City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 05 April 1976
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT, CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Respondent; Lois LONG et al., Real Parties in Interest. Civ. 38249.

Page 712

128 Cal.Rptr. 712

57 Cal.App.3d 44

The CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT, CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Respondent Lois LONG et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Civ. 38249.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2, California.

April 5, 1976.

Hearing Denied June 9, 1976.

Thomas M. O'Connor, City Atty., Kevin M. O'Donnell, Deputy City Atty., San Francisco, for petitioners.

Frederick P. Furth, Furth, Fahrner & Wong, Clyde W. Stitt, Law Offices of Clyde W. Stitt, Gilbert T. Graham, San Francisco Lawyers' Committee for Urban Affairs, San Francisco, for real parties in interest.

KANE, Associate Justice.

This petition for extraordinary relief presents the question of the duty of the City and County of San Francisco to relieve and support its indigent and dependent poor as required by the provisions of sections 17000 and 17001 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. ¹

Section 17000 provides that 'Every county and every city and 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 state or private institutions.' (Emphasis added.)

Section 17001 provides that 'The board of supervisors of each county, or the agency authorized by county charter, Shall adopt standards of aid and care for the indigent and dependent poor of the county or city and county.' (Emphasis added.)

This matter arose when real parties in interest, lawful residents of San Francisco and recipients of welfare benefits under the General Assistance Program of the City and County of San Francisco, sought by mandate to compel the City and County of San Francisco to adopt standards of aid and care for its indigent and dependent poor, contending that although required by section 17001 to do so, the city and county had failed to adopt such standards. Real parties also contended that the general assistance benefits provided by the City and County of San Francisco are arbitrarily low and insufficient to enable them to obtain the means of life, and that section 17000 impliedly requires the city to provide benefits sufficient to meet their minimum needs.

After a hearing on the application for writ of mandate, respondent superior court entered an order directing the Social Services Commission to conduct a public hearing on notice to determine the facts necessary to establish standards of aid and care for the indigent and dependent poor of the City and County of San Francisco and to submit its finding relating to said standards to the court, with the further provision that the court would thereafter 'determine said standards' and make such other and further orders as it deemed appropriate. Petitioners seek mandate in this court to compel respondent court to vacate its order and prohibition to restrain respondent court from conducting any further proceedings in this action, contending that respondent court has usurped their legislative responsibilities and that they have no remedy by appeal. ² We issued an alternative writ.

We begin with an examination of section 17000. It is clear that section 17000 imposes upon the City and County of San Francisco a mandatory duty to relieve and support its indigents, and the excuse that it cannot afford to do so is unavailing (Mooney v. Pickett (1971) 4 Cal.3d 669, 676, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231; County of Los Angeles v. Payne (1937) 8 Cal.2d 563, 573--575, 66 P.2d 658; San Francisco v. Collins (1932) 216 Cal. 187, 190, 13 P.2d 912). Thus, in County of Los Angeles v. Payne, the court upheld an emergency resolution appropriating $1,000,000 over the amount provided for in the budget for the relief of the poor and indigent, holding that the expenditures provided in the resolution were mandatory expenditures required by law. In San Francisco v. Collins, it was held that a county's duty to support its indigents was mandatory; and the court permitted the county to issue bonds for the support of the large numbers of persons who had become indigent through unemployment, as an alternative to the usual method of taxation. And in Mooney v. Pickett, the court rejected San Mateo's contention that it could not afford to extend general assistance benefits to employable single males, taking note that general assistance was the 'residual fund by which indigents who cannot qualify for and under any specialized aid programs can still obtain the means of life.' In each of these cases, the Supreme Court considered the plight of th taxpayers, but in each case concluded that their burdens were not so grievous as to permit indigents in the midst of plenty, to go hungry, cold and naked, without fault (County of Los Angeles v. Payne, supra, 8 Cal.2d at p. 573, 66 P.2d 658; Mooney v. Pickett, supra, 4 Cal.3d at p. 680, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231).

That the language of section 17001 likewise imposes a mandatory duty upon the City and County of San Francisco to adopt standards of aid and care for the indigent and dependent poor of the city and county is settled by the use of the word 'shall.' Section 15 specifies that "'Shall' is mandatory . . ." (Mooney v. Pickett, supra at p. 676, fn. 7, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231).

At the hearing in the superior court, testimony taken from Dianne Feinstein, President of the Board of Supervisors, Yori Wada, a commissioner of the Social Services Commission, and Kenneth Bryant, then acting general manager of the Department of Social Services, established that the monthly maximum grant under San Francisco's flat-grant system of providing relief to persons on general assistance is $83 for men and $88 for women. San Francisco's neighboring counties all have higher grant levels. The general assistance grant in Marin is $195, in Santa Clara $148, in San Mateo $143, in Alameda $115, and in Contra Costa $113. The evidence was all to the effect that no standards of aid and care had been adopted by the board of supervisors, the Social Services Commission or the Department of Social Services, and that the Department of Social Services had been forced to divide among the indigent and dependent poor such sums as the mayor and the board of supervisors had deigned to appropriate.

The evidence shows that on December 16, 1974, after conducting a study of the General Assistance Program in San Francisco, the San Francisco Lawyers Committee for Urban Affairs pointed out that the levels of aid extended by San Francisco to its indigents fell far felow all recognized indices of minimum poverty standards, and that the maximum grant levels at that time would have to rise immediately to approximately $140 a month to meet even the lowest minimum poverty standards. The study concluded that San Francisco had been violating state statutes since 1971 in the conduct of its General Assistance Program. ³ The record also shows that on October 30, 1974, Supervisor John Barbagelata, by memorandum, called the attention of the members of the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors to the 'inhumane' level of assistance resulting from actions of the board. Despite the foregoing, nothing has been done since then by the board of supervisors or the agency authorized by county Charter to adopt standards of aid and care, or to increase the level of aid, and the plight of the indigents, already dire, has deepened with the continued escalation in the cost of living.

The City and County of San Francisco contends that although the amounts of aid provided arguably may be inadequate, such amounts are substantial, and, indeed, not a sham, and that respondent court, having been confronted with uncontraverted evidence that the City and County of San Francisco has made a 'colorable' effort to provide relief for its indigent and dependent poor, should stop any further inquiries. The City and County of San Francisco relies upon County of L.A. v. Dept. 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, 971, 115 Cal.Rptr. 540; Adkins v. Leach (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 771, 778--779, 95 Cal.Rptr. 61; and Patten v. County of San Diego (1951) 106 Cal.App.2d 467, 470, 235 P.2d 217, in which the courts interpreted section 17001 to confer upon the counties a broad discretion to determine eligibility for, the type and amount of, and conditions to be attached to indigent relief. That interpretation was qualified in Mooney v. Pickett, supra, wherein the court pointed out that 'This discretion, however, can be exercised only within fixed boundaries. In administering General Assistance relief the county acts as an agent of the state. (San Francisco v. Collins (1932) 216 Cal. 187, 192, 13 P.2d 912.) When a statute confers upon a state agency the authority to adopt regulations to implement, interpret, make specific or otherwise carry out its provisions, the agency's regulations must be consistent, not in conflict with the statute, and reasonably necessary to effectuate its purpose. (Gov.Code, § 11374.) . . .' (4 Cal.3d p. 679, 94 Cal.Rptr. p. 285, 483 P.2d p. 1237.)

Although section 17001 provides the vehicle by which the City and County of San Francisco Must implement the provisions of section 1700, it is clear that the City and County of San Francisco has failed to...