Beaulieu v. City of Lewiston

• Decision Date: 27 January 1982
• Parties: Rita BEAULIEU v. CITY OF LEWISTON et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 334

440 A.2d 334

Rita BEAULIEU v. CITY OF LEWISTON et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Sept. 15, 1981.

Decided Jan. 27, 1982.

Karen B. Herold, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. (orally), Lewiston, for plaintiff.

John B. Cole, Asst. City Atty. (orally), Frederick G. Taintor, City Atty., Fredda Wolf, Stephen Filler, Corp. Counsel, Lewiston, for defendants.

Before McKUSICK, C. J., and GODFREY, NICHOLS, ROBERTS, CARTER, VIOLETTE and WATHEN, JJ.

CARTER, Justice.

The plaintiff, Rita Beaulieu, appeals from an order of summary judgment issued by the Superior Court (Androscoggin County) dismissing her action which challenged, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as unconstitutional, a provision of the Lewiston General Assistance Ordinance. Plaintiff additionally challenges, under 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 5951-5963, the ordinance as illegal because it conflicts with the statutory mandate set forth in 22 M.R.S.A. ch. 1251 §§ 4450-4508, the enabling act for municipal general assistance programs. We affirm in part but vacate in part and remand to the Superior Court.

I.

Each Maine municipality is required to establish and operate a general assistance program. 22 M.R.S.A. § 4504(1). A "general assistance program" is statutorily defined as

a service administered by a municipality for the immediate aid of persons who are unable to provide the basic necessities essential to maintain themselves or their families. A general assistance program provides a specific amount and type of aid for defined needs during a limited period of time and is not intended to be a continuing "grant-in-aid" or "categorical" welfare program. This definition shall not in any way lessen the responsibility of each municipality to provide general assistance to a person each time that the person has need and is found to be eligible to receive general assistance.

22 M.R.S.A. § 4450(2). Eligibility for relief is governed by the municipal ordinance which establishes the general assistance program. Inter alia, these standards of eligibility "(g)overn the determination of need of persons applying for relief and the amount of assistance to be provided to eligible persons...." 22 M.R.S.A. § 4504(3)(A). An "eligible person," in turn, is one "who is qualified to receive general assistance from a municipality according to standards of eligibility determined by the municipal officers ..." and set forth in the ordinance. 22 M.R.S.A. § 4450(1).

Availability of relief under the Lewiston ordinance is predicated on a bifurcated inquiry. First, the applicant must be found eligible for general assistance, a finding primarily dependent on a determination of need. Lewiston Rev. Ordinances ch. 13A, § 13A-35 (1979). This section defines need

as the existence of a deficiency between available resources and necessary expenses; an applicant whose available resources in the form of income and assets are insufficient to meet necessary expenses for himself and/or his family and who otherwise meets the above eligibility requirements (consisting primarily of the applicant's specific assets) is entitled to assistance from the City of Lewiston.

Upon a determination that the applicant is eligible for general assistance, however, additional guidelines controlling the amount and kind of assistance are invoked. Included among these guidelines is Lewiston Rev. Ordinances ch. 13A, § 13A-51(B) (1979) ¹ which prohibits the Overseer from making mortgage or interest payments on a private dwelling or trailer.

The plaintiff, a resident of Lewiston, owns and lives in a mobile home which is subject to a security interest. Monthly mortgage payments amount to $84.57. After the secured party sent a "right to cure notice" to the plaintiff, who was unemployed at the time, she twice applied to the Lewiston Welfare Department in December 1979 for mortgage payment assistance. The Overseer ² of Lewiston's general assistance program denied these requests for aid pursuant to section 13A-51(B) of the Lewiston ordinance. Assistance for lot rental payments and food payments, on the other hand, was granted to the plaintiff. A fair hearing, held pursuant to 22 M.R.S.A. § 4507 and Lewiston Rev. Ordinances ch. 13A, § 13A-54, resulted in an affirmance of the Overseer's denial of mortgage payment assistance. The fair hearing officer noted that although the plaintiff was found eligible for general assistance on the basis of need, mortgage payment assistance is not an "allowable expense" under the assistance guidelines. Denial of the assistance was thus thought to be proper.

