Stroop v. Bowen, s. 88-2530
| Decision Date | 31 May 1989 |
| Docket Number | 88-2538,Nos. 88-2530,s. 88-2530 |
| Citation | 870 F.2d 969 |
| Parties | Elizabeth STROOP; Melissa Lam, by her next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Bret Lam, by his next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Jamie Stroop, by her next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Geneva Powers; Crystal McClanahan, by her next friend Geneva Powers; Dorothy Brown; Robert Lee Turner, by his next friend Dorothy Brown, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, and Karen B. Carter; Ragene Carter, by her next friend Karen B. Carter; Paula Jones; Cory P. Jones, by his next friend Paula Jones; David L. Jones, Plaintiffs, v. Otis R. BOWEN, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellant, and Larry D. Jackson, Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services, Defendant, Center for Law and Social Policy, Amicus Curiae. Elizabeth STROOP; Melissa Lam, by her next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Bret Lam, by his next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Jamie Stroop, by her next friend Elizabeth Stroop; Geneva Powers; Crystal McClanahan, by her next friend Geneva Powers; Dorothy Brown; Robert Lee Turner, by his next friend Dorothy Brown, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and Karen B. Carter; Ragene Carter, by her next friend Karen B. Carter; Paula Jones; Cory P. Jones, by his next friend Paula Jones; David L. Jones, Plaintiffs, v. Larry D. JACKSON, Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services; Otis R. Bowen, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, Defendants-Appellees, Center for Law and Social Policy, Amicus Curiae. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Robert David Kamenshine (John R. Bolton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert S. Greenspan, Civil Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., Henry E. Hudson, U.S. Atty., Alexandria, Va., on brief), for appellant/cross-appellee.
Jamie Britton Aliperti (Rappahannock Legal Services, Jill A. Hanken, Cherry C. Harman, Virginia Poverty Law Center, Richmond, Va., Claire E. Curry, Charlottesville Legal Aid Society, Charlottesville, Va., Holly S. Peters, Legal Aid Society of Roanoke, Roanoke, Va., Cheryl D. Footman, Norfolk, Thelma Y. Carroll, Tidewater Legal
Aid Society, Virginia Beach, Va., on brief), for appellees/cross-appellants.
(Josephine Foehrenbach, Center for Law and Social Policy, on brief), for amicus curiae.
Before MURNAGHAN and CHAPMAN, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.
In this class action, custodial parents receiving aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services (collectively, the Secretary). The district court upheld the Secretary's interpretation of federal statutes and regulations requiring applicants for AFDC to include, for the purpose of determining family income, brothers and sisters living in the same household who receive Title II social security payments.
The Secretary cross-appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to the parents, requiring the Secretary to disregard as income the first $50 of the Title II social security benefits.
We affirm on both issues.
Plaintiffs are custodial parents who sue in behalf of their children who do not share the same father. In each case, some of the children in the household receive social security payments under Title II of the Social Security Act because of the insured status of their disabled or deceased fathers. Other children in the household receive AFDC only. The custodial parent in each case is the representative payee of the Title II payments, and the applicable statute provides that the representative payee must use the payments for the "use and benefit" of the beneficiary. Failure to do so will result in criminal prosecution. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 407(e). The statute also contains an "anti-alienation" provision, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 407(a), barring transfer of the right to receive future payments and exempting all payments from attachment, garnishment, and other legal process.
Before 1984, a family applying for AFDC was not required to include all resident family members but could exclude in its application family members who received support from other sources. As part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DEFRA), Congress amended the AFDC program to require that a family's eligibility for benefits must take into account the income of parents, brothers, and sisters living in the same home. 1
The Secretary promulgated regulations which have been interpreted to require inclusion of Title II social security payments in the family income for AFDC purposes. 2 In this case, interpreting the amendment to include Title II social security payments will result in substantial diminution of AFDC benefits to each named plaintiff and, in one instance, the elimination of AFDC eligibility altogether.
The parents assert that inclusion of social security payments in the AFDC calculation violates the "anti-alienation" and representative payee provisions of Title II of the Social Security Act.
We join the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits in rejecting the parents' argument. See Gorrie v. Bowen, 809 F.2d 508, 517 (8th Cir.1987), cited with approval in Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 107 S.Ct. 3008, 3013 n. 5, 97 L.Ed.2d 485 (1987); Creaton v. Bowen, 826 F.2d 6 (9th Cir.1987); Oliver v. Ledbetter, 821 F.2d 1507 (11th Cir.1987) (). We adopt the court's reasoning in Gorrie:
The anti-alienation provision imposes a broad bar against the use of any legal process to reach Social Security benefits. The Secretary's regulation does not subject Title II benefits to legal process, however, nor does it result in an assignment or transfer of benefits. It requires only that Title II benefit recipients apply for AFDC and have their incomes included in the family filing unit. This does not constitute a use of legal process to garnish or attach benefits.
Similarly, the parents' contention that inclusion of social security payments violates the representative payee provision is without merit. The parents suggest that including social security payments in family income forces the representative payees to violate their statutory duties by using Title II payments for family members other than the beneficiary. The Supreme Court rejected this argument in the context of child support payments from noncustodial parents and the Court's reasoning is instructive here:
[T]he simple inclusion of support income in the benefit calculation [has no] legal effect on the child's right to have it used for his or her benefit. To the extent that a child has the right to have the support payments used in his "best interest," he or she fully retains that right....
[I]t is instructive to ask what would happen to the support payments if there were no AFDC program at all. In that case, it would appear that custodial parents would have to use a much greater portion of the support payments to sustain the family unit, since it could hardly be deemed in the child's best interest for his custodial parent and siblings to have no funds whatsoever.
Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 107 S.Ct. 3008, 3019-20 & n. 20, 97 L.Ed.2d 485 (1987).
The representative payee provision requires that the funds be used for the "use and benefit" of the beneficiary. Consistent with Gilliard, we hold that requirement does not preclude use of the funds for common household expenses typically shared by all household members, for the child is nonetheless benefited by such use. See Gilliard, 107 S.Ct. at 3016 n. 14. Nor can it be said that spending all of the funds on the child recipient would benefit the recipient if to do so would leave brothers and sisters impoverished.
We also concur with the eighth circuit that Congress intended Sec. 602(a)(38) to be enforced notwithstanding the representative payee provision of Title II. Congress expressly referred to Sec. 405(j), which governs the certification of representative payees and contains the use and benefit restriction. Congress's reference to Sec. 405(j) suggests that it intended to reconcile any possible incongruence between the implementation of section 602(a)(38) and section 405(j). It follows then that a representative payee will not be subject to criminal sanctions for including Title II payments in the family income. See Gorrie, 809 F.2d at 518.
The Secretary's interpretation of the DEFRA amendment accords with legislative history. The Senate Report states that Sec. 602(a)(38) would "end the present practice whereby families exclude members with income in order to maximize family benefits and will ensure that the income of family members who live together and share expenses is recognized and counted as available to the family as a whole." S.Rep. No. 494, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 47, reprinted in 1982 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 781, 823.
The parents claim that Congress rejected the Secretary's interpretation in 1986. Specifically, the Senate proposed an amendment to DEFRA as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which would have removed all doubt that Title II payments were to be included in determining a family's AFDC eligibility. See S.Rep. No. 313, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 1075 (1986). But the House conferees did not accept this amendment.
We do not subscribe to the parents' theory. The Conference Committee Report specifically stated that ...
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