Boehm v. County of Merced

• Decision Date: 07 January 1985
• Citation: 163 Cal.App.3d 447,209 Cal.Rptr. 530
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Irene BOEHM et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. COUNTY OF MERCED et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. F003195.

Page 530

209 Cal.Rptr. 530

163 Cal.App.3d 447

Irene BOEHM et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. COUNTY OF MERCED et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. F003195.

Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

Jan. 7, 1985.

[163 Cal.App.3d 449] Richard A. Rothschild and Melinda R. Bird, Western Center on Law and Poverty, Los Angeles, Paul Babwin, Chris Marie Brown and Eugenie Denise Mitchell, Fresno County Legal Services, Inc., Merced, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Margo Anne Feinberg, Economic Rights Taskforce Nat. Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, amicus curiae, for plaintiffs and appellants.

William E. Gnass, County Counsel, Angil P. Morris, Deputy County Counsel, Merced, for defendants and respondents.

OPINION

HAMLIN, Associate Justice.

Plaintiffs appeal from a Merced County Superior Court judgment denying injunctive relief from a reduction in Merced County's general assistance grant levels for its indigent residents.

The principal issue on appeal is whether defendants acted arbitrarily and capriciously in reducing Merced County's general assistance grant levels without a factual determination of the minimum subsistence needs of its residents. We will conclude that defendants' action was arbitrary and reverse the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On May 24, 1983, the Merced County Board of Supervisors (the board) reduced county general assistance grant levels for indigent county residents from $198 per month per individual, a level which had not been increased since 1981, to $175 per month, with proportional reductions for larger family sizes. This 12 percent reduction became effective July 1, 1983.

On June 23, 1983, plaintiffs, who are indigent residents of Merced County and recipients of general assistance, filed this action for injunctive and declaratory relief. The trial court denied plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order and issued an order to show cause re preliminary injunction.

Following the order to show cause hearing, the trial court issued an order denying a preliminary injunction. This order did not include a statement of the trial court's reasons for the denial.

At the hearing on the order to show cause the trial court had before it the following: (1) the deposition of the chairman of the board; (2) the deposition of Merced County's principal administrative analyst; (3) copies of documents submitted by the Merced County Department of Human Resources in support of its general assistance reduction recommendation; (4) the declaration of Dean Richmond, the director of the Merced County Department of Human Resources; (5) the declaration of the board chairman; and (6) the declaration of Grover Omyer, deputy director of Merced County Department of Human Resources. None of these documents included a minimum subsistence needs study.

Although Grover Omyer's declaration stated that a minimum subsistence needs study was made and other declarations referred to such a study, none stated that such a needs study was submitted to the board in support of the recommended reduction in general assistance levels. The board had before it at the time it approved the reduction of general assistance levels Merced County's principal administrative analyst's recommendation that the Department of Human Resources "be directed to complete a survey to determine subsistence requirements and reasonable duration of unemployment period for employable persons prior to any adjustment of grant levels." Nevertheless, the board proceeded to approve the general assistance reductions based on a survey comparing the general assistance standards of other San Joaquin Valley counties. The board was informed only that a study had been made, the general assistance caseload had been increased and there was a need for budget cuts.

The trial court noted the absence of any study of the needs of Merced County's general assistance recipients before the board other than the comparison survey which the trial judge characterized as not a study because it failed to analyze the situation in Merced County. The court then concluded that the information on which the board acted was barely sufficient to satisfy the requirements of Welfare and Institutions Code sections 17000 and 17001. ¹

Plaintiffs appealed from the court's order denying their request for a preliminary injunction against the general assistance grant reduction. That order did not mention defendants' procedure for terminating general assistance payments despite plaintiffs' challenge of the procedure as violative of due process. Plaintiffs on appeal urge that the trial court erred in rejecting their due process argument.

DISCUSSION

I. Did the Board Act Arbitrarily or Capriciously in Reducing Merced County's General Assistance Grant Levels Without Making a Factual Determination of Minimum Subsistence Needs Within the County?

