Wilson v. Lyng, 88-1557

Citation856 F.2d 630
Decision Date30 November 1988
Docket NumberNo. 88-1557,88-1557
PartiesAnnie WILSON; Gloria Green, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Richard LYNG, in his official capacity as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Defendant-Appellant, and David T. Flaherty, in his official capacity as Secretary of N.C. Department of Human Resources; Millie Brown, in her official capacity as Director of the Duplin County Department of Social Services; John Syria, in his official capacity as Director of the N.C. Division of Social Services; J.F. McKeithan, in his official capacity as Director of the Richmond County Department of Social Services, Defendants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Richard Alan Olderman (Leonard Schaitman, Civil Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C.; J. Douglas McCullough, U.S. Atty., Raleigh, N.C., John R. Bolton, Asst Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., on brief) for defendant-appellant.

John L. Saxon, Hillsbough, (North State Legal Services, Inc.; Richard M. Klein, Mason T. Hogan, Legal Services of the Lower Cape Fear, on brief), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before CHAPMAN, WILKINSON, and WILKINS, Circuit Judges.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

In this class action, food stamp claimants challenge the Secretary of Agriculture's regulations enforcing certain provisions of the Food Stamp Act. The regulations implement the Act's "voluntary quit" provision, which disqualifies households from participating in the food stamp program when the head of the household voluntarily quits his or her job without good cause. The district court invalidated the regulations. We reverse.

I.

The voluntary quit provision of the Food Stamp Act, first enacted in 1977, provides that:

[N]o household shall be eligible to participate in the food stamp program ... (ii) if the head of the household voluntarily quits any job without good cause, but, in such case, the period of ineligibility shall be ninety days.

7 U.S.C. Sec. 2015(d)(1)(B)(ii). The Act does not define "head of household," but grants to the Secretary the authority to "issue such regulations consistent with [the Act] as [he] deems necessary or appropriate." 7 U.S.C. Sec. 2013(c).

Pursuant to that authority, the Secretary promulgated regulations in 1978 defining "head of household" for purposes of the voluntary quit provision as the "primary wage earner." 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.7(c) (1980). The term "primary wage earner" was defined as "that household member age 18 or over who was acquiring the greatest amount of earned financial support for the household at the time of the quit." 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.7(c)(1)(ii) (1980).

The Secretary promulgated new regulations in 1986. These regulations define "head of household" for purposes of the voluntary quit provision as the "principal wage earner," and define "principal wage earner" as "the household member ... who is the greatest source of earned income in the two months prior to the month of the violation." 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.1(d) (1988). In certain respects, the 1986 regulations are less stringent than their predecessors. The 1986 regulations exempt from the definition of "principal wage earner" anyone who works less than twenty hours per week, earns less than a stated minimum, or lives with a parent or person fulfilling the role of parent who meets certain requirements. 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.1(d)(2) (1988).

The named plaintiffs in this suit were disqualified under the 1978 regulations. Annie Wilson was a 63-year old disabled woman who lived with her three sons and received social security disability benefits. When her son became employed in 1986, her food stamp benefits were reduced, and when he voluntarily quit his job, Wilson's household was disqualified. Gloria Green lived with her two minor children and her 22-year old brother-in-law Robin. Robin quit his job in July, 1986, and Green's household was disqualified when she applied for food stamps in September of that year.

Wilson and Green brought a class action on behalf of all food stamp applicants denied benefits after October 24, 1985 under the voluntary quit provision and its corresponding regulations. The district court found both the 1978 and 1986 regulations inconsistent with congressional intent, and invalidated them. Wilson v. Lyng, 662 F.Supp. 1391 (E.D.N.C.1987).

II.

The district court appears to have viewed its role as one of passing on the substantive fairness of the regulations as applied to the named plaintiffs. It found the regulations "unjust," and held that they failed "to treat individuals fairly." 662 F.Supp. at 1395. In the Wilson case, for example, the district court found it unjust that the Secretary's definition permitted a son who quit his job without cause to disqualify the entire household from receiving benefits. Id.

In so doing, the district court misconceived its function. Legislation and regulation necessarily involve inclusion and exclusion along general lines that may affect particular individuals in ways that seem arbitrary or unfair. It is the duty of the legislature and its delegates, however, not the courts, to weigh the general benefit of laws against the possibility that they will unfairly burden particular individuals. Knebel v. Hein, 429 U.S. 288, 294, 97 S.Ct. 549, 553, 50 L.Ed.2d 485 (1977); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 487, 75 S.Ct. 461, 464, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955). As the Third Circuit has noted, "concern for a particularized situation is not grounds for voiding a regulation designed to deal with thousands of cases.... In a social welfare case we must recognize the 'limitations on the practical ability of the State to remedy every ill.' " Lugo v. Schweiker, 776 F.2d 1143, 1150-51 (3d Cir.1985), (quoting Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2394, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982)).

In this case, it was the province of Congress and the Secretary to weigh the needs of individual recipients like Wilson and Green against the broader needs of the food stamp program. The voluntary quit provision clearly states that the actions of a single individual in quitting a job without good cause may disqualify an entire household. 7 U.S.C. Sec. 2015(d)(1)(B)(ii). Absent constitutional infirmities, the fairness of such a result is simply outside the purview of the courts. Nor may the courts examine the fairness of the Secretary's determination that the actions of a son may disqualify an entire household. Rather, courts are limited to ensuring that the administrative determination was based upon a reasonable construction of the statute. However deserving particular individuals may be, it is not within the courts' power to redraw the balance drawn by Congress and the Secretary.

In striking down these regulations, the district court also misconstrued their effect. It asserted that, under the Secretary's definition, a "child" could be considered a "head of household." 662 F.Supp. at 1394-95. It also stated that the Secretary's definition of that term "punishes teenagers who earn more income than their parents [and] forces teenagers to refrain from working in order to preserve their right to go to school." 662 F.Supp. at 1395.

This Dickensian view of the regulations is unwarranted. First, the regulations do not allow a "child" to be considered the head of a household. The 1978 regulations limit the definition of that term to individuals age eighteen and over, 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.7(c)(1)(ii) (1980), and the 1986 regulations exempt from the definition of principal wage earner any person living with a parent or person fulfilling the role of parent who meets certain requirements. 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.1(d)(2) (1988). The regulations do not affect the ability of anyone to attend school; they specify that attending school constitutes "good cause" for purposes of the voluntary quit provision. 7 C.F.R. Sec. 273.7(n)(3)(iii) (1988). 1 The district court also objected to the fact that, in the case of Green, an individual "not a blood relative of anyone else in the household" was considered head of the household. 662 F.Supp. at 1395. Because a household's members need not be related in order to participate in the food stamp program, United States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 93 S.Ct. 2821, 37 L.Ed.2d 782 (1973), that consideration was not relevant.

III.

The district court ruled that the Secretary's regulations defining "head of household" under the voluntary quit provision of the Food Stamp Act were inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress. Because we find that the Secretary's regulations are based on a permissible construction of the statute, we reverse. See NLRB v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 23, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 413, 421, 98 L.Ed.2d 429 (1987); Chevron, U.S.A. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-82, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984).

Plaintiffs would define "head of household" in a traditional sense. They contend that the term ordinarily means "the person who makes basic decisions about where and how the family will live, who has primary responsibility for the health and well-being of others in the household, and who exercises control over the household," whether or not that person is the primary wage earner. See Anderson v. Lyng, 644 F.Supp. 1372, 1375 (M.D.Ala.1986) ("the person with primary responsibility for the household").

In plaintiffs' view, and in the district court's, the voluntary quit provision of the Food Stamp Act was intended to place a burden, and a corresponding incentive to remain employed, on the traditional family head. Under this view, defining "head of household" as the principal wage earner may contravene congressional intent by removing this burden from the individual "entrusted with the responsibility for the care" of the household and placing it on the primary wage earner even if the latter is not the traditional...

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