Mahoney v. County of Maricopa

• Court: Arizona Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM.
• Citation: Mahoney v. County of Maricopa, 49 Ariz. 479, 68 P.2d 694 (Ariz. 1937)
• Decision Date: 22 May 1937
• Docket Number: Civil 3879
• Parties: W. P. MAHONEY, ETHER HAYNIE, RAYMOND F. MARQUIS, BERNARD MacDONALD, DR. JUNIUS GIBBONS, as Members of and Constituting the Arizona Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, and LEE GARRETT, as Commissioner of the Arizona Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, JOHN A. FOOTE, as Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, and R. M. JAMISON and ROY McCARTHY, as Members of Said Board, Appellants, v. COUNTY OF MARICOPA, a Political Subdivision of the State of Arizona, Appellee

68 P.2d 694

49 Ariz. 479

W. P. MAHONEY, ETHER HAYNIE, RAYMOND F. MARQUIS, BERNARD MacDONALD, DR. JUNIUS GIBBONS, as Members of and Constituting the Arizona Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, and LEE GARRETT, as Commissioner of the Arizona Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, JOHN A. FOOTE, as Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Social Security and Public Welfare, and R. M. JAMISON and ROY McCARTHY, as Members of Said Board, Appellants, v. COUNTY OF MARICOPA, a Political Subdivision of the State of Arizona, Appellee

Civil No. 3879

Supreme Court of Arizona

May 22, 1937

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Maricopa. John P. Clark, Judge. Judgment affirmed.

Mr. Joe Conway, Attorney General, and Mr. E. G. Frazier, Special Assistant Attorney General, for Appellants.

Mr Harry Johnson, County Attorney, and Mr. Mark B. Wilmer Deputy, for Appellee.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a declaratory judgment of the superior court of Maricopa county, holding that it is the duty of the Arizona Board of Social Security and Public Welfare and of the Maricopa County Board of Social Security and Public Welfare to assume the obligation of caring for, providing and administering general home relief, outdoor and indoor care, and medical care for persons in need, old age assistance, aid to the blind, and aid to dependent children, as provided in chapter 69, Laws Regular Session of the Thirteenth Legislature, and that no duty rests upon the county of Maricopa to do any of said things.

The question before us involves a determination of the duty resting upon the public authorities of the state to furnish aid to those of its inhabitants who cannot care for themselves. In order to do so, we think it necessary first to give a brief resume of the law upon this subject as it existed in England and America from earliest times, for it is only in the light of the background of any law that its true intent, purpose, and effect may be understood. As we have recently said in the case of Masury & Son v. Bisbee Lumber Co., ante, p. 443, 68 P.2d 679, the common law of England, except as modified by local circumstances and conditions, was brought to this country and is a part of our law. Under that law, there was no such thing as relief of the distressed individual by public authority. Indeed, in a nation such as England was during the formation of the common law, there was very little necessity for it. The country was almost purely agricultural, the factory system and the large town or city being unknown. Almost the entire population obtained its livelihood from the land, and this was held either by small yeomen who worked their farms with the aid of their families, and perhaps a few laborers who were to all intents and purposes treated as members of the family, or by the great feudal landholders who maintained an almost patriarchal attitude towards their tenants and dependents. The small amount of relief that was necessary was generally furnished by the great monasteries, which were found in all parts of the kingdom, and by bequests for charitable purposes administered, in a large degree, by these same institutions. Shortly after the great epidemic of the Black Death visited Europe, the situation began to change. A large portion of the population of England had perished in that terrible epidemic and much land lay vacant. At the same time the rising industry of the Netherlands made the production of wool more profitable to the large landowners than ordinary farming, and as a result a great portion of the previously cultivated land was transformed into sheep runs. This naturally decreased the need of agricultural labor, and since feudal ideas were weakening, more and more men found themselves unable to secure the only kind of work with which they were familiar. When the monasteries were dissolved in the time of Henry the Eighth and this source of relief was thus cut off, conditions rapidly grew worse, and it was apparent that legislation of some kind was necessary to provide for those who could not support themselves. It was, therefore, at this time that the public authorities first recognized and accepted their responsibility for the care of those who could no longer care for themselves, and the policy began to appear in English law that each local community should care for its own poor. At first this was confined merely to the class which we commonly call the "unemployables," but for the reasons aforesaid, it was soon found that many who were able and willing to take employment could not find it, and the Elizabethan statute of 1576 was a comprehensive poor law, aiming at the complete and systematic maintenance of the indigent needing relief, including both the unemployables and the employables. The fundamental principles of these laws were two-fold: First, the relief was local and granted only to those who had a legal residence in the particular taxing unit, such as the parish or the county, and, second, the man who was able to work should be made to work. As time went on, this last principle became more and more rigidly enforced until the theory underlying relief was that only the unemployable class had a moral right to aid, and that the able-bodied man who was out of work had himself to blame, and should be as little a burden on the community as was possible.

