Junghans v. Department of Human Resources

• Decision Date: 15 March 1972
• Docket Number: No. 5628.,5628.
• Citation: 289 A.2d 17
• Parties: Robert D. JUNGHANS, Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES of the District of Columbia, Respondent.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

289 A.2d 17

Robert D. JUNGHANS, Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES of the District of Columbia, Respondent.

No. 5628.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued September 22, 1971.

Decided March 15, 1972.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edward E. Schwab, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

David P. Sutton, Asst. Corporation Counsel, with whom C. Francis Murphy, Corporation Counsel, and Richard W. Barton, Asst. Corporation Counsel, were on the brief, for respondent.

Before KERN, NEBEKER and REILLY, Associate Judges.

KERN, Associate Judge.

Petitioner is disabled and receives a monthly public assistance payment which respondent decided, after an intra-agency hearing and appeal, to reduce. This is a petition for review of respondent's action upon both procedural and substantive grounds. D.C.Code 1967, § 1-1510 (Supp. IV, 1971). In order properly to assess the alleged procedural irregularities and to comprehend the substantive issue it is necessary to describe briefly the applicable statutes and relevant decisional precedent before turning to the specific facts of this case.

Congress as a part of its legislative responsibility for this jurisdiction enacted the District of Columbia Public Assistance Act of 1962, D.C.Code 1967, § 3-201 et seq., establishing five categories of public assistance:

(1) Old Age Assistance;

(2) Aid to the Blind;

(3) Aid to the Disabled;

(4) Aid to Dependent Children;

(5) General Public Assistance. (D.C. Code 1967, § 3-202(a)).

Congress provided that the Public Assistance Act be "administered by the Commissioners who shall . . . establish and enforce such rules and regulations as may be necessary and desirable to carry out the provisions" of the Act. D.C.Code 1967, § 3-202(b) (2). The Act further provides that "[t]he amount of public assistance which any person shall receive shall be determined in accordance with regulations approved by the Commissioners." D.C.Code 1967, § 3-204(a).

Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1967 transferred from the former Commissioners to the present District of Columbia Council the function of "[e]stablishing rules and regulations to carry out" the Public Assistance Act and of "approving regulations in accordance with which shall be determined the amount of public assistance which any person shall receive." D.C.Code 1967, Appendix to Title I, §§ 402(83), (84) (Supp. IV, 1971).

The Social Security Act of 1935 makes federal funds available to the states, including the District of Columbia, 42 U.S.C. § 1301(a) (1) (1970), for use in their public assistance programs so long as these programs meet certain requirements enumerated in that Act. 42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq. (1970), particularly §§ 302, 602, 1202, and 1352.

In 1967, Congress amended the Social Security Act to require all states to update by July 1, 1969, the standards for assistance¹ to recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to reflect the cost of living then current. 42 U.S.C. § 602(a) (23) (1970). See also 45 C.F.R. § 233.20(a) (2) (ii) (1970). Although federal law does not require the same assistance standard for each category of public assistance, Jackson v. Department of Public Welfare, 317 F.Supp. 1151, 1155 (M.D.Fla.1970); Jefferson v. Hackney, 304 F.Supp. 1332, 1336-1337 (N.D.Tex.1969), vacated and remanded, 397 U.S. 821, 90 S.Ct. 1517, 25 L.Ed.2d 807 (1970), the District of Columbia and many states up-dated their assistance standards for all categories of public assistance² In brief, recipients of Aid to the Disabled, such as petitioner, were affected by the Congressional legislation directing the states and the District to update their AFDC welfare programs to reflect changes in the cost of living.

The new standards for public assistance which the states and the District of Columbia adopted in response to the command from Congress were necessarily more costly because of the increased cost of living. They sought to maintain budgetary stability (or even decrease the size of their public assistance expenditures),³ by creating welfare payment formulas which paid to each public assistance recipient only a percentage of the standard for assistance, i. e., the public assistance recipient's monthly minimum subsistence needs. Thus, for example, prior to August 1970, the District paid all categories of public assistance only 85% of the standard for assistance it had fixed to meet their minimum subsistence needs.⁴

[1] The Supreme Court has recognized that the states are given wide latitude in setting standards for public assistance and in establishing the level of benefits to be paid, Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 408, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970), and that the amendments to the Social Security Act in 1967 do not prohibit states from paring down the amount of benefits paid "to accommodate budgetary realities," 397 U.S. at 413, 90 S.Ct. 1207. But the District of Columbia and some 15 other states have taken yet another step to reduce the cost of their public assistance programs: They have adopted the practice of subtracting whatever resources a public assistance recipient has (e. g., wages, pensions, etc.) from that percentage of his need they have determined to pay (75%, for example), rather than from his full monthly minimum subsistence they have determined he needs. He is then paid the difference.

