Parrish v. Civil Service Commission of Alameda County

• Decision Date: 31 May 1966
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Benny Max PARRISH, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. The CLVIL SERVICE COMMISSION OF the COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, State of California, et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 22556.

Page 589

51 Cal.Rptr. 589

Benny Max PARRISH, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. The CLVIL SERVICE COMMISSION OF the COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, State of California, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 22556.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2, California.

May 31, 1966.

For Opinion on Hearing, see 57 Cal.Rptr. 623, 425 P.2d 223.

Albert M. Bendich, Coleman A. Blease, Berkeley, for appellant.

Robert H. Laws, Jr., B. V. Yturbide, Marshall W. Krause, San Francisco, for American Civil Liberties Union of No.Cal., amicus curiae on behalf of appellant.

J. F. Coakley, Dist. Atty., County of Alameda, Richard H. Klippert, Asst. Dist. Atty., Oakland, for respondents.

TAYLOR, Justice.

This appeal from a judgment denying appellant B. M. Parrish's petition for a writ of mandamus for reinstatement as Social Worker II in Alameda County after his discharge for insubordination, raises questions of first impression concerning the propriety and constitutionality of an order directing appellant's participation in an operation to investigate welfare frauds. Respondents include the County of Alameda (hereafter county) and its Civil Service Commission, Board of Supervisors, Department of Welfare (hereafter department) and the director thereof, Harold B. Kehoe (hereafter director).

The basic facts are not in dispute. ¹ On November 20, 1962, the board of supervisors unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the county welfare director to conduct a series of unscheduled visits to welfare families similar to 'operation weekend' in Kern County, where a large number of welfare frauds had been discovered in this manner.

The social workers of the Family Service Division were told on January 3 or 4 by the assistant director that the first set of unscheduled visits would be made between 6:30 and 10:30 a. m. on Sunday, January 13, 1963, and that the main purpose of this visit would be to look for absent parents or unauthorized males in the homes of ANC (Aid to Needy Children) recipients. The workers were instructed to select both 'suspect' cases and random cases from their case load and to exclude those cases which had already been referred to the department's fraud investigation unit. A 'suspect' case was one where the recipient's eligibility had not been redetermined for a period of about six months, or where the worker had some grounds for concluding that the eligibility needed further investigation. The random cases were included in order to make a better overall statistic relating to the county's total case load of about 6,000 recipient families.

At a subsequent meeting on Thursday, January 10, workers chosen to go that weekend were given precise instructions for the procedure to be followed by the supervisor of the department's fraud unit. This particular mass operation to determine eligibility was to be conducted by pairs of social workers: the worker known to the recipient would present and identify himself at the front door of the home of the recipient, indicate the exact purpose of the call and request admission. If the request for entry was denied, the workers were directed not to enter the home. If the entry was allowed, they were directed to investigate in the same manner as they had on other occasions for the ANC program.

If the worker was admitted into the home, before proceeding into any other part of the house he was to ask permission to do so from the recipient. The second worker was to be stationed at the back door or other exit; if the worker at the front door was admitted, he was then to go through the house and let his partner in by the other exit. As in the past the department had withheld benefits from recipients who refused entry to members of the fraud unit, it was asked whether a refusal of entry on January 13 would automatically be a ground for discontinuance. The workers were instructed that if admission was not granted, benefits would not automatically be discontinued but the reason for denying admission would subsequently be investigated.

The workers were given these special instructions as this kind of operation was not among their ordinary routine duties which included supervising case loads of recipients of public assistance, conducting office and home interviews to determine continuing eligibility, recommending changes in aid, completing yearly renewals, determining eligibility for public assistance, completing applications and collecting and evaluating data and carrying continuing responsibility for their case load of recipients. The particular kind of investigation here in question was usually carried on by the fraud unit whose members were classified Social Worker III 'Welfare Investigators.' They worked in cooperation with the district attorney's office and investigated cases of suspected fraud referred by the case workers, who were classified as Social Workers II.

