Munoz v. Sullivan

• Decision Date: 15 April 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-15038,90-15038
• Citation: 930 F.2d 1400
• Parties: Guadalupe MUNOZ, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Louis SULLIVAN, M.D., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1400

930 F.2d 1400

33 Soc.Sec.Rep.Ser. 201

Guadalupe MUNOZ, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Louis SULLIVAN, M.D., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 90-15038.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted July 13, 1990.

Decided April 15, 1991.

Gill Deford, Peter Komlos-Hrobsky, National Senior Citizens Law Center, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Paul Babwin, Central California Legal Services, Inc., Fresno, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Stuart M. Gerson, Asst. Atty. Gen., William Kanter, Appellate Staff, John Copeland Nagle, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Before REINHARDT and HALL, Circuit Judges, and RE, Judge. ^*

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:

OVERVIEW

Guadalupe Munoz filed suit against the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services ("the Secretary"), alleging that the six-month rule set forth in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382c(b) (1983) is unconstitutional. Under the six-month rule, when a married couple, both of whom are eligible for Supplemental Security Income benefits, separate, they are paid benefits at the level set for married couples, rather than the higher level set for individuals, for a period of six months after the separation or until the marriage has ended. Munoz challenged the constitutionality of the six-month rule. She claimed that the benefit rate should be converted to the rate applicable to single persons immediately upon separation because the six-month rule bears no rational relationship to the purposes of the statute. She sought declaratory and injunctive relief for herself and for all similarly situated California residents.

The district court, applying the rational basis test, upheld the validity of the statutory rule. The court also denied Munoz' motion for class certification, finding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over members of the proposed class. We affirm the district court's holding that the rule bears a rational relationship to the Congressional goal of deterring collusive separations; accordingly, we do not reach the issue of class certification.

FACTS

In order to provide disability benefits for indigent persons who are over sixty-four, blind, or disabled, Congress created the Supplemental Security Income ("SSI") program in 1972. The program is administered by the Social Security Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services ("Department"). To qualify for SSI, an individual must be both categorically and financially eligible: he must be either aged, blind, or disabled, and must have income and resources which are below the levels set forth in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382(a) (1983). Persons who satisfy these requirements are defined as "eligible individuals." Id. An eligible individual who is married to another eligible individual is defined as an "eligible spouse." Id. Sec. 1382c(b). Together, the married eligible individuals comprise an "eligible couple." 20 C.F.R. Sec. 416.412 (1990). The couple's financial eligibility is determined by combining their income and resources, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382(a)(2)(A) (1983), and comparing the total with the eligibility levels. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382(a)(2) (1983). The Department considers the income and resources of one spouse to be available to the other. ¹

"[I]in order to take account of the fact that two people living together can live more economically than they would if each lived alone," Congress determined that the benefits payable to a couple should be smaller than the total of the individual benefits payable to two unmarried eligible persons. ² Thus, the combined payment for an eligible couple is only approximately two-thirds of the amount that two eligible individuals would receive if they remained single and pooled their SSI benefits.

The statute defines an "eligible spouse" as "an aged, blind, or disabled individual who is the husband or wife of another aged, blind, or disabled individual and who has not been living apart from such other aged, blind, or disabled individual for more than six months." 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382c(b) (1983) (emphasis added). Thus, the eligible couple continues to be treated as a couple until either six months have passed or the spouses cease to be married. ³ As a result, their income and resources continue to be combined for purposes of determining their eligibility and benefit levels, and during this six-month period, each continues to receive a check for half of the SSI payment for the couple. This is the six-month rule. ⁴

Prior to July 1988, Munoz and her husband were both eligible for SSI. She had an outside monthly income of $208, and he had an outside monthly income of $681: together they received SSI benefits totaling $48 per month. In July 1988, Munoz separated from her husband, but in accordance with the six-month rule, she and her husband continued to be considered a couple for the purposes of calculating SSI benefits for six months following the separation. As a result, during the six-month period, Munoz received only half of the couple's SSI benefit, which amounted to $24 per month. She claims that had the rule not been in effect, she would have received an eligible individual benefit of $387 per month.

Munoz filed this class action in federal district court for the Eastern District of California, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. She alleged that the six-month rule is unconstitutional in two ways. First, she contended that the six-month rule is not rationally related to the purpose that the Secretary ascribed to it. Second, she argued that there is no rational basis for applying the rule only in cases in which both spouses are eligible for SSI and not in those in which only one of the spouses is eligible. ⁵

The district court decided the case on the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. Finding that the statutory classification is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest, the court rejected Munoz' first challenge.

In response to Munoz' equal protection challenge to the application of the six-month rule to an eligible couple but not to an eligible individual married to an ineligible individual, the Secretary argued that the classification is rationally related to two legitimate governmental objectives. First, the Secretary argued that couples in which only one spouse is eligible for SSI benefits are less likely to conspire to defraud the government or manipulate the program, because the ineligible individual will receive nothing from the government as a result of an actual or claimed separation. Accordingly, only one of the two individuals involved has any incentive to fabricate the separation. In contrast, when both spouses are eligible, each has a financial inducement to enter into a collusive separation. Thus, the classification is related to the governmental interest of reducing program fraud and manipulation.

Second, whereas the separation of a couple composed of two eligible persons entails two eligibility investigations, two recalculations of benefits, and two sets of administrative appeal rights, the separation of an eligible individual from an ineligible spouse entails only one set of administrative measures. Thus, argued the Secretary, because the administrative burden associated with the separation of couples in which both spouses are eligible for SSI is greater than that associated with the separation of couples in which only one is eligible, the government is justified in delaying a change in the payment levels for those in the former category, even though the change is made immediately for those in the latter.

The district court accepted each of the Secretary's justifications and concluded that the requisite rational relationship had been established. Accordingly, the district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment on Munoz' constitutional claims. The district court further denied Munoz' motion for class certification, concluding that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over members of the class. This appeal followed. ⁶

DISCUSSION

I. SCOPE OF REVIEW

Our review of SSI eligibility rules is necessarily limited in scope. As the Supreme Court has clearly stated, "[p]articularly when we deal with a withholding of a noncontractual benefit under a social welfare program such as [Social Security], we must recognize that the Due Process Clause can be thought to interpose a bar only if the statute manifests a patently arbitrary classification, utterly lacking in rational justification." Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 768, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 2468, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975) (quoting Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 611, 80 S.Ct. 1367 1373, 4 L.Ed.2d 1435 (1960)) (brackets in original). Thus, the inquiry here must focus on whether the six-month rule denies SSI benefits to certain individuals on an arbitrary basis, without any rational justification.

II. CONSTITUTIONALITY

The due process clause of the fifth amendment includes an equal protection component. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954). When the government utilizes a "suspect classification" or draws distinctions among individuals that bear on the exercise of a "fundamental right," the challenged regulation will be subject to strict scrutiny. ⁷ Otherwise, the distinctions that the government draws among persons need only be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. United States R.R. Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166, 179, 101 S.Ct. 453, 461, 66 L.Ed.2d 368 (1980) (upholding Social Security benefit scheme where "there [we]re plausible reasons for Congress' action"). Since this case involves no claim that the six-month rule discriminates on the basis of a suspect classification or that it inhibits the exercise of a fundamental right, our inquiry here is...