Gorrie v. Heckler

• Decision Date: 01 April 1985
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4-84-1203.
• Citation: 606 F. Supp. 368
• Parties: Barbara Ann GORRIE, Karen Comnick, Linda Schneider, Robert Schneider, On Behalf of Themselves and Their Minor Children, Plaintiffs, v. Margaret M. HECKLER, Secretary, United States Department of Health and Human Services, and Leonard W. Levine, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Services, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

606 F. Supp. 368

Barbara Ann GORRIE, Karen Comnick, Linda Schneider, Robert Schneider, On Behalf of Themselves and Their Minor Children, Plaintiffs, v. Margaret M. HECKLER, Secretary, United States Department of Health and Human Services, and Leonard W. Levine, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Services, Defendants.

Civ. No. 4-84-1203.

United States District Court, D. Minnesota, Fourth Division.

April 1, 1985.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services by Martha A. Eaves, Thomas G. Squire, and Michael Hagedorn, St. Paul, Mn., for plaintiffs.

James M. Rosenbaum, U.S. Atty. by Carol B. Swanson, Asst. U.S. Atty., Minneapolis, Mn., for defendant Margaret M. Heckler, Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.

Hubert H. Humphrey III, Minnesota State Atty. Gen. by Vicki Sleeper, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Mn., for defendant Leonard Levine, Commissioner of the Minn. Dept. of Human Services.

ORDER

MILES W. LORD, Chief Judge.

At issue in this case is the validity of the Secretary of Health and Human Service's (hereinafter "Secretary") rule, 45 C.F.R. § 206.10(a)(1)(vii) (hereinafter "New Rule"), interpreting 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(38) (1984) (hereinafter "Paragraph 38").

Plaintiffs consist of families receiving or applying for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (hereinafter "AFDC") who have residing with them both dependent children and other children (either blood-related or adoptive) who receive independent child support payments from noncustodial parents. Plaintiffs petition this court for class certification pursuant to F.R.Civ.P. 23(a). This court certifies plaintiffs as a class because their class is so numerous, plaintiffs estimate 1200 families in Minnesota, that joinder of all members is impracticable, Vernon J. Rockler v. Graphic Enterprises, Inc., 52 F.R.D. 335 (D.Minn.1971) (see F.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(1)), because essentially the same questions of fact or law affect all members of the class and arise out of the same contested occurrence, e.g. the enforcement of the New Rule, Mosley v. General Motor Corporation, 497 F.2d 1330, 1333 (8th Cir.1974) (see F.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(2)), because the plaintiffs' claims are typical of those of the class members, Donaldson v. Pillsbury Company, 554 F.2d 825, 830 (8th Cir.1977) (see F.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(3)), and because the representative plaintiffs possess interests in common with the rest of the class and are represented by competent counsel, Wetzel v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 508 F.2d 239, 247 (3rd Cir.1975) (see F.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(4)).

A further preliminary procedural detail involves the motion by the defendant Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (hereinafter "Commissioner") seeking to join as a third party plaintiff against the Secretary. The Secretary opposes this motion alleging that the Commissioner has no standing to sue because he has suffered no injury in fact. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734-735, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1366, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). However, the purpose of the standing requirement is to ensure that a dispute is presented in a concrete adversarial context capable of judicial resolution. Association of Data Processing Services Org., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 152, 90 S.Ct. 827, 829, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970). Here, the Commissioner is attempting to join with recognizable parties in a case clearly in controversy, Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 12, 96 S.Ct. 612, 631, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), because the effect of the New Rule will allegedly work to undermine his responsibilities for regulating and administering his state's child welfare program. Washington Utilities & Transp. Com'n v. F.C.C., 513 F.2d 1142, 1149 (9th Cir.1975). While these conditions alone satisfy the requirements of standing, the Commissioner is also injured in fact to the extent that he incurs an added cost in administrating the New Rule.¹ Because of both the expanding notion of standing and the Commissioner's injuries in fact, this court allows the Commissioner to join as a third party plaintiff.²

Interpretation of Paragraph 38 and its attendant New Rule begins with a recitation of the AFDC program's fundamental purpose of providing financial assistance to needy children who are not adequately protected by state-imposed child support laws. King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968). Against that background, Congress passed Paragraph 38 as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (Pub.L. 98-369), to "end the present practice whereby families exclude members with income in order to maximize family benefits, and to ensure that the income of family members who live together and share expenses is recognized and counted as available to the family as a whole." S.Rep. No. 300, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 165 (1983). These two goals are not mutually exclusive; rather, the AFDC's overall purpose subsumes Paragraph 38 and requires that the two be read in harmony with one another. Turner v. Prod, 707 F.2d 1109, 1121 (9th Cir.1983).

