Westberry v. Fisher

• Decision Date: 21 March 1969
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 10-80.
• Citation: 297 F. Supp. 1109
• Parties: Richard A. WESTBERRY, and Sarah L. Westberry, individually and on behalf of their minor children, Pauline B. Westberry, David K. Westberry, Carolyn L. Westberry, Carol L. Westberry, John A. Westberry, Charles A. Westberry, Tina M. Westberry, Paul E. Westberry, Frank E. Westberry, Jean A. Westberry; June Martin, individually and on behalf of her minor children Jody Martin, Clyde Martin, Valerie Martin, Cindy Martin, Carl Martin, Dianne Martin, Wayne Martin, David Martin, and Robert Martin and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Dean FISHER, M.D., individually and in his capacity as Commissioner of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare; Pauline Smith, individually and in her capacity as Director of the Division of Family Services of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare; James Tierney, individually and in his capacity as District Director of the Division of Family Services, Portland Branch; David Jenny and Beverly Holloway, social workers of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare, their agents, successors, and employees and all those in concert, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

297 F. Supp. 1109

Richard A. WESTBERRY, and Sarah L. Westberry, individually and on behalf of their minor children, Pauline B. Westberry, David K. Westberry, Carolyn L. Westberry, Carol L. Westberry, John A. Westberry, Charles A. Westberry, Tina M. Westberry, Paul E. Westberry, Frank E. Westberry, Jean A. Westberry; June Martin, individually and on behalf of her minor children Jody Martin, Clyde Martin, Valerie Martin, Cindy Martin, Carl Martin, Dianne Martin, Wayne Martin, David Martin, and Robert Martin and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Dean FISHER, M.D., individually and in his capacity as Commissioner of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare; Pauline Smith, individually and in her capacity as Director of the Division of Family Services of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare; James Tierney, individually and in his capacity as District Director of the Division of Family Services, Portland Branch; David Jenny and Beverly Holloway, social workers of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare, their agents, successors, and employees and all those in concert, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 10-80.

United States District Court D. Maine, S. D.

March 21, 1969.

Donald F. Fontaine, Portland, Me., William L. Robinson, New York City, for plaintiffs.

John W. Benoit, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, Me., for defendants.

Before COFFIN, Circuit Judge, and GIGNOUX and CAFFREY, District Judges.

OPINION

GIGNOUX, District Judge.

This is a class action against the Commissioner and certain administrative personnel of the Maine State Department of Health and Welfare seeking a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief and damages.¹ Jurisdiction is properly invoked under the Civil Rights Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and (4), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and a three-judge District Court has been convened as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2281. King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968). At issue is the validity of Maine's so-called "maximum grant" and "maximum budget" regulations, which provide, in substance, that under no circumstances may a family entitled to benefits under the State's Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (AFDC) have a "budgeted need" of more than $300 per month, or receive a grant from the state in excess of $250 per month. Plaintiffs are members of a class composed of AFDC recipients who have large families and whose grants are limited by one or both of the two regulations. We hold that both regulations violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and accordingly that they are void and may no longer be enforced.²

I

The AFDC program is one of the categorical public assistance programs established by the Social Security Act of 1935. 42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq.³ The State of Maine participates in this program, 22 M.R.S.A. § 3741 (Supp.1968-69), and as required by the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-604, has adopted for its administration a body of regulations which are incorporated in the Maine Public Assistance Payments Manual, a document issued by the Division of Family Services of the Department of Health and Welfare. This manual contains a standard schedule for determining the monetary need, or "budgeted requirements," of a recipient family in order to provide it with a "reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health." In the absence of special circumstances, the schedule fixes the budgeted requirements of a two-adult family at $40 for each adult; $30 for the first child; and $27 for the second and each additional child.⁴ From the figure thus obtained, the State deducts any other income available to the family. The remainder is the AFDC grant. However, Maine has also adopted the "maximum budget" and "maximum grant" regulations here under attack. The maximum budget regulation provides that the budgeted requirements of a family unit cannot exceed $300 per month. The maximum grant regulation provides that the maximum grant permitted is $250 per month.⁵

The operation of these two regulations is demonstrated by their effect on the AFDC grants of the two plaintiff families. Plaintiff Richard Westberry and his wife Sarah began receiving AFDC payments for themselves and their ten children in April, 1965, when Mr. Westberry became totally and permanently disabled, because of illness. The State has determined that the Westberry family has actual budgeted requirements of $643.86 per month. However, pursuant to the maximum budget regulation this figure is adjusted downward to $300, which then becomes, for the State's purposes, the family's total budgeted requirements. The State then deducts from this figure $156.62, which is the only other income, a Social Security disability benefit, available to the family. The remainder, approximately $144 per month, is the authorized AFDC grant. This amount, together with the Westberrys' Social Security disability payment, falls short of their actual budgeted monthly needs by around $345.