In the instant case, the District determined that under the February 1970 cost of living the monthly minimum subsistence need of petitioner's "assistance unit" (composed of his wife and himself) was $206. Petitioner's resources (consisting of wages and a pension) were found to be $97.45. Respondent, in determining the amount of petitioner's monthly public assistance payment, off-set his resources of $97.45 against 75% of his need (i. e., $154.52) rather than his entire monthly minimum subsistence need of $206.⁵

Other states have rejected this approach and adopted different welfare payment formulas:

(a) Payment of 100% of the budgetary deficit [the difference between a recipient's monthly resources and the full monthly standard of need for his assistance unit as determined by the state], see Lampton v. Bonin, 304 F.Supp. 1384, 1385 n. 2 (E.D.La. 1969), vacated and remanded, 397 U.S. 663, 90 S.Ct. 1408, 25 L.Ed.2d 644 (1970); Rosado v. Wyman, supra, 397 U.S. at 409, 90 S.Ct. 1207, or,

(b) payment of a certain percentage of the budgetary deficit, see Ward v.

Winstead, 314 F.Supp. 1225, 1229-1230 (N.D.Miss.1970).

In the Texas AFDC program, the effect of this practice — identical to that employed in the District — led to increased benefits for 14,000 Texas families, decreased benefits for 22,812 families, and totally eliminated 2,470 families from the AFDC rolls, Jefferson v. Hackney, supra, 304 F.Supp. at 1343. The record in the instant case does not indicate the effect which the use of this type of formula has had upon the size of the welfare rolls or the amount of the payments to the various categories of public assistance recipients in the District.

Whether a state can utilize a welfare percentage formula in such a way is presently before the Supreme Court on the merits in the context of the Texas AFDC program. Jefferson v. Hackney, 404 U.S. 820, 92 S.Ct. 115, 30 L.Ed.2d 47 (1970). It is pointed out that a public assistance recipient whose monthly resources may equal a particular percentage of his total monthly needs but nevertheless fall short of meeting his total need is excluded altogether from any public assistance whatsoever. It is further pointed out that the applicable federal and local welfare statutes provide that assistance shall be furnished "with all reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals," (emphasis added), 42 U.S.C. § 602(a) (10) (1970); D.C.Code 1967, §§ 3-207(a), 3-203.⁶

We do not reach petitioner's challenge to respondent's practice because we dispose of this case upon procedural grounds. The substantive legal issue does, however, serve to point up how important are the decisions by the Council and the Commissioner to fix a welfare payment formula and to establish a public assistance standard of need. When called upon to review their actions we are mindful, too, that the Supreme Court has ascribed to the Congress an intention to require each state, including the District, "to face up realistically to the magnitude of the public assistance requirement and lay bare the extent to which their programs fall short of fulfilling actual need," and to "paying the political consequences" of such disclosure, Rosado v. Wyman, supra, 397 U.S. at 412-413, 421, 90 S.Ct. at 1218. We note also the proposition that administrative agencies have the responsibility of fully informing themselves of the public's viewpoint before making difficult and fundamental policy determinations concerning the allocation of scarce resources, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association v. Finch, 307 F.Supp. 858, 865-866 (Del.1970).

Given the consequences for the residents of the District that flow from the decision by the Council and the Commissioner to enact one of the several possible formulas for the payment of welfare assistance, the procedural steps taken by the Council and the Commissioner in this case require careful scrutiny to determine whether they pass muster under the applicable statutes and rules.

On June 22, 1970, the District of Columbia Register (16 D.C.Reg. 518 (1970)), contained the following Notice:

The Mayor-Commissioner hereby gives notice that the following has been submitted to the District of Columbia Council for their consideration with the necessary expediency needed to comply with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's Regulation 20-7 which specifies that States' standards for assistance to Families with Dependent Children should be adjusted to reflect fully changes in the cost of living standards that have occurred since such standards were established.

The Mayor-Commissioner proposes to amend City Council regulation No....