Having exhausted her administrative remedies, the plaintiff commenced an action in the Superior Court challenging both the legality of section 13A-51(B) of the ordinance under the enabling statutes, 22 M.R.S.A. §§ 4450-4508, and the constitutionality of the ordinance under equal protection principles. The Superior Court issued an order of summary judgment in favor of the defendants, finding the ordinance to be proper under the general assistance statutes and to be constitutional, and dismissing the complaint. ³ From this order, the plaintiff appeals.

Summary judgment may be ordered "only 'when the facts before the court so conclusively preclude ... (a party's) recovery that judgment in favor of the other party is the only possible result,' " Gagne v. Cianbro Corp., Me., 431 A.2d 1313, 1319 (1981), quoting Wallingford v. Butcher, Me., 413 A.2d 162, 165 (1980), because, on the basis of facts not subject to genuine dispute, the prevailing party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. M.R.Civ.P. 56(c). As this case is now postured before us, we must determine whether the lower court properly found that there is no genuine issue of material fact and, if so, whether the court's application of law to these facts was correct. See Karantza v. Salamone, Me., 435 A.2d 1384 (1981); Salamone v. City of Portland, Me., 398 A.2d 49 (1979).

We conclude that there exists an outstanding issue of material fact as to the plaintiff's eligibility for general assistance under 22 M.R.S.A. §§ 4450-4508. Summary judgment was therefore improper as to the state law statutory claim. The plaintiff's assertion of a distinct constitutional challenge against the City and the named individual defendants, presented in reliance upon 42 U.S.C. § 1983, requires us also to consider whether the Lewiston ordinance fails under the strictures of equal protection principles because of the potential difference in the scope of remedy available under that section from that available under state law.

II.

We first consider the plaintiff's equal protection ⁴ challenge to the ordinance, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ⁵ The plaintiff contends that the ordinance embodies an unconstitutional distinction between tenants, to whom rental payment assistance is available, and owners of homes or trailers, who are denied mortgage payment assistance. The ordinance is thus thought to treat the class of relief applicants who rent shelter in an unconstitutionally dissimilar manner from the class of relief applicants who are purchasing shelter.

It is clear that governmental efforts to alleviate social and economic problems may draw constitutionally sound distinctions among beneficiaries if the dissimilar treatment is rationally related to the objectives of those efforts. Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U.S. 221, 230, 101 S.Ct. 1074, 1080, 67 L.Ed.2d 186, 195 (1981); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970); Lambert v. Wentworth, Me., 423 A.2d 527, 531 (1980); Shapiro Brothers Shoe Co. Inc. v. Lewiston-Auburn Protective Association, Me., 320 A.2d 247, 256 (1974). The party challenging the classification bears the burden of demonstrating by clear and irrefutable evidence its arbitrariness and irrationally discriminatory nature. Warren v. Municipal Officers of Gorham, Me., 431 A.2d 624, 628 (1981); Ace Tire Co., Inc. v. Municipal Officers of Waterville, Me., 302 A.2d 90, 100 (1973). Further, the law will be upheld if there exists any conceivable state of facts which justifies the distinction. ⁶ Warren, 431 A.2d at 628. McNicholas v. York Beach Village Corp., Me., 394 A.2d 264, 269 (1979). Thus, even if the classification lacks mathematical precision, the law survives constitutional scrutiny unless there exists no conceivable set of facts which prevents the characterization of the renter/owner distinction as arbitrary, invidious, or irrational.

The Equal Protection Clause is not offended by the systematic denial of public assistance to a particular group of applicants if the identification of that group and the treatment to which it is exposed enjoys a reasonable basis and does not result in invidious discrimination. The body of federal jurisprudence examining general and categorical assistance laws demonstrates that governmental allocations of welfare resources may be predicated on generalized characterizations of the classes of persons most needy and deserving of that assistance. Such generalizations however, are necessarily imperfect and consequently result both in some over-inclusiveness, allowing benefits to those not as truly needy as the government had intended to require, and in some under-inclusiveness, denying benefits to those whom, on an individual basis, the government would have intended to provide assistance.

In the seminal case of Dandridge v. Williams, the Court considered an equal protection challenge against a Maryland regulation which imposed a ceiling on the amount of general assistance to which a single family was entitled. Recognizing that the maximum grant regulation both encouraged the recipient to seek employment and also effected financial parity between the recipient and the working poor, the Court held the regulation to be rationally based and thus constitutionally sound. 397 U.S. at 486-87, 90 S.Ct. at 1162, 25 L.Ed.2d at 502-03. In so holding, the Court recognized that the assistance ceiling, as understood in light of the two...