The primary purpose of the mass operation of January 13, 1963, was to identify and find the unauthorized males. The secondary purpose was to make the usual kind of administrative investigation relating to eligibility and to find out how much food there was in the house, the condition of the home and children, how the recipients were faring with their monthly checks, etc. As to the food and money, the workers were instructed to ask the recipient how much was left of the grant. Any unauthorized persons found in the home were to be identified and asked to explain their presence. If given permission to enter and permission to search, the workers were instructed to thoroughly search the premises, including looking in and under the beds.

Appellant, a Social Worker II, submitted a written refusal to participate in the mass visitations on the grounds that they were degrading, presumed the guilt of recipients, violated their rights of privacy, were not required under his job classification and were inconsistent with his training and the rehabilitative goals of the ANC program. His services were terminated by the director for insubordination. The order of dismissal was ratified by the supervisors, upheld, after hearing, by the Civil Service Commission, and affirmed by the trial court on appellant's petition in mandamus for reinstatement.

Preliminarily, we deem it helpful to set forth the pertinent provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code concerning the ANC program (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 1500 et seq.) which is coordinated with the federal program under which federal funds are made available (Merced County v. Dept. of Social Welfare, 148 Cal.App.2d 540, 541, 307 P.2d 46; Dept. of Mental Hygiene v. McGilvery, 50 Cal.2d 742, 329 P.2d 689). Section 1550.6 ² of the Welfare and Institutions Code provides: 'The county is responsible for the eligibility of all recipients of aid under this chapter and shall as often as necessary redetermine eligibility of all recipients to receive aid.'

A needy child is defined as a person under the age of 18 who has been deprived of parental support or care (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 1500; 42 U.S.C.A. § 606, subd. (a)). The federal act requires that the state agency in determining need shall take into consideration any other income and resources of a child claiming aid (42 U.S.C.A. § 602, subd. (a)(7)). The provision most significant here is the portion of section 1508 of the Welfare and Institutions Code providing that if a needy child lives with his mother and stepfather or an adult male person assuming the role of spouse to the mother, although not legally married to her, the amount of the grant made shall be computed after consideration given to the income of such adult male person. Section 1511 sets forth the maximum amount of aid to be provided per family based on the number of children in the family; section 1511.5 that minimum basic standards of adequate care shall be distributed to the counties and shall be binding upon them. Pursuant to section 1550, the application for aid must be verified under oath or shall contain a written declaration made under penalty of perjury.

The county is responsible for the eligibility of all recipients of aid under the Aid to Needy Children program and shall as often as necessary redetermine eligibility of all recipients (§ 1550.6) and shall redetermine eligibility annually and at such time, or such intervals as necessary, require the family to complete a certificate containing the information necessary to establish the continuing eligibility and grant pursuant to section 103.3 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. ³ Section 1563 provides that any person signing such certificate who wilfully states therein any material matter which he knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor. Section 1575 provides: 'Any person other than a needy child, as defined in Section 1500, who willfully and knowingly receives or uses any part of an aid grant paid pursuant to this chapter for a purpose other than support of the needy children and the caretaker involved is guilty of a misdemeanor.' Section 1577 provides: 'Any person other than a needy child, as defined in Section 1500, who willfully and knowingly, with the intent to deceive, makes a false statement or representation or knowingly fails to disclose a material fact to obtain aid, or who, knowing he is not entitled thereto, attempts to obtain aid or to continue to receive aid to which he is not entitled, or a larger amount than that to which he is legally entitled, is guilty of a misdemeanor.' ⁴ The district attorney of the county is in charge of the enforcement of these provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code (Welf. & Inst.Code, §§ 1570-1574).

'Operation weekend' was undertaken by the county pursuant to the above statutory provisions requiring a responsible and periodic redetermination of eligibility. Appellant does not challenge or question the county's duty to do so, but asserts that the method chosen--a mass operation involving suspect and random cases--is a general exploratory search without valid...