This was the general view of the distribution of relief in England during our early colonial history, and naturally the colonies took, to a great extent, the same point of view. It was universally held that relief was statutory only in its nature, and was, therefore, regulated solely by the terms of the local statute, and these statutes usually adopted the prevailing English theory to a great extent in language and to an even greater extent in administration. There was perhaps more excuse for that view in America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century than in England. This country was not only an agricultural community, but one with what seemed to be boundless free land available to any man who had a strong body and willing hands. When such a man could no longer obtain work for wages, it was comparatively easy for him to secure a farm of his own, where he could at least make a decent living for himself and his family.

This was the background for Arizona's first laws in regard to poor relief, and naturally they reflected the current political and economic theories. The Howell Code of 1864 made no provision for aid to the able-bodied man or woman, no matter how destitute. It did, however, attempt to care for the unemployables. It declared first, in substance, that the nearest relative of such unemployable, who was able to do so, must furnish the necessary relief, and, second, that the counties would care for those of that class who had no relatives able to provide for them. It also recognized the principle of settlement found in the old English law, for it was made a misdemeanor to move an indigent from the county in which his legal settlement existed for the purpose of getting aid from some other county. In 1887 a revised code was adopted which changed materially the system of relief. All reference to assistance by relatives was eliminated, as were the provisions in regard to settlement, and the duty was placed on the boards of supervisors of the various counties, as follows:

"397.... 5. To provide for the care an maintenance of the indigent sick, or the otherwise dependent poor of the county; erect offices, and maintain hospitals therefor, or otherwise provide for the same."

It will be seen by the language used that for the first time it was intimated that others than unemployables might, as a matter of discretion on the part of the boards of supervisors, receive aid from the county. This provision was continued substantially in the same form in the Codes of 1901 (par. 973, subd. 5), 1913 (par. 2418, subd. 5), and 1928 (§ 774, subd. 5). The Code of 1901 also provided that the care of the indigent sick of the county, including medical attendance, medicine, food, lodging, and clothing might be let by contract, and limited public relief of any nature to indigents, the term meaning, according to section 1033, Revised Statutes of Arizona of 1901, any person who was "sick, poor or disabled and unable to pay for subsistence, care or medical attendance, or either." These provisions were carried over into the Code of 1913 (par. 2486), slightly modified in language, but the same in substance. The Code of 1928 (§ 814) also contained substantially the same provisions, with this important exception, that instead of providing that the indigent must be "sick, poor or disabled and unable to pay for subsistence," etc. the "and" was changed to "or," thus for the first time specifically stating that public aid might be furnished to the employables as well as the unemployables, who were unable to care for themselves. The practical administration of this relief, however, was limited almost entirely to the unemployables and was usually carried on by institutional care in the various county hospitals established by the supervisors, or in some counties by a small amount of direct outdoor relief, either in cash or supplies, at the discretion of the supervisors. In the vast majority of cases, this relief was not extended to the able-bodied man who was presumably temporarily out of work. He was still dependent upon his own resources, that of his relatives, or, in extreme cases, private charity such as the Salvation Army or the soup kitchen.

This was the situation existing in Arizona in the beginning of 1933. All public relief was administered by the boards of supervisors of the different counties, limited by statute as above referred to, and also by the...