Carleson v. Remillard 8212 250

• Decision Date: 07 June 1972
• Docket Number: No. 70,70
• Citation: 32 L.Ed.2d 352,406 U.S. 598,92 S.Ct. 1932
• Parties: Robert B. CARLESON et al., Appellants, v. Nancy REMILLARD, etc., et al. —250
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

406 U.S. 598

92 S.Ct. 1932

32 L.Ed.2d 352

Robert B. CARLESON et al., Appellants,

v Nancy REMILLARD, etc., et al.

No. 70—250.

Argued April 10, 1972.

Decided June 7, 1972.

Syllabus

This is a class action for injunctive and declaratory relief by a child and mother whose husband is away from home on military duty, challenging the validity of California's Department of Social Welfare Regulation EAS § 42—350.11, pursuant to which they had been denied Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits. Though California incorporates in its AFDC eligibility provisions the 'continued absence' concept of the Social Security Act, under which a dependent child 'deprived of parental support . . . by reason of (a parent's) continued absence from the home,' is deemed eligible for AFDC benefits, EAS § 42—350.11 excludes absence because of military service from the definition of 'continued absence.' The District Court granted the relief sought. Held: Section 402(a)(10) of the Social Security Act imposes on each State participating in the AFDC program the requirement that benefits 'shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals.' Under the Act the eligibility criterion of 'continued absence' of a parent from the home means that the parent may be absent for any reason. Consequently, that criterion applies to one who is absent by reason of military service, and California's definition is invalid under the Supremacy Clause. Pp. 600—604.

325 F.Supp. 1272, affirmed.

Jay S. Linderman, San Francisco, Cal., for appellants.

Carmen L. Massey, Richmond, Cal., for appellees, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellees are mother and child. The husband enlisted in the United States Army and served in Vietnam. The mother applied for Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits at a time when the amount of the monthly allotment she received by virtue of her husband's military service was less than her 'need' as computed by the California agency and less than the monthly AFDC grant an adult with one child receives in California. She was denied relief. Although the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 301 1394, grants aid to families with 'dependent children,' and includes in the term 'dependent child' one 'who has been deprived of parental support or care by reason of . . . continued absence from the home,' 42 U.S.C. § 606(a), California construed 'continued absence' as not including military absence. It is unquestioned that her child is in fact 'needy.'

When the husband's allotment check was stopped, appellee again applied for AFDC benefits. She again was denied the benefits, this time because California had adopted a regulation¹ which specifically prohibited the payment of AFDC benefits to needy families where the absence of a parent was due to military service.

This action is a class action seeking a declaration of the invalidity of the regulation and an injunction re- straining its enforcement on the ground that it conflicts with the Social Security Act and denies appellees the Fourteenth Amendment rights of due process and equal protection.

A three-judge District Court was convened and by a divided vote granted the relief sought. 325 F.Supp. 1272. The case is here by appeal. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1253, 2101(b). We noted prohable jurisdiction, 404 U.S. 1013, 92 S.Ct. 670, 30 L.Ed.2d 660.

Section 402(a)(10) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(10), places on each State participating in the AFDC program the requirement that 'aid to families with dependent children shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals.' 'Eligibility,' so defined, must be measured by federal standards. King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118. There, we were faced with an Alabama regulation which defined a mother's paramour as a 'parent' for § 606(a)(1) purposes, thus permitting the State to deny AFDC benefits to needy dependent children on the theory that there was no parent who was continually absent from the home. We held that Congress had defined 'parent' as a breadwinner who was legally obligated to support his children, and that Alabama was precluded from altering that federal standard. The importance of our holding was stressed in Townsend v. Swank, 404 U.S. 282, 286, 92 S.Ct. 502, 505, 30 L.Ed. 448:

'King v. Smith establishes that, at least in the absence of congressional authorization for the exclusion clearly evidenced from the Social Security Act or its legislative history, a state eligibility standard that excludes persons eligible for assistance under federal AFDC standards violates the Social Security Act and is therefore invalid under the Supremacy Clause.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In Townsend, we also expressly disapproved the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare HEW policy which permitted States to vary eligibility requirements from the federal standards without express or clearly implied congressional authorization. Ibid.

Townsend involved § 406(a)(2)(B) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 606(a)(2)(B), which includes in the definition of 'dependent children' those 'under the age of twenty-one and (as determined by the State in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary (of HEW)) a student regularly attending a school, college, or university, or regularly attending a course of vocational or technical training designed to fit him for gainful employment.' Illinois had defined AFDC eligible dependent children to include 18—20-year-old high school or vocational school children but not children of the same age group attending college. We held that § 606(a)(2)(B) precluded that classification because it varied from the federal standard for needy dependent children. Involved in the present controversy is another eligibility criterion for federal matching funds set forth in the Act, namely the 'continued absence' of a parent from the home. If California's definition conflicts with the federal criterion then it, too, is invalid under the Supremacy Clause.

HEW's regulations for federal matching funds provide² that:

'Continued absence of the parent from the home constitutes the reason for deprivation of parental support or care when the parent is out of the home, the nature of the absence is such as either to interrupt or to terminate the parent's functioning as a provider of maintenance, physical care, or guidance for the child, and the known or indefinite duration of the absence precludes counting on the parent's performance of his function in planning for the present support or care of the child. If these con- ditions exist, the parent may be absent for any reason, and he may have left only recently or some time previously.'

The Solicitor General advises us that although HEW reads the term 'continued absence' to permit the payment of federal matching funds to families where the parental absence is due to military service, it has approved state plans under which families in this category are not eligible for AFDC benefits.³ HEW has included 'service in the armed forces or other military service' as an example of a situation falling under the above definition of 'continued absence.' HEW Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, pt. IV, § 3422.2.

Our difficulty with that position is that 'continued absence from the home' accurately describes a parent on active military duty. The House Report speaks of children 'in families lacking a father's support,' ...