To determine whether the board acted arbitrarily or capriciously in reducing the general assistance level in Merced County, we must consider the board's statutory duty.

Section 17000 provides in relevant part that "Every county ... shall relieve and support all incompetent, poor, indigent persons, and those incapacitated by age, disease, or accident, lawfully resident therein, when such persons are not supported and relieved by their relatives or friends, by their own means, or by state hospitals or other state or private institutions." (Emphasis added.) This section imposes upon Merced County "a mandatory duty to relieve and support its indigents, and the excuse that it cannot afford to do so is unavailing." (City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 44, 47, 128 Cal.Rptr. 712. See also Mooney v. Pickett (1971) 4 Cal.3d 669, 676, fn. 7, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231 [the use of "shall" in § 17000 means, pursuant to § 15, a mandatory duty].)

Similarly, section 17001 imposes a mandatory duty on the board of supervisors of each county to adopt standards of aid and care for the indigent and dependent poor. (City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court, supra, 57 Cal.App.3d at p. 47, 128 Cal.Rptr. 712.) However, despite the existence of these broad mandatory duties the county supervisors have discretion to determine eligibility for, the type and amount of, and conditions to be attached to indigent relief. (See County of L.A. v. Depart. of Social Welfare (1953) 41 Cal.2d 455, 458, 260 P.2d 41; Berkeley v. Alameda County Bd. of Supervisors (1974) 40 Cal.App.3d 961, 115 Cal.Rptr. 540.) The courts have no authority to interfere " 'in the absence of a clear showing of fraud or arbitrary or capricious conduct....' " (Adkins v. Leach (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 771, 778-779, 95 Cal.Rptr. 61.) Nonetheless, the board's discretion can be exercised only within fixed boundaries and consistent with the underlying purpose of the statutes which impose the duty. (See Mooney v. Pickett, supra, 4 Cal.3d at p. 679, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231.)

Sections 17000 and 17001 should be interpreted along with section 11000:

"The provisions of law relating to a public assistance program shall be fairly and equitably construed to effect the stated objects and purposes of the program."

Under the authorities reviewed, our primary concern in this case is whether the board acted arbitrarily in reducing the general assistance payments without having made a factual determination of the minimum subsistence needs of its indigent residents.

In City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court, supra, 57 Cal.App.3d 44 128 Cal.Rptr. 712, the court held that a county must make a determination of facts necessary to establish subsistence standards within the county. We believe this determination of facts necessarily includes the minimum subsistence needs of the county's indigent residents to satisfy the statutory mandate that the county relieve and support its indigents.

Defendants do not argue that the board did not have the duty to determine minimum subsistence needs of its indigents. Rather, defendants contend the board fulfilled its duty by delegating responsibility to the Department of Human Resources to make the required determination and to recommend revised subsistence standards based on that determination.

We recognize that practical considerations dictate delegation of the responsibility for making a factual survey or study. However, section 17001 requires that the board adopt the standards of aid and care, and City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court, supra, requires the board to make a determination of facts necessary to establish subsistence standards. The board cannot fulfill its duties simply by adopting standards the Department of Human Resources recommends based on a study or survey which is not submitted to the board either in writing or by oral reports describing precisely what was surveyed or studied, the nature and scope of the study or survey and its results. Absent such information there is nothing in the record to establish a basis for a factual determination.

In this case it is undisputed that a written factual study of subsistence needs of Merced County's indigents was not submitted to the board. Moreover, a review of the transcript of the board meeting at which the reduced standards were adopted reveals no oral report of such a study other than that a study was made. The declarations and other evidence before the trial court do not establish that a subsistence needs study was described to the board. Thus, the survey comparing general assistance levels in the San Joaquin Valley counties was the only factual material before the board at the time it adopted the reduced subsistence standards. Although there may be rough similarities in living costs between different rural counties in a general geographical area, there was no evidence that grant levels in other counties were adequate. That general assistance recipients in a few San Joaquin Valley counties may subsist at inhuman levels does not lend...