CHILDRENS AND PARENTS RIGHTS ASS'N v. Sullivan, 4:90 CV 297.
| Decision Date | 20 February 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 4:90 CV 297.,4:90 CV 297. |
| Citation | 787 F. Supp. 738 |
| Parties | CHILDRENS AND PARENTS RIGHTS ASSOCIATION OF OHIO, INC., (CAPRA), Plaintiff, v. Louis W. SULLIVAN, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
Robert M. Fertel and Sanford J. Berger, Berger & Fertel, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff.
Lynne H. Buck, Michael Anne Johnson, Office of the U.S. Atty., Cleveland, Ohio, Karen Lee Lazorishak, Office of the Ohio State Atty. Gen., Columbus, Ohio, Robert K. Coulter, Dept. of Justice, Tax Div., Washington, D.C., Loren L. Braverman, Shawn H. Nau, Office of the Atty. Gen., Columbus, Ohio, Steven D. Bell, Janik & Bell, Cleveland, Ohio, David J. Betras, Law Office of David J. Betras and Stuart-Banks, Youngstown, Ohio, for defendants.
The Court has already dismissed Defendants Ohio Department of Human Service and Judge John H. Leskovyansky, and granted summary judgment for defendant Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on most of the issues presented in this litigation. Order of December 11, 1991, 787 F.Supp. 724. The Court also heard oral argument on the remaining issue of due process and now grants summary judgment for HHS.
The background of the federal child support statutes and regulations was provided in detail in the earlier order. 787 F.Supp. at 726-27.1 As previously explained, the present system for determining child support has evolved over the past two decades as a response to widespread dissatisfaction with erratic and occasionally unreasonable results obtained in the absence of clear federal and state policies. The requirement of specific and numeric guidelines and the use of rebuttable presumptions represent only a start and will bear further improvement. But this approach cannot be said to violate due process.
Plaintiff CAPRA has relied on precedents concerning both due process in general and the use of presumptions in particular. Neither area of case law adequately supports its claim that federal child support statutes and regulations fail to comport with constitutional due process.
In a case considering whether an evidentiary hearing was required before termination of Social Security benefits, the Supreme Court has stated the test for determining whether a procedure which results in loss of property comports with due process. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). There, the Court listed the following factors for consideration:
First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interests, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedures would entail.
Id. at 335, 96 S.Ct. at 903. Plaintiff's claim fails on both the second and third prongs of the test.
As a preliminary matter, the Court is mindful of the principle that Mathews, 424 U.S. at 334, 96 S.Ct. at 902 (internal quotations omitted). "What the Fourteenth Amendment does require, however, is an opportunity ... granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner, for a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case." Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 437, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 1158-59, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) (emphasis in original) (internal quotations omitted). See also Yashon v. Hunt, 825 F.2d 1016, 1022 (6th Cir.1987) (), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1032, 108 S.Ct. 2015, 100 L.Ed.2d 602 (1988). Federal child support statutes and regulations provide for a meaningful hearing as tailored for the nature of the case.
The private interest involved in child support is unusual. Plaintiff has admitted that its membership has a legal obligation to pay child support. Plaintiff has boasted that its members are eager to help provide financially for their children. Thus, its argument is not that non-custodial parents are deprived of a property interest whenever they are required to pay child support, but instead that they are deprived if they are made to pay too much. An interest in being assessed a fair amount for child support is sufficient to trigger the remaining requirements for due process.
Accordingly, the Court turns to the second and third prongs of the test under Mathews. The risk of an erroneous deprivation is hard to measure. Inevitably, in setting child support, one or both parents will believe that the result is arbitrary. That dissatisfaction simply is not enough to establish a due process violation. Plaintiff is unable to provide more than a vague claim that its membership is subjected to overly large child support obligations. In a constitutional challenge premised on due process, a plaintiff must identify an aspect of the proceedings that failed to give them adequate notice, a meaningful hearing, or otherwise left them without recourse. In the process of setting child support levels, Plaintiff's membership benefits from notice, presence of counsel, and all the other features of a full hearing. Indeed, given that the challenged statute and regulation require an opportunity to rebut the presumptions obtained from use of state guidelines, a judicial proceeding on child support offers much more of an opportunity to be heard as the administrative procedures at issue in Mathews. If Plaintiff's membership, or parties adverse to them, wish to present mitigating factors or direct the state court's attention to expenses that the guidelines do not take into account, they may do so. Furthermore, Plaintiff has not suggested any additional or substitute procedures that would provide any better method for...
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