Gardner v. County of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 25 April 1995
• Docket Number: No. B078619,B078619
• Citation: 34 Cal.App.4th 200,40 Cal.Rptr.2d 271
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Edward GARDNER, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, etc., Defendants and Respondents.

Page 271

40 Cal.Rptr.2d 271

34 Cal.App.4th 200

Edward GARDNER, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, etc., Defendants and Respondents.

No. B078619.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

April 25, 1995.

Rehearing Denied May 17, 1995.

Review Denied July 13, 1995.

Richard A. Rothschild, Robert D. Newman, Clare Pastore, Katherine E. Meiss, Western Center for Law and Poverty, Paul Tepper, Westside Legal Services, Los Angeles, Lewis Hollman, Pacoima, Esther Epstein, Tim Whisman, San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, Pacoima, Mark Rosenbaum, Los Angeles, Nancy Minte, Stacy Chapman and Patrick Dunlevy, Inner City Law Center, for plaintiffs and appellants.

DeWitt W. Clinton, County Counsel, Roberta M. Fesler, Asst. County Counsel, Steven J. Carnevale, Principal Deputy County Counsel, Patrick A. Wu, Principal Deputy County Counsel, and Ada Treiger, Sr. Deputy County Counsel for defendants and respondents.

Catherine I. Hanson, Astrid G. Meghrigian, San Francisco, and Lois Richardson as amicus curiae on behalf of appellants.

CROSKEY, Acting Presiding Justice.

The plaintiffs, a class of indigent residents of Los Angeles County ("the County") who receive aid through the County's general assistance ("GA") program, appeal from denial of a preliminary injunction. This class action lawsuit ¹ for declaratory relief and petition for a writ of mandate was filed in response to a plan by the County to reduce its general relief cash grants from $293 to $212 per person per month. The latter figure was calculated by deeming health care in County medical facilities to be "in-kind aid," and by crediting a portion of its cost against the County's obligation under Welfare & Institutions Code section 17000 to provide general assistance to the indigent. ² The County contends it is authorized by Welfare & Institutions Code section 17000.5 to do this. ³

We are compelled to disagree. Section 17000.5 allows only the value of in-kind aid to be credited against a county's obligations under section 17000. Based upon the record before us, and upon the law which has been brought to our attention by the parties and through our independent research, we conclude that "aid," as used in the statute, does not include medical care. We therefore reverse the trial court's order denying the preliminary injunction and direct that the preliminary injunction be granted.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

1. Background.

In the fiscal years of 1992 through 1994, the County suffered ongoing funding crises, requiring cuts in the levels of numerous public services, including sheriff and fire services, welfare, the courts, children's services, the District Attorney and the Public Defender Because GA is an unfunded state mandate, the County estimated that a quarter of its property tax revenues would be consumed by GA if pre-1993 grant levels were maintained. Of greater concern, the County found itself unable to meet its financial requirements in order to obtain state matching funds for its health care programs. ⁴ In order to meet these requirements, the County initiated its program of deeming the health care it provided to GA recipients to be in-kind aid, deductible from GA cash grants.

probation services, the coroner, beaches, harbors, libraries and parks.

The County's legal authority to deduct health care costs in this manner is limited by the applicable provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code. Section 17000 requires every county in the state to "relieve and support" the poor. In furtherance of this duty, section 17001 requires counties to adopt "standards of aid and care" for the indigent and dependent poor. ⁵ Section 17000.5, which was enacted as an emergency measure on June 30, 1991 (Stats.1991, ch. 91 (Assem.Bill No. 948), §§ 34, 42), overrules previous judicial authority which required the standard of aid to be based upon a specific factual study of actual subsistence costs of living in each county (see, e.g., Whitfield v. Board of Supervisors (1991) 227 Cal.App.3d 451, 460, 277 Cal.Rptr. 815; Boehm v. Superior Court (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 494, 501-502, 223 Cal.Rptr. 716), and authorizes counties to adopt a "general assistance standard of aid" equal to 62 percent of the 1991 federal official poverty line. (Oberlander v. County of Contra Costa (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 535, 542, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 182.) As amended by emergency measures in September of 1992 (Stats.1992, ch. 719 (Assem.Bill No. 1012), §§ 14 and 17) Stats.1992, ch. 721 (Assem.Bill No. 2883) §§ 1 and 3; Stats.1992, ch. 722 (Sen.Bill No. 485), §§ 139 and 154, section 17000.5 also expressly authorizes counties to satisfy part of their GA obligation through in-kind aid.

