Wellman v. Department of Human Services

• Decision Date: 07 May 1990
• Parties: Ronald O. WELLMAN v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 879

574 A.2d 879

Ronald O. WELLMAN v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Jan. 31, 1990.

Decided May 7, 1990.

Gordon H.S. Scott (orally), Eaton, Peabody, Bradford & Veague, Augusta, for plaintiff.

Christopher C. Leighton (orally), Raymond Ritchie, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for defendant.

Before WATHEN, GLASSMAN, CLIFFORD, HORNBY and COLLINS, JJ.

CLIFFORD, Justice.

Ronald O. Wellman appeals from the entries of partial summary judgments granted by the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Brennan, J.) in favor of the Department of Human Services ("Department"). Wellman contends that the requirement that he, an unwed father, reimburse the Department for Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC") payments made to his child's mother for the support of his child, which are used in part to support the mother, exceeds statutory authority and violates his constitutional right to equal protection of the laws. Wellman further contends that the Superior Court erred in holding that sovereign immunity bars any but prospective relief to the plaintiff class resulting from possible Departmental determinations that the mothers of the plaintiffs' children may have been ineligible for AFDC payments. We reject those contentions and affirm the judgments.

Wellman is the acknowledged father of a child born in 1984. He never married the child's mother, who lived separately from Wellman after the child's birth. The mother began receiving monthly AFDC grants of $289 ¹ in 1985 and continued receiving them well into 1986, when Wellman was awarded custody of the child by a District Court order.

Under the provisions of 19 M.R.S.A. § 498 (Supp.1989), ² the Department sought in an administrative proceeding to recover from Wellman, the father of the child, the amount of AFDC grants it had paid to the child's mother. After administrative hearings, ³ the Department ordered Wellman to reimburse the full amount of the AFDC payments made to the mother.

Wellman brought an action in the Superior Court pursuant to 5 M.R.S.A. §§ 11001-11007 (1989), 19 M.R.S.A. § 516 (Supp.1989) and M.R.Civ.P. 80C, seeking judicial review of the administrative determination of the Department. Wellman also initiated a claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982), alleging violations of his constitutional rights to due process and equal protection, and seeking an award of attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1982). Under the provisions of M.R.Civ.P. 23, Count II of Wellman's action was certified as a class action, the class comprised of unmarried but acknowledged fathers of minor children who have been ordered to reimburse the Department for AFDC payments made to the mothers of those children.

In an order dated June 2, 1989 and later amended on October 25, 1989, the court agreed with Wellman's contention that the Department improperly refused at the administrative hearing to allow him to challenge the mother's eligibility for AFDC payments. ⁴ See 19 M.R.S.A. § 498(4)(A) (Supp.1989). The court granted partial summary judgment to Wellman on Count I of the complaint, vacated the Department's order fixing the amount he is required to reimburse the Department, and remanded the matter to the Department for the purpose of holding a new hearing on the issue of AFDC eligibility of the mother of Wellman's child. ⁵ The Department was also ordered to notify members of the class of their right to such a hearing. ⁶ The Department has not appealed from that ruling.

The court entered partial summary judgment for the Department on that part of Count I challenging the Department's requirement that members of the class reimburse the Department for the share of the AFDC payment not exclusively allocated to support of the child, and on the claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in Count II. Wellman has appealed from those judgments.

I.

Wellman agrees that he owes a duty of support to his child, see 19 M.R.S.A. § 442 (Supp.1989), ⁷ and that the Department can seek reimbursement from him for the support given to that child. See 19 M.R.S.A. § 495. He argues that because section 498 allows the Department to establish his support obligation only to the extent required by section 442, and since section 442 does not require him as an unwed father to support the mother of his child, he should not be required to reimburse the Department for the full amount of the AFDC payments because those payments were made to and include support for the child's unwed mother. ⁸ He therefore contends that there is no statutory authority for the Department to implement its policy of requiring full reimbursement and that such a policy denies him equal protection of the law.

A.

