## Facts

- Low-income women and children in Philadelphia received benefits under the federal WIC program after being certified as eligible and at nutritional risk.
- Federal WIC regulations required administering agencies to maintain hearing procedures for adverse actions and to inform participants of hearing rights at initial certification and at termination.
- Philadelphia’s WIC caseload exceeded its maximum authorized level, triggering use of a federally required priority system to allocate benefits.
- To admit higher-priority applicants, the City identified certain current participants for termination based on priority categories.
- The affected participants were told orally that their benefits would be terminated.
- The City did not provide contemporaneous written termination notices stating reasons, effective date, or renewed information about hearing rights and how to request a hearing.
- Participants filed a class action against municipal and state health officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and damages, asserting violations of WIC regulations and federal rights enforceable through 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
- The district court found regulatory noncompliance and granted relief, including damages that included emotional-distress components.
- Defendants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether WIC regulations required written, contemporaneous termination notice that includes reasons, effective date, and hearing-rights information, and whether oral notice plus prior certification-stage notice sufficed.
2. Whether WIC participation constituted a protected interest requiring adherence to mandated termination procedures.
3. Whether WIC statutory and regulatory procedural protections were enforceable by participants through a private action, including under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
4. Whether the district court’s remedies, including emotional-distress damages, were permissible and adequately supported by evidence.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit upheld the determination that defendants violated WIC regulations by terminating participants without contemporaneous written notice that included hearing-rights information.
- The court rejected the “substantial compliance” argument that prior certification-stage notice and oral termination notice satisfied the regulatory requirements.
- The court allowed participant enforcement of the relevant WIC procedural protections, including via § 1983, at least as to the notice-and-hearing provisions at issue.
- The court scrutinized damages—especially emotional-distress awards—and required a record-based showing of actual compensable injury, limiting awards that were not adequately supported.

## Legal Principles

- WIC administering agencies must provide clear, contemporaneous notice when taking adverse action (including termination or priority-based removal), and must inform affected participants at that time of the right to a fair hearing and how to invoke it.
- Oral notice and reliance on general information provided at initial certification do not satisfy regulatory notice-and-hearing requirements for termination decisions.
- Procedural protections in a federal benefits program may constitute enforceable rights for beneficiaries and may be actionable under § 1983 absent clear congressional preclusion.
- Compensatory damages for procedural-rights violations, including emotional distress, require proof of actual injury; awards must be grounded in evidence rather than analogies or assumed harm.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit treated WIC’s termination notice and hearing provisions as mandatory, enforceable protections: when Philadelphia removed participants under a priority system, it had to provide contemporaneous written notice and renewed hearing-rights information, and liability for damages turned on proof of actual compensable injury rather than presumed distress.


Alexander v. Polk, 750 F.2d 250 (3d Cir. 1984)