Plaintiff June Martin has received AFDC payments for herself and her nine children since June 1949. Under the standard schedule for calculating need, the State has determined that the actual budgeted requirements of the Martin family are $514.36 per month. The maximum budget regulation reduces this figure to $300. Because of the maximum grant regulation the Martins, who have no other income, receive an AFDC grant, not of $300, but of $250 per month. As a result of the combined application of the two regulations, the Martins' grant is limited to less than half their actual budgeted requirements.

II

It is evident that the effect of the two challenged regulations is that families with a large number of dependent children receive less favorable treatment under Maine's AFDC program than families with a small number of dependent children.⁶ For practical purposes, the maximum grant regulation means that a two-adult family with six or less dependent children is entitled to a payment of $27 for each dependent child after the first, whereas a two-adult family with seven or more dependent children receives only $5 additional for the seventh dependent child and no further payments for any dependent children in excess of seven.⁷ It is readily apparent that the maximum grant regulation thus creates two classes of persons—families with six or less dependent children and families with seven or more dependent children—and subjects the larger families to different treatment than the small families. For the small families the amount of their grant will more likely approximate their actual budgeted requirements. But the larger the family, the greater the inevitable gap between their budgeted need and the flat maximum grant of $250 per month.

The discriminatory impact of the maximum grant regulation upon large families is frequently aggravated by the maximum budget regulation. The effect of the latter regulation is that a family whose actual budgeted need exceeds $300 per month may not have more than $50 income from other sources without suffering a concomitant reduction in the maximum grant of $250 to which it would otherwise be entitled.⁸ In the case of smaller families, the deduction of other income from budgeted need to ascertain the amount of the AFDC grant has the effect merely of insuring that an AFDC grant will not swell a family's total income beyond its budgeted need. In the case of larger families, the fact that the AFDC grant is computed by deducting other income, not from actual need, but from the lower arbitrary maximum budget figure of $300, doubly insures a widening disparity, both absolutely and proportionately, between total income and need. The regressive impact of this regulation is shown in the table in the margin.⁹

Under established constitutional principles, Maine cannot, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, discriminate in this manner against a specially selected class of persons unless it does so pursuant to some legitimate state interest, and unless the basis for the classification is reasonably relevant to this legitimate interest. Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 36 S.Ct. 7, 60 L.Ed. 131 (1915); Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457, 77 S.Ct. 1344, 1 L.Ed.2d 1485 (1957); Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436 (1968). The classification drawn by the state, if it is not to contravene the Equal Protection Clause, must be reasonable in light of its purpose. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 191, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed.2d 222 (1964). While a state may classify persons for various purposes, it may not do so upon arbitrary or irrational grounds. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886); Gulf. Colorado and Santa Fe Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 17 S.Ct. 255, 41 L.Ed. 666 (1897); Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 775, 13 L.Ed.2d 675 (1965). As the Supreme Court most recently stated in Levy v. Louisiana, supra, 391 U.S. at 71, 88 S.Ct. at 1511:

While a State has broad power when it comes to making classifications * * *, it may not draw a line which constitutes an invidious discrimination against a particular class. * * * Though the test has been variously stated, the end result is whether the line drawn is a rational one.¹⁰

See also Glona v. American Guarantee and Liability Ins. Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441 (1968).

The classifications created by the Maine maximum grant and maximum budget regulations bear no reasonable relation to the purposes of the federal and state AFDC program. The purpose of the federal AFDC program, as set forth in the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 601, is to provide financial support for needy children who have been deprived of parental support.¹¹ The Maine statute makes clear that the state purpose is the same as the federal purpose. 22 M.R.S.A. § 3741 (Supp. 1968-69).¹² In furtherance of this purpose, the State has determined the actual needs of a...