Wellman's obligation to reimburse the Department for the AFDC payments made to the mother of the child is set out in the statutory and case law governing AFDC. The AFDC program is a cooperative federal/state public assistance program under which the federal government provides matching funds to states in order to assist needy children. The Department operates the AFDC program in accordance with federal requirements outlined in 42 U.S.C. § 607 (1989). Underlying the legislative scheme is the reality that in order to properly support a needy child, provision must be made for the responsible adult, frequently, but not always, the child's mother, who cares for that child. Maine adopted the goals of the AFDC program, stated in 42 U.S.C. § 601, through 22 M.R.S.A. § 3741 (Pamph.1989). Ottman v. Fisher, 319 A.2d 56, 64 (Me.1974). Those goals include

encouraging the care of dependent children in their own homes or in the homes of relatives by enabling each state to furnish financial assistance and rehabilitation and other services ... to needy dependent children and the parents or relatives with whom they are living to help maintain and strengthen family life and to help such parents or relatives to attain or retain capability for the maximum self-support and personal independence consistent with the maintenance of continuing parental care and protection....

(Emphasis added.) " 'Since the person caring for the child must have food, clothing and other essentials, amounts allotted to the children must be used in part for this purpose if no other provision is made to meet her needs.' " Peggy S.M. v. State, 397 A.2d 980, 982-83 (Me.1979) (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 1300 with respect to 1950 amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 606(b) (emphasis omitted)).

Wellman's contention that the AFDC payments are somehow divisible between the child and the mother is without foundation. "The maintenance of the custodial parent is an inseparable and necessary part of the support of the dependent child." State v. Chamberland, 361 N.W.2d 814, 818 (Minn.1985); see also Castellani v. Criscuolo, 39 Conn.Supp. 485, 466 A.2d 812, 813 (Conn.Super.Ct.1983). The AFDC program is designed to help the child by preserving and strengthening the family entity, and merely granting aid to the dependent child does not adequately meet the child's need for care. Rodriguez v. Vowell, 472 F.2d 622, 624 (5th Cir.1973). Although Wellman is entitled to be heard at the Department level on whether the mother was eligible to receive benefits, the AFDC payments made to the mother for which he is required to reimburse the Department are presumed to constitute necessary support for the child and Wellman has the burden to overcome that presumption.

An assumption that child support payments to families receiving AFDC benefit are typically used for the entire family's needs is entirely reasonable.... This conclusion does not rest on an assumption that custodial parents routinely violate state law restrictions on the use of support money. For the requirement that the support income be used for the "benefit" of the child does not preclude its use for common expenses. Moreover, the custodial parent's duty to benefit the supported child is not necessarily served simply by spending more money on him or her than on other children living in the same home. As the District Court recognized, nothing in the ... law requires a custodial parent to focus only on the economic interest of the child receiving support without taking into account the emotional and psychological welfare of the child. Congress' finding that custodial parents were routinely using the support funds for the entire family thus reflects the reality that such use is typically proper since expenditures for an entire family typically benefit each member of the household.

Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 600 n. 14, 107 S.Ct. 3008, 3016 n. 14, 97 L.Ed.2d 485 (1987) (citations omitted).

To accept Wellman's contention that he is responsible for only the discrete portion of the AFDC payments spent directly on the child would diminish substantially the obligation of a parent to support a child who requires care from a responsible adult, and transfer a large part of that obligation to the state. The authority provided under sections 495 and 498 allows the Department to recover from unwed fathers the full AFDC payments made to eligible mothers.

B.

Wellman further contends that requiring him to reimburse the Department for AFDC payments made to his child's mother deprives him of equal protection of the laws within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He argues that the requirement treats him less favorably than unmarried fathers whose children live with a relative other than the mother; divorced fathers; and mothers. We agree with the Superior Court and reject Wellman's contentions.

The prohibition against denial of equal protection of the law to any person is implicated only when action by the state results in treatment of that person different than that given similarly situated individuals. Brann v. State, 424 A.2d 699, 703 (Me.1981). All parents have a child support obligation enforceable under section 495 and 498. A father, whether married, divorced or never married, owes a duty...