Paragraph 38 requires an application for AFDC benefits made on behalf of a dependent child to include (1) the income "available for" siblings living in the same household as the dependent child, if (2) those siblings are themselves "dependent children." See 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(7); 42 U.S.C. § 606(a)(1)&(2). Applying Paragraph 38's first requirement of "availability of income" to the present issue of child support payments in turn involves a two-step process of determining, first, whether child support payments are actually available to that designated child; and second, whether, if available to that child, those funds are also actually available for the family at large. Courts require a showing in fact that funds are available to the designee, Owens v. Heckler, 753 F.2d 675 (8th Cir.1985); Morrison v. Heckler, 602 F.Supp. 1485 (D.Minn.1985), and that those funds are in turn available to the rest of the family. See e.g., Gilliard v. Craig, 331 F.Supp. 587 (W.D.N.C.1971) aff'd without opinion, 409 U.S. 807, 93 S.Ct. 39, 34 L.Ed.2d 66 (1972); cf. Shonkwiler et al. v. Margaret M. Heckler, IP 84-1612-C (S.D. Ind. Jan. 31, 1985). The Secretary argues that in passing Paragraph 38, Congress intended to create a legislative presumption of availability of income as to the individual and as to the family "in recognition of the fact that family members who live together most likely share expenses." Federal Defendant's Memorandum of Points and Authorities at 17. However, the legislative history of Paragraph 38 quoted by the Secretary to support her presumption of availability speaks of recognizing and counting as available to the family as a whole, "the income of family members who live together and share expenses." R.Rep. No. 300, supra, at 165. (emphasis added). Whether family members "share expenses" is inherently a factual matter and thus convinces this court that Congress meant, in passing Paragraph 38, to stop the previous practice whereby families who shared living expenses in fact could elect to avoid having their cumulative income counted for AFDC purposes. Such an interpretation of Paragraph 38 preserves both the AFDC program's purpose of providing for needy children and Paragraph 38's purpose of saving money by stopping the previous practice of allowing the family to apply for AFDC benefits on behalf of children of its choosing. Noot v. Heckler, 718 F.2d 852, 862 (8th Cir.1983).

The Secretary's New Rule avoids Paragraph 38's required factual showing that funds available to one sibling are available to the entire family by sidestepping Paragraph 38's second requirement, "dependency." See 42 U.S.C. § 606(a)(1) & (2). The Secretary interprets § 606(a)(1) & (2) as meaning that "if any of these conditions death, absence of parent, incapacity is present, a minor child is considered deprived and therefore dependent and eligible for AFDC assistance." Federal Defendant's Memorandum of Points and Authorities at p. 22. By focusing on the status of the parent of the child as conclusively evidencing the child's dependency, the Secretary creates a presumption of eligibility to which she adds the requirement that "under the new statute, parents and siblings must be included in the assistance unit, unless they are ineligible to receive AFDC under another provision of the Act." 49 Fed.Reg. 176 p. 35589. This combined presumption of eligibility and required inclusion of eligible family members in the family's application for AFDC benefits subsequently enables the Secretary to use 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(26)(A)'s requirement that AFDC applicants assign income available to them to the state. In this way the Secretary completes her circuitous avoidance of showing whether funds available to one sibling are in fact available to the rest of the family by making them expressly available through her use of 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(26)(A)'s assignment requirement. However, in so doing, the Secretary's presumption of eligibility ignores her own regulation requiring that both actual need and deprivation of parental support or care be present to qualify for AFDC benefits. See 45 C.F.R. § 233.90(c)(1)(i). Because Paragraph 38 incorporates § 606(a)(1) & (2), and the Deficit Reduction Act left § 606(a)(1) & (2) unchanged, this court rejects the New Rule's presumption of eligibility and requires instead that Paragraph 38's element of dependency comply with § 606(a)(1) & (2)'s traditional showing that applicants for AFDC benefits are in fact (1) needy and (2) deprived of parental support or care.

Left to stand, the New Rule would require co-habitating blood related or adoptive siblings who receive independent child support from their non-custodial parents to choose between (a) moving out of their family home, so that the rest of their family may remain eligible for AFDC benefits, (b) remaining in their family's home, refusing to apply for AFDC benefits, and thereby making their dependent siblings ineligible for...