Darces v. Woods

• Decision Date: 20 April 1984
• Citation: 35 Cal.3d 871,679 P.2d 458,201 Cal.Rptr. 807
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 679 P.2d 458 Bernadette DARCES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Marion WOODS, as Director, etc., Defendant and Respondent. L.A. 31620.

Page 807

201 Cal.Rptr. 807

35 Cal.3d 871, 679 P.2d 458

Bernadette DARCES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Marion WOODS, as Director, etc., Defendant and Respondent.

L.A. 31620.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

April 20, 1984.

Rehearing Denied July 12, 1984.

Hugh Harrison, Erica Hahn, Byron J. Gross, Los Angeles, Edward Ortega, South Gate, Marilyn Kaplan Katz and Melinda Bird, Los Angeles, for plaintiff and appellant.

John Huerta, Linda Wong, Los Angeles, Richard Pearl, Delano, Stefan Rosensweig, Christine Hely, Mark Rosenbaum, Los Angeles, Peter Reid, Redwood City, and Peter A. Schey, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of plaintiff and appellant.

George Deukmejian, Former Atty. Gen., and John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Thomas E. Warriner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Anne S. Pressman and Elizabeth Hong, Deputy Attys. Gen., for defendant and respondent.

REYNOSO, Justice.

May the state disadvantage citizen children eligible for governmental assistance on the basis that they live with their brothers and sisters who are undocumented aliens? We hold that the equal protection clause of the California Constitution does not permit that disparate treatment.

Bernadette Obando Darces is an undocumented alien and working mother whose income is insufficient to meet the subsistence needs of her six children, three of whom are native-born citizens. Her three older children--Marisol, Pablo and Carlos--are ineligible for assistance under the Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) ¹ program because of their undocumented immigration status. However, her three younger children--Larry, Jorge and Guido--as citizens are eligible to be, and were in fact recipients of an AFDC grant at the time this litigation was instituted.

This case concerns a decision by defendant Marion Woods, as director of the State Department of Social Services (DSS), reducing the grant received by Ms. Darces for the benefit of her three citizen children. In particular we consider the validity, under state and federal law, of administrative regulations which authorize DSS to assume that Ms. Darces' total income is available only to the citizen children without taking into account the fact that a portion of her earned income must of necessity be allocated to meet the needs of her other children.

The department's policy and practice, Mrs. Darces complains, deny her citizen children the minimum grant amount the state has determined is necessary to prevent deprivation--the amount provided to all other eligible children. She asks this court to recognize that the policies of the department and the state clash with the daily reality confronting her family, and urges us to hold that DSS cannot employ the presumption that all of her income is available to the citizen children. After all, she argues, she has a moral and statutory obligation to feed, clothe and house her three undocumented children. Her arguments, in essence, coalesce into a basic contention that the state may not punish and severely disadvantage her citizen children who, by accident of birth, must live under the same roof as their undocumented brothers and sisters. She advances both statutory and constitutional arguments in support of this position.

Ms. Darces first contends that the challenged policy and practice are inconsistent with the applicable state and federal laws governing administration of the AFDC program. She argues that the department's regulations, by not recognizing the undocumented children as an integral part of the family unit and not considering their needs in determining the amount of income available to the citizen children, directly conflict with the primary purpose and paramount concerns of the AFDC program--protecting needy children from economic deprivation. The citizen children, she asserts, have the right to have the amount of her income actually available to them calculated in a fair and realistic manner.

We believe these arguments have considerable force as a matter of policy. Nevertheless, our review of the applicable provisions of state and federal law leads us to reject the statutory contention advanced by Ms. Darces. We will conclude that the department's policy of not considering the needs of undocumented children is consistent with the governing regulatory and statutory scheme.

Ms. Darces' alternative contention is that the department's regulations single out eligible children living with undocumented siblings for disparate treatment, in violation of equal protection under the state and federal Constitutions. We are therefore confronted with the task of passing on the constitutionality of state statutes and regulations which permit DSS to engage in the challenged practice.

