City and County of San Francisco v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 26 September 1985
• Citation: 218 Cal.Rptr. 445,172 Cal.App.3d 652
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Claude M. THOMPSON, Defendant and Respondent. A023426.

Page 445

218 Cal.Rptr. 445

172 Cal.App.3d 652

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Claude M. THOMPSON, Defendant and Respondent.

A023426.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Sept. 26, 1985.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 25, 1985.

Review Denied Dec. 18, 1985.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Gloria F. DeHart, Mary A. Roth, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and appellant.

Timothy J. Lee, Arnold C. Ellis, Thomas W. Pulliam, San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, San Francisco, for defendant and respondent.

POUCHE, Associate Justice.

The City and County of San Francisco appeals from a judgment denying the county reimbursement from a father for public assistance funds paid to his child and her mother for any period prior to the date of a court order establishing the father's liability for child support.

I.

After trial by the court on stipulated facts, the court found that reimbursement claims upon fathers against whom there is no order for child support but whose children have received public assistance denies the fathers' equal protection because no similar retrospective liability existed for fathers against whom there is no order for child support but whose children have not received public assistance. We reverse, finding that there is a rational basis for the Legislature's differential treatment embodied in Welfare and Institutions Code section 11350 ¹ of parents whose offspring receive public assistance.

Claude Thompson is the father of Karina Thompson, born to Rochelle Ginethal on March 13, 1971. The parents, who were never married, parted ways in 1972, in Philadelphia. In 1975 Thompson saw the mother and daughter again in San Francisco, but did not learn that his daughter needed financial aid. Beginning April 1, 1977, mother and daughter began receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (hereafter AFDC) from the County of San Francisco. Those benefit payments totalled $11,579 by April 1, 1981, although the parties stipulated that Thompson would only be liable for $1,000 or the amount which he had the ability to pay from 1977 to 1981, less what he had actually contributed during that period.

In January 1979, Thompson learned from the San Francisco district attorney's office that Karina and her mother were receiving AFDC payments. Thompson acknowledged paternity of Karina and stipulated to an order requiring that he pay $50 a month toward her support beginning April 1, 1981. Thompson's contention, however, that he was not liable for benefits paid prior to the entry of the child support order, was accepted by the trial court. It found that section 11350 is a denial of equal protection because "[t]here is no reasonable basis for treating absent fathers whose children are support[ed] by public assistance differently than absent fathers whose children are not support[ed] by public assistance."

II.

The trial court held section 11350 unconstitutional on its face as violative of the equal protection guarantee of the California Constitution because that section treats differently, without a rational basis, two classes of noncustodial parents--those whose children are recipients of public assistance and those whose children are not. ²

Unless a fundamental interest or a suspect class is involved, statutory classifications are tested against the "traditional" or "restrained" standard of review applicable to most economic and social welfare legislation. (Weber v. City Council (1973) 9 Cal.3d 950, 958-959, 109 Cal.Rptr. 553, 513 P.2d 601.) Although the "traditional" test has been set out in various formulas, they all require in substance that the classifications created by the state be rationally related to a legitimate state purpose and tailored to accomplish that purpose. (Cooper v. Bray (1978) 21 Cal.3d 841, 847-848, 148 Cal.Rptr. 148, 582 P.2d 604; Newland v. Board of Governors (1977) 19 Cal.3d 705, 711, 139 Cal.Rptr. 620, 566 P.2d 254.)

Two classes of parents are created by section 11350. Both classes are noncustodial parents, in practice generally fathers, against whom there is no court order for child support. If the parent having custody of the minor child receives public assistance in the form of AFDC payments, then the noncustodial parent may be obliged to reimburse the county for such payments under section 11350 to the extent that the reimbursement does not exceed the parent's ability to pay. No such liability exists, however, for a similarly situated parent whose child does not receive public assistance. That parent will only be liable prospectively for child support payments once they are set by a court support order. The parent whose child was not on public assistance has no liability for the child's support prior to the commencement of the action seeking support.

Neither party contends that noncustodial parents of children on public assistance are a suspect class, or that the liability imposed upon such parents by section 11350 impinges upon a fundamental interest. Therefore, the appropriate standard of review is the traditional or rational purpose test employed by the trial court.

