Case: Briggs v. Bremby

On March 5, 2012, the plaintiff filed this class action lawsuit on behalf of all Connecticut residents who, since March 5, 2009 have applied or will apply for food stamps from the Connecticut Department of Social Services in United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. The plaintiff sued the Connecticut Department of Social Services under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiff, represented by public interest lawyers from the Greater Hartford Legal Aid and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, asked the court for injunctive relief for the processing of food stamp applications. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendant was noncompliant with the Food Stamps Act 7 U.S.C. § 2020(e)(3) for application for food stamps. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant was failing to process food stamp applications in a timely manner as well as refusing to properly use the expedited process for eligible food stamp applications. For example, from January 2010 to February 2012, almost 30% of the Department's pending food stamp applications were over 30 days old. This prevented the plaintiff and other similarly situated persons from meeting their nutritional needs.

On December 4, 2012, the court granted a preliminary injunction requiring the defendant to properly process food stamp applications for plaintiff and denied the defendant's motion to dismiss. The defendants appealed the denial to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, docket 14-01328. This appeal was denied without an opinion.

On May 13, 2013, the court signed the preliminary injunction order as well as the order granting class certification. The class was defined as:

"All persons in Connecticut who have applied, who are currently applying, or who will apply in the future and whose application was not timely processed for food stamps as required by 7 U.S.C. § 2020(e)(3) and (e)(9); 7 C.F.R. § 273.2"

On March 24, 2014 the court denied defendant's motion to amend the preliminary injunction. On July 6, 2015 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's preliminary injunction order. 792 F.3d 239 (2d Cir. 2015). On September 8, 2015, the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment.

On May 19, 2016, the case was referred to Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson for settlement conference. Throughout the remainder of 2016, the parties continued to engage in settlement discussions.

The parties reached an agreement on December 16, 2016. The Court dismissed the case as settled and directed the clerk to terminate this file without prejudice to reopening on or before February 20, 2017.

The parties submitted their settlement agreement to the Court for approval on January 5, 2017. The settlement agreement provided that the defendant would comply with the timely requirements for processing food stamps applications. Fully complying with the timely processing required the defendant to meet a 96% timely processing standard, starting no later than the month following the date that the settlement was approved by the Court. The defendant would also enact policies and train staff to meet this timely requirement. The defendant was to provide plaintiff with monthly SNAP Application Timeliness Reports, for the duration of the Order. The Court was to retain jurisdiction over this matter indefinitely until the defendant achieved full compliance of the settlement agreement for 26 months of any 30 month period or for 22 consecutive months, whichever came first. Class notice was to take the form of posting a notice in both English and Spanish in various DSS offices' waiting rooms, on DSS's website, and in the waiting room of Greater Hartford Legal Aid.

The Court preliminarily approved the settlement on January 6, 2017 and scheduled a fairness hearing for March 8, 2017. After the fairness hearing, Judge Bryant granted approval of the settlement on March 9, 2017. On September 11, 2017, the parties entered a stipulation and order of settlement regarding defendant payment of attorney's fees, costs and expenses of $922,000.

On December 1, 2021, the Court terminated its jurisdiction and dismissed the action with prejudice, pursuant to the settlement agreement. The case is closed.