COUNTY SETTLES SUIT FILED BY DRUG TEST TAKERS

Screening Was Required For Welfare

Thousands of former welfare applicants will share in a $1.2 million
settlement of a legal challenge to Contra Costa County's use of a
controversial written test to identify substance abusers.

Deputy County Counsel Bernard Knapp announced yesterday that the
county has agreed to compensate applicants who were forced into drug
and alcohol abuse treatment based on the test results.

Civil rights attorneys filed a class-action suit against Contra Costa
in 1995, saying the test wrongly identified many applicants as
substance abusers and funneled half the client population into an
arduous six-month treatment program as a condition of receiving
general assistance grants.

Checks were withheld from those who refused to take the test, refused
treatment or failed to complete the substance abuse program.

Each applicant who lost benefits after taking the test from 1994 to
1997 will receive about $300, the equivalent of a monthly general
assistance grant, assuming the settlement is approved by U.S. District
Judge Maxine Chesney. The three lead plaintiffs, Jerry Hunsaker,
Martha Jensen and Hubert Hardge, will each receive $10,000.

Brad Seligman, an attorney for the applicants, said the lawsuit has
blocked county efforts to reduce its welfare rolls by raising
unnecessary hurdles for the destitute.

``It stopped the county from using a wildly inaccurate test as a
bludgeon to force people off general assistance,'' Seligman said.

Deputy County Counsel Bernard Knapp said welfare advocates failed to
prove their case in court, but the county settled to avoid a costly
trial. Chesney ordered the county in 1995 to stop using the test, but
an appeals court overturned that injunction in July.

Knapp acknowledged, however, that the lawsuit spurred changes in the
assessment procedure and that a study showed the test was ``less than
accurate.''

Seligman said the study indicated that half the people sent to
treatment were not chemically dependent, while the questionnaire
failed to identify half the applicants with substance abuse problems.

The county stopped giving the test, called the Substance Abuse Subtle
Screening Instrument (SASSI), in 1997 after Chesney issued the
injunction. Contra Costa did not revive the test after an appeals
court in San Francisco upheld the county's right to administer the
questionnaire, as long as a counselor made the final decision to
require drug treatment after a client interview.

Seligman said the plaintiffs may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if
the county does not promise to refrain from using the test in the future.

He said the true-false exam includes invasive questions about
applicants' personal beliefs such as ``I believe everything is turning
out just the way the Bible said it would.''

Under the settlement, the county will be required to use newspaper
ads, postings and a toll-free telephone line to alert former
applicants, numbering as many as 5,000, who may be eligible for the
payments. Claim forms will likely go out next spring if the agreement
is finalized. Any unclaimed amounts will be donated to soup kitchens
and other agencies that serve Contra Costa's homeless population.

In separate proceedings, Chesney will determine whether the county
must pay attorneys' fees to Seligman and other civil rights lawyers on
the case.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry