Sanders v. State Dept. of Public Welfare

• Decision Date: 07 October 1971
• Docket Number: No. 628,628
• Citation: 472 S.W.2d 179
• Parties: W. C. SANDERS et ux., Appellants, v. STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 179

472 S.W.2d 179

W. C. SANDERS et ux., Appellants, v. STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE et al., Appellees.

No. 628.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas,

Corpus Christi.

Oct. 7, 1971.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 28, 1971.

Wood, Burney, Nesbitt & Ryan, Allen Wood, Corpus Christi, for appellants.

Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Melvin Corley, Asst. Atty . Gen., Austin, for appellees.

OPINION

NYE, Chief Justice.

W. C. Sanders and wife brought suit against the State Department of Public Welfare and Humberto Taddei seeking a declaratory judgment invalidating a regulation of the State Department of Public Welfare. The Welfare Department filed its plea of privilege to be sued in Travis County. The trial court granted the plea and transferred the suit as prayed by the State. The appellants appeal contending primarily that the regulation sought to be construed was unconstitutional; there was no basis for transferring the case from Nueces County because the acts of the resident defendant were illegal.

The plaintiffs alleged that prior to March 1970 they had been receiving old age assistance for a number of years. That shortly after that date, defendant Taddei, an officer of the Texas Department of Public Welfare designated to hear appeals of the defendant agency, ruled that the plaintiffs were ineligible for further aid. His ruling, based on a Department's regulation, was to the effect that since the plaintiffs had reduced their net worth to within certain prescribed limits set by the Department by paying money to their son, they became ineligible for further subsistence. The plaintiffs contend that the subject regulation is unconstitutional in that it violates the due process and equal protection provisions of the State and Federal Constitutions. They allege that they were deprived of their right to receive old age assistance because of the arbitrary interpretation placed on such regulation by defendant Taddei which therefore violated plaintiffs' civil and property rights.

The evidence showed that the plaintiffs were over eighty years of age. They both had heart conditions, Mrs. Sanders having worn a pacemaker for five years. They lived in San Patricio County for almost all of the last fifty-five years. In March 1970 the Sanders were sent a questionnaire by the defendant agency in which they answered that they had $5,000.00 on deposit in their bank. A welfare worker from Arkansas Pass came by to see them. The worker told the plaintiffs that they were only allowed to have $3,000.00. Mr. Sanders told the welfare worker that he owed the bank, a drug store, and his son some of the money. The welfare worker told the plaintiffs it would be all right to use the money to pay debts and that they should to ahead and make an amended statement of what they had and what their net worth was. Sanders testified that he paid his son $1800.00, and the bank and the drug store approximately $200 .00. This was verified by Sanders' letter to the Department and by his subsequent affidavit that stated that his net worth was less than $3,000.00. It was undisputed that Sanders had owed his son money far in excess of $1800.00. The son had furnished total support to the plaintiffs for some four years and partial support to them for an additional four years after that. This occurred in the latter part of the 1930's and early part of the 1940's after Sanders had suffered business reversals. At the time that the Department had made the inquiry, Mr. and Mrs. Sanders were receiving social security payments in the amount of $150.50 per month, less $10.60 for medicare, and $57.00 per month old age assistance from the Welfare Department. They stated that without financial aid from the Welfare Department they would not have enough to live on.

Defendant Taddei testified that he was a resident of Nueces County . He worked for the State Department of Public Welfare. His duties were to hear appeals and to see whether or not the Department had made the correct decision in denying an applicant subsistence, or lowering an applicant's claim for welfare subsistence. The regulation in question stated that:

'Mere verbal allegations of an old, informal debt to relatives, however, cannot be considered as justifying ad transfer to such relatives.'

This regulation, according to Taddei, was from his Financial Service Handbook under Section 2141. It dealt with the regulation concerning the transfer of property. He testified that his ruling denying the Sanders' claim was based on this particular regulation and that his ruling concerning the Sanders was the final administrative act affecting them. He told the plaintiffs that their only recourse from his ruling was through the courts. The Texas Department of Public Welfare contends that this regulation must be tested in Travis County where the State of Texas maintains its residence.

It is plaintiffs' contention that where a State official or employee (i.e. Taddei) acting illegally under a void and unconstitutional regulation does in fact deprive a citizen of his rights, such employee can be sued as an individual. It follows, they say, that such employee can be sued in the county where he resides. The appellees maintain that the only issue to be considered by this Court on the plea of privilege is (1) whether or not the Sanders have stated a cause of action against defendant Taddei as an individual, sufficient to maintain venue in Nueces County, or (2) whether the Sanders' action is actually one against the State of Texas which should cause venue to lie in Travis County.

If Sanders' suit is based as it is upon allegations that the regulation in question is unconstitutional and void and that in exercising powers under the regulations, Taddei or members of the State Department of Public Welfare, were acting beyond their legal authority, plaintiffs' suit would not be an action against the State of Texas. Robbins v. Limestone County, 114 Tex. 345, 268 S.W. 915 (1925). If a statute is unconstitutional, the Court of Civil Appeals has authority to consider such fundamental error apparent upon the face of the record, whether it has been assigned as error or not. Where a statute necessarily invades the rights of a party by virtue of the provisions of a void statute, such a statute must be considered as never having been enacted and a decision that is based thereon as being void. Under such circumstances the question is one of fundamental error of which the appellate court must take cognizance, Houston Lighting & Power Co. v. Jenkins, 5 S.W.2d 1030 (Tex.Civ.App.--Austin 1928); Stubblefield v. State, 425 S.W.2d 699 (Tex.Civ.App.--Tyler 1968, n.r.e.).

The general rules that govern the construction of statutes have been applied with equal force to the construction of old age assistance regulations. 81 C.J.S. Social Security and Public Welfare, § 15 and § 22, pp. 40--50. The Supreme Court of the United States recently discussed the rights of poor people to welfare entitlements under certain state regulations. The Court said, in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970):

'* * * Such benefits are a matter of statutory entitlement for persons qualified to receive them. ⁸ * * * The plaintiffs contend in their suit that defendant Taddei by his arbitrary ruling, has deprived these plaintiffs of an important property right. Plaintiff testified that they were entitled to the $57.00 payable by the State and were eligible to receive the same except for the arbitrary interpretation made by defendant Taddei of the subject regulation. They argue that the regulation lacks specific and definite terms for clarity so that it is, as a matter of law, unconstitutional and therefore utterly void.

It is a general principle of law that a statute or regulation must be definite to be valid. Due process of law in legislation requires definiteness or certainty. If a regulation is incomplete, vague, indefinite and uncertain and it forbids the doing of an act which is so vague, that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and that such men differ as to application, it violates the first essential of due process of law. Lone Star Gas Co. v. Kelly, 140 Tex. 15, 165 S.W.2d 446 (Tex.Comm'n App. 1942); Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); 16A C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 569(5), p. 584; 16 Am.Jur.2d 551--552.

The Sanders ask this Court, how can men of common intelligence agree as to what is meant by the term 'old' as it is used in the regulation? They say: 'So what guideline is to be used in determining what is meant by an old man, old shoes, old times, or an old debt? To a ten-year old, a man of thirty may be old. But to a man of fifty, a man of thirty may seem young. To a rich man who buys a new pair of shoes often, a pair of shoes six months old may be old, whereas to a lawyer who buys a new pair once every four or five years a pair of shoes six months old may be new. The term 'old' then is a relative term depending upon the individual point of view of the person making the judgment.'

It is clear to us that the term 'old' is vague, uncertain and indefinite. It is probable that one officer of the State Welfare Department might believe that a one-year old debt was an old one. Another in the same position might use five years, still another, ten. The defendant Taddei stated that the word 'old' in the regulation to him would mean a debt that existed for five years or longer.

Taddei was questioned as to his interpretation of the term 'informal debt'. He stated that an informal debt was one that could not be substantiated by documentary evidence. He stated that it would preclude any oral obligation from being considered. This being the case it would be difficult for men of common intellect to know what sort of debt the State Department of Public Welfare or any of its agents might designate as an informal debt. The plaintiffs state that the fact...