Under the "traditional" or "restrained" standard of review our task on appeal is to conduct " 'a serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the correspondence between the classification and the legislative goals'...." (Newland v. Board of Governors, supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 711, 139 Cal.Rptr. 620, 566 P.2d 254.) As preamble to that inquiry it is necessary, however, to look briefly at the nature of the AFDC benefit program under which San Francisco was seeking reimbursement.

A. Federal AFDC Scheme

AFDC has been characterized as an exercise in " 'cooperative federalism'...." (Mitchell v. Swoap (1973) 35 Cal.App.3d 879, 883, 113 Cal.Rptr. 75.) It is a grant-in-aid program established by the federal government and governed in turn by federal statute, federal regulation, state statute and state regulation. (County of Alameda v. Carleson (1971) 5 Cal.3d 730, 739, 97 Cal.Rptr. 385, 488 P.2d 953; Del Costello v. State of California (1982) 135 Cal.App.3d 887, 891, 185 Cal.Rptr. 582.)

Federal statutes and regulations require that parent recipients of AFDC assign to the state as a condition of receiving benefits any rights to support which they or their children may have. (42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(26)(A); 45 C.F.R. § 232.11.) The federal government requires states to maintain programs for establishing paternity of AFDC children born out of wedlock. (42 U.S.C. § 654; 45 C.F.R. § 302.31.)

Under federal law a noncustodial parent is liable to reimburse the state either for the amount specified in a court support order or, if there is no court order, for the "amount determined by the State in accordance with a formula approved by the Secretary...." (42 U.S.C. § 656(a)(1).) A state formula which fulfills this requirement is defined in the accompanying regulation as another "legal process as established by State laws, such as an administrative hearing process or a legally enforceable and binding agreement...." (45 C.F.R. § 302.50(a)(2).) To the extent California's section 11350 seeks reimbursement of benefit funds paid before there has been a support order or an administrative determination of paternity, the section is not mandated by federal AFDC law or regulation.

B. California Law

Section 11350 is one of various statutes which require responsible relatives to reimburse the state for support payments. Similar "responsible relative" legislation has been consistently upheld against equal protection challenges. (Swoap v. Superior Court (1973) 10 Cal.3d 490, 502-507, 111 Cal.Rptr. 136, 516 P.2d 840 [adult child must reimburse for aid furnished needy or poor parent]; In re Ricky H. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 513, 518-521, 86 Cal.Rptr. 76, 468 P.2d 204 [parent must reimburse cost of counsel provided child in juvenile proceeding]; In re Dudley (1966) 239 Cal.App.2d 401, 404-412, 48 Cal.Rptr. 790 [parent must reimburse for commitment of mentally deficient child]; County of Alameda v. Kaiser (1965) 238 Cal.App.2d 815, 817-818, 48 Cal.Rptr. 343 [parent must reimburse hospital costs of child].)

California's responsible relative statutes are modern descendants of the seventeenth century Elizabeth Poor Law which imposed support obligations for the poor and needy upon those of their relatives able to pay. (tenBroek, California's Dual System of Family Law: Its Origin, Development, and Present Status, Part I (1964) 16 Stan.L.Rev. 257.) Liability under the Poor Law for illegitimate children extended only to the mother and the putative father because, as Professor tenBroek explains, "[n]atural duty, moral responsibility, and voluntary assumption of liability by the act of begetting point[ed] at least to the parent...." (Id., at pp. 283, 285.)

Section 11350 is but the most recent attempt by the state to encourage recovery of aid payments made to needy children from parents who have failed to meet their support obligation. In 1955, in response to ever lengthening welfare rolls, the Legislature added section 1506.5, predecessor to section 11350. ³ The new section authorized counties to bring suit against a parent with ability to pay in order to recover benefits previously paid on behalf of a needy child. The statute was a specific response to the mushrooming costs of the Aid to Needy Children Program. As the Committee report on the bill explained, "To provide assistance to a needy child when the father is deceased, incapacitated or confined in a medical or penal institution is a responsibility of society. However, to provide public assistance to a needy child while permitting the father to evade his moral responsibility to provide support for his child due to lax enforcement policies and practices has created a growing concern among legislators and citizens interested in maintaining present standards of assistance to needy children." (Emphasis added.) (Interim...