## Facts

- Vermont’s Department of Social Welfare administered the Food Stamp Program, Aid to Needy Families with Children (ANFC), and Supplemental Fuel Assistance.
- Federal and state rules required timely eligibility decisions: food stamps within 30 days; ANFC within the state-set period not exceeding 45 days, and Vermont required ANFC decisions within 30 days, absent applicant-caused delay.
- During 1990–91, applicants and community organizations reported increasing delays beyond the required time limits for food stamps and ANFC.
- Julie Robidoux filed a § 1983 action challenging unlawful processing delays; Kathleen Rock and Margaret Bevins intervened.
- Plaintiffs sought to represent a class of current and future applicants whose applications for food stamps, ANFC, and/or fuel assistance were unlawfully delayed.
- Plaintiffs submitted agency documents indicating monthly delays affecting approximately 22 to 133 applicants for food stamps or ANFC over the prior year; comparable data for fuel assistance was unavailable due to its seasonal nature.
- After the suit was filed, the named plaintiffs received benefits retroactively.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court applied the wrong Rule 23(a)(1) numerosity standard by requiring joinder to be “impossible” rather than “impracticable.”
2. Whether Rule 23(a)(3) typicality supported certification for food stamp and ANFC delay claims based on an alleged common practice of delay, and how typicality applied to fuel-assistance claims when the named plaintiffs lacked such claims.
3. Whether the action became moot when the named plaintiffs received benefits, or whether delay-based claims are inherently transitory such that class claims relate back to the complaint’s filing.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit vacated the judgment and remanded.
- The court held the district court used an incorrect legal standard for numerosity; Rule 23(a)(1) requires impracticability, not impossibility, of joinder.
- On the record, numerosity was satisfied for the food stamp and ANFC claims given documented monthly delays affecting dozens of applicants, the statewide dispersion of applicants, and their economic disadvantage.
- The court held the case was not moot because the challenged injury—unlawful delays in processing subsistence benefits—was inherently transitory and capable of repetition yet evading review, permitting relation back in the class-action context.
- The court directed certification of a class for food stamp and ANFC delay claims and instructed the district court to reconsider class treatment of fuel-assistance claims under the proper standards.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 23(a)(1) numerosity is met when joinder is impracticable; impracticability does not require impossibility and may be shown through class size, geographic dispersion, and practical barriers such as economic hardship.
- Rule 23(a)(3) typicality is satisfied when named plaintiffs’ claims are reasonably coextensive with those of the class and arise from the same challenged practice, even if individual circumstances differ.
- In class actions challenging short-lived harms, claims may avoid mootness when the injury is inherently transitory and capable of repetition yet evading review; class certification may relate back to the filing of the complaint even if named plaintiffs later receive relief.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit required application of Rule 23’s impracticable-joinder standard, held delay-based public-assistance claims were inherently transitory and not mooted by retroactive payment to named plaintiffs, and remanded for certification of a food stamp and ANFC delay class with reconsideration of fuel-assistance claims.


Robidoux v. Celani, 987 F.2d 931 (2d Cir. 1993)