Hill v. State Dept. of Public Health and Welfare

• Decision Date: 10 December 1973
• Docket Number: No. 57683,57683
• Citation: 503 S.W.2d 6
• Parties: Ada R. HILL, Appellant, v. STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 6

503 S.W.2d 6

Ada R. HILL, Appellant, v. STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE, Respondent.

No. 57683.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

Dec. 10, 1973.

James L. Muller, The Legal Aid and Defender Society of Greater Kansas City, Inc., Kansas City, for appellant.

Elmore G. Crowe, Edward D. Summers, Jefferson City, for respondent.

FINCH, Judge.

This is an appeal from a Circuit Court judgment affirming the decision of the Director of the State Department of Public Health and Welfare to uphold his Department's temporary suspension of appellant's permanent and total disability (ATPD) benefits. We reverse and remand with directions.

Appellant was placed on general relief by the Jackson County office of the Division of Welfare in March of 1965. In June of that year she began receiving benefits under § 208.051 ¹ because of a permanent and total disability. Thereafter, pursuant to § 208.010.2(1)(a) and (b), the office suspended her aid for a period of approximately five months on the ground that she had transferred an interest in real estate without receiving fair and valuable consideration therefor.

Appellant appealed to the Director of the Department as authorized by the statute, and on June 6, 1968, a hearing was held before a referee appointed by the Director. The evidence disclosed that appellant had been the owner by inheritance from her parents of an undivided 1/15th interest in 120 acres of farmland in the State of Louisiana, and that in April of 1965 she joined with four of her brothers and sisters in conveying their respective interests in said property to another brother, Monroe Malone, in return for the latter's oral, unsecured promise to pay each of them $400.00 within a week. A brother of appellant testified that Monroe had stated that he had the money in the bank with which to make the payments, and that they took him at his word and went ahead and executed the deed. The value of the farm at that time was around $50.00 per acre, so that the value of appellant's 1/15th interest in the 120 acres was approximately $400.00.

Monroe Malone then experienced financial difficulties brought on by his partner in the cattle business selling their cattle and pocketing the proceeds. As a result, he defaulted in his promise to pay the $400.00 he had agreed to pay each for their interests in the famr. ² Appellant testified that when she transferred her interest in the property to Monroe Malone, she fully expected to be paid the $400.00 and that she did not make the transfer for the purpose of enabling her to stay on the welfare roll.

The Director decided adversely to appellant, and in so doing made these findings:

'In April, 1965, (claimant) joined with four of her brothers and sisters in the execution of a deed conveying the undivided 1/15 interest of each of them in a 120 acre tract of land in the state of Louisiana to another brother, Monroe Malone. The brothers and sisters were tenants in common of this land as heirs of their deceased parents. The reasonable value was $50.00 per acre, and each of the grantors was to receive $400.00 for his or her interest. The deed was delivered but none of them ever received any money.'

After the above finding of facts, the Director then concluded that appellant had transferred her interest in the real estate without receiving fair and valuable consideration within the meaning of § 208.010.2(1)(a) and hence was ineligible to receive public assistance, the period of ineligibility to be determined by the formula set forth in the statute.

Appellant appealed from this decision to the Circuit Court of Jackson County, which affirmed the decision of the Director, holding that the claimant had a fair hearing and that the decision of the Director was not arbitrary or unreasonable. An appeal to this court followed.

At the outset, we must determine whether we have jurisdiction of this appeal. Appellant asserts that we do have on the basis that the case involves construction of several constitutional provisions, including Art. V, § 22, ³ which provides as follows:

'All final decisions, findings, rules and orders of any administrative officer of body existing under the Constitution or by law, which are judicial or quasi-judicial and affect private rights, shall be subject to direct review by the courts as provided by law; and such review shall include the determination whether the same are authorized by law, and in cases in which a hearing is required by law, whether the same are supported by competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record.'

