd, 920 F.2d 409 (6th Cir. 1990), the court cited approvingly to Beasley. However the Sixth Circuit later reversed the district court's ruling in Mosley and thereby rejected Beasley.
Therefore, the statute and the regulations are at odds on the issue of timing with regard to when a payment should be credited. Prior to the January 1, 1989 amendments, the appropriate interpretation of the statute should have been to allow the plaintiffs an entitlement to pass throughs from all collected monthly support payments whether or not they were actually received in the month when due. Wilcox v. Ives, 864 F.2d 915 (1st Cir. 1988) and Mosley v. Bowen, 703 F. Supp. 1288 (S.D.Oh. 1989). Because the regulation and statute differed prior to the January 1, 1989 amendments, on the issue of the number of pass throughs allowed, AFDC-assisted plaintiffs may be entitled to retroactive relief for the federal defendants' failure to allow more than one pass through from October 1984 to December 31, 1988. Having made this finding, I now determine that the federal defendants are not entitled to judgment as a matter of law and further find that there exists a factual determination which must be made on a more complete record with regard to which monthly support payments were passed through and at what point they were credited. Pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, summary judgment is inappropriate and will be denied.
A substantive change has been made, and the change does not diminish the validity of the order finding the challenged regulations unlawful under the original statute. See Mosley v. Bowen, 703 F. Supp. 1288 (S.D. Ohio 1989). The legislative history supports this conclusion despite references to a "clarifying amendment."