At the outset we emphasize for conceptual clarity that Ms. Darces does not claim that undocumented aliens have a constitutional right to AFDC. Our focus, then, is on the disparate treatment accorded Ms. Darces' citizen children in the limited context of those cases, as here, wherein AFDC eligible children share the same home with undocumented siblings. Accordingly, we need not consider the more difficult question whether the purposeful, statutorily mandated discrimination in the welfare area against undocumented aliens because of their undocumented status violates equal protection. (Compare Plyler v. Doe (1982) 457 U.S. 202, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786.)

As indicated, we are of the view that settled constitutional principles and social policy considerations unite in this case to point towards one result. We look to the California Constitution. For the reasons discussed below, we hold that the DSS regulations and state statute in issue sanction the allocation of burdens and benefits in a manner violative of the command of equal protection under the law.

I

Bernadette Darces (appellant), a resident of Los Angeles County, is a single parent who received AFDC benefits in 1979. The nub of her problem is this: Because her three undocumented children are ineligible for aid, appellant is subjected to the legal fiction that she has only three needy children. Thus, she received an AFDC grant for her family of six children calculated by DSS to provide the minimum amount necessary to maintain a subsistence standard of living for a family of three children. It matters not that the eligible children live with three other needy children; the undocumented children do not exist for purposes of the AFDC program--they are neither "dependent children" nor "essential persons" in the regulatory jargon.

This inequity was not alleviated when appellant was able to obtain employment. The present controversy arose when DSS, in reducing the grant to the citizen children in the amount of the mother's nonexempt income, refused to disregard, or otherwise take into account, that portion of her earnings necessary to support the undocumented children. Appellant is thereby subjected to a second legal fiction: it is presumed that her total income is exclusively available to the citizen children and that she has no obligation to support the undocumented children. In effect, DSS not only refused to support the undocumented children, it refused to permit the mother to support them.

The facts are undisputed. Prior to March 1979, appellant received a monthly AFDC grant of $356 for the benefit of her three eligible children. The amount was calculated by Los Angeles County (county), as the agent of DSS in the administration of the AFDC program, in accordance with the method set forth in the Manual of Eligibility and Assistance Standards (EAS). The amount of an AFDC grant is based on the number of persons living in the home who are eligible for assistance. (See 42 U.S.C. § 602.) The EAS, promulgated by defendant Marion Woods (respondent) pursuant to his authority as director ² of DSS to implement the AFDC program in California (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 10553), contains provisions defining the persons eligible for inclusion in the family budget unit (FBU). (See EAS § 44-203 et seq.) Due to their undocumented alien status, appellant and her three older children are ineligible for AFDC (45 C.F.R. § 233.50) ³ and are excluded from the FBU for purposes of determining the amount of the AFDC grant (EAS § 44-206.1). ⁴ Accordingly, appellant's $356 grant was the maximum aid payable (MAP) for a three-person FBU under the statutory guidelines in effect in 1979. (See Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11450.)

On February 13, 1979, appellant was sent formal notice of proposed action advising her that her AFDC grant would be reduced. The county proposed to reduce appellant's grant from $356 a month to $154 a month because her employment income in January 1979, when this case originated, was $557.98. (The county is authorized to reduce an AFDC grant, under EAS § 44-315.1, when "[t]here is a change in need [or] income ...") In computing the revised grant amount, the county deducted $269 from appellant's income for such expenses as child care and transportation costs. (See EAS §§ 44-133.3, 44-315.4.) This resulted in a net income of $269. The county is authorized to grant an additional deduction for appellant's personal needs even though she is an undocumented alien. ⁵ The county determined appellant's personal needs to be $67 a month. The needs of appellant's undocumented children were not considered, however, and no deduction from appellant's income was allowed for their needs. After these deductions and credits, appellant's remaining nonexempt income was calculated to be $202. The AFDC grant for the benefit of her eligible children was therefore determined to be $154, the $356 MAP for a three-member FBU having been reduced by $202 which represents the amount of appellant's earned income deemed available to her three citizen children. ⁶

In March 1979, appellant filed a request for a fair hearing with DSS challenging the proposed reduction in her AFDC grant by the above computation. The county's position, set out in the report of the...