The Circuit Court, as part of its findings and conclusions, ruled, in reliance on Ellis v. State Department of Public Health and Welfare, 277 S.W.2d 331 (Mo.App.1955), that benefits of the type in question are not payments to which one is entitled as a matter of right but rather they are gratuities given by the state. The Ellis case subsequently was transferred to and heard by this Court and is reported at 365 Mo. 614, 285 S.W.2d 634 (banc 1955). In that opinion the Court held that welfare benefits are not 'private rights' so as to be covered by Art. V, § 22, and hence that said constitutional provision was inapplicable.

On this appeal, appellant contends that rights such as those asserted herein by her are not mere gratuities but are in fact private rights within the provisions of Art. V, § 22, and that she is entitled to a review thereunder of the decision of the Director. In other words, it is the contention of appellant that we should overrule this Court's holding in Ellis v. State Department of Public Health and Welfare, supra (also cases such as Allen v. State Department of Public Health and Welfare, 479 S.W.2d 183 (Mo.App.1972)), and hold that Art. V, § 22 is applicable.

We conclude that this clearly presents a question of constitutional construction, namely, the meaning of the term 'private rights' as contained in Art. V, § 22, and whether we should overrule our previous construction thereof. Therefore, this court does have jurisdiction.

Having so concluded, we proceed first to reexamine our construction of Art. V, § 22 so as to settle the nature and extent of judicial review which we should utilize in this case.

In Ellis (285 S.W.2d 634), the court reviewed decisions from various other states which had held that benefits under public assistance acts were gratuities which the state legislature may abolish at any time, that recipients have no vested rights in such grants, and that a state may even deny resort to judicial review of administrative action in granting or denying such benefits. The court then concluded that review of the department's action on claims for benefits should be limited to that provided in the act itself in §§ 208.100(5) and 208.110, and that Art. V, § 22 was not applicable. In so holding, the court said, 285 S.W.2d l.c. 638: 'Our conclusion is that 'private rights' covered by Art. V, Sec. 22, 1945 Const. are rights in the nature of property rights or fundamental civil rights protected by the Bill of Rights of our state and federal constitutions. Since such rights are not involved herein, we must hold that the review provided by Art. V, Sec. 22 is not applicable and that the review in this case must be on the basis provided in the above mentioned statutes.'

Since the Ellis opinion was written, various decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have considered and settled the nature of benefits under public assistance acts. In Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), the court dealt with the question of whether notice and an evidentiary hearing were prerequisites to termination of public assistance benefits. In holding that notice and hearing were required, the court said, 397 U.S. l.c. 261, 90 S.Ct. l.c. 1017:

'Appellant does not contend that procedural due process is not applicable to the termination of welfare benefits. Such benefits are a matter of statutory entitlement for persons qualified to receive them. ⁸ Their termination involves state action that adjudicates important rights. The constitutional challenge cannot be answered by an argument that public assistance benefits are 'a 'privilege' and not a 'right. " Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 627 n. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1327, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969). Relevant constitutional restraints apply as much to the withdrawal of public assistance benefits as to disqualification for unemployment compensation, Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963); or to denial of a tax exemption, Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958); or to discharge from public employment, Slochower v. Board of Higher Education, 350 U.S. 551, 76 S.Ct. 637, 100 L.Ed. 692 (1956).'

Footnote 8 to the foregoing text discussed the nature of welfare entitlements in this language:

'It may be realistic today to regard welfare entitlements as more like 'property' than a 'gratuity.' Much of the existing wealth in this country takes the form of rights that do not fall within traditional common-law concepts of property. It has been aptly noted that '(s)ociety today is built around entitlement. The automobile dealer has his franchise, the doctor and lawyer their professional licenses, the worker his union membership, contract, and pension rights, the executive his contract and stock options; all are devices to aid security and independence. Many of the most important of these entitlements now flow from government: subsidies to farmers and businessmen, routes for airlines and channels for television stations; long term contracts for defense, space, and education; social security pensions for individuals. Such sources of security, whether private or public, are no longer regarded as luxuries or gratuities; to the recipients they are essentials, fully deserved, and in no sense a form of charity. It is only the poor whose entitlements, although recognized by public policy, have...