During the 1991-1992 fiscal year (commencing July 1, 1991 and ending June 30, 1992), the County's GA grant was governed by the terms of a stipulated judgment entered in a lawsuit, Mendly v. County of Los Angeles (LASC Case, 1991, No. BC 017558). The case was filed in December of 1989 by a class of GA recipients. The stipulated judgment, entered on June 11, 1991, approximately three weeks before the enactment of section 17000.5, established grant levels for a period of five years.

Under the terms of the stipulated judgment, the GA cash grant was $341 per person per month, plus an annual clothing allowance of $111. In September of 1992, the Legislature enacted an uncodified emergency measure which nullified all stipulated judgments like the one entered in Mendly. (Stats.1992, ch. 721 (Assem.Bill No. 2883), § 2.) ⁶ Accordingly, as of July 1, 1993, under the formula established in section 17000.5, the County was entitled to cap its general relief payment at $285, plus the clothing However, the County found this reduction in its GA obligation inadequate to meet its fiscal crisis. The County then acted to credit its health care services to the indigent against its GA obligation and thereby reduce the cash grants to $212. Under the County's plan, which has now presumably been put into effect, health care is characterized as in-kind aid. It is deemed to be provided through membership in the County's Community Health Plan ("CHP") in which all GA recipients are automatically enrolled. The value of participation in the plan, which the County has set at $73 per month, is applied toward the County's obligation under section 17000.5, and is accordingly deducted from the amount paid as a cash grant.

allowance, which the County did not purport to disturb. This cap was put into effect in September of 1993.

2. Proceedings in the Trial Court

The named plaintiffs, Edward Gardner, Martin Figueroa, Terry Akison, Kelly McConnell, Raymond Johnson and Patricia Thornton, represent the class of poor residents of the County who receive assistance through the County's GA program (hereafter, "plaintiffs"). They filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief and for a writ of mandamus in August of 1993 in an effort to prevent the County from reducing their cash grants, as planned, to $212 per month.

The grant reductions were scheduled to take effect on September 1, 1993. On August 13, 1993, the plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction which would prohibit the County from implementing the reductions. After a hearing held on September 7, 1993, the court denied the motion, finding denial was required by Oberlander v. County of Contra Costa, supra, 11 Cal.App.4th 535, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 182 (hereafter, "Oberlander "). ⁷

CONTENTIONS

Plaintiffs contend that "aid," within the meaning of section 17000.5 does not include medical care, thus free medical care provided by a county cannot be deemed "in-kind aid," and its costs cannot be deducted from GA cash grants under that section.

DISCUSSION

1. Principles Governing Review.

Trial courts consider two interrelated questions in deciding whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction: (1) are the plaintiffs likely to suffer greater injury from a denial of the injunction than the defendants are likely to suffer from its grant? (2) is there a reasonable probability that the plaintiffs will prevail on the merits? (Robbins v. Superior Court (1985) 38 Cal.3d 199, 206, 211 Cal.Rptr. 398, 695 P.2d 695.)

The decision to grant or deny a preliminary injunction generally rests in the sound discretion of the trial court. (IT Corporation v. County of Imperial (1983) 35 Cal.3d 63, 69, 196 Cal.Rptr. 715, 672 P.2d 121.) However, in this case, the trial court ruled that the balance of harms favors the plaintiffs and denied the preliminary injunction only because it believed section 17000.5, as construed in Oberlander, supra, required that result. The correctness of the court's order thus depends entirely upon the proper construction and application to be given section 17000.5. On that matter we exercise independent judgment. (Tobin v. Oris (1992) 3 Cal.App.4th 814, 825, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 736.)

2. Balance of Harms

The trial court found that the balance of harms favored the plaintiffs in this matter. This finding was plainly within the trial court's discretion, where the plaintiffs' declarations establish that many will be--and presumably by now have been--rendered homeless by the cuts in cash grants which reduced the income of many residents below their monthly rent, and which the County insists it is authorized to make. Thus, plaintiffs clearly have satisfied the first requirement for a preliminary injunction.

3. Likelihood of Succeeding on the Merits.

However, the second hurdle over which plaintiffs must climb in order to justify their request for a preliminary injunction is far more complicated. The critical question is whether health care is properly included as a part of the general assistance standard of aid as the County contends. We address this issue by first considering the trial court's misplaced reliance on the Oberlander decision; we then discuss the historical circumstances which demonstrate that health care and the GA grant program have been...