Washington v. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF SAN DIEGO CTY.

18 Cal. App. 4th 981, 22 Cal. Rptr. 2d 852, 93 Daily Journal DAR 11693, 93 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6862, 1993 Cal. App. LEXIS 931

• Court: California Court of Appeal
• Decided: September 13, 1993
• Docket: D017859
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion

THE COURT¹

In January 1992 the San Diego County Board of Supervisors enacted an ordinance (San Diego County Admin. Code, § 257.2) directed to the eligibility for general relief benefits of employable single claimants. Benefits payable to eligible recipients prior to the enactment of the ordinance were not time-limited. The ordinance changed eligibility by providing that “[o]therwise eligible employable recipients shall become ineligible to receive General Relief benefits after receiving three months of benefits within any twelve-month period.”

The Legal Aid Society of San Diego, representing several specific beneficiaries of the general relief program, promptly brought an action seeking a declaration of invalidity of the ordinance. In due course the action was certified as a class action for the benefit of all persons who would have their general relief benefits limited under the ordinance.

The superior court issued a temporary restraining order precluding the county from implementing the ordinance, but after the order to show cause hearing declined to issue a preliminary injunction, concluding that the plaintiffs probably would not prevail on the merits. Writ proceedings were then initiated, the effectiveness of the ordinance being stayed pending writ disposition. This court, on March 17,1992, issued a nonpublished opinion in which we recognized that the precedent established in Mooney v. Pickett (1971) 4 Cal.3d 669 [94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231] suggested that the plaintiffs probably would prevail, and concluded that the harm to the relief recipients, who would be made destitute by the operation of the ordinance, outweighed the temporary fiscal detriment to be incurred by the county. We therefore ordered the restraint on implementation of the ordinance to be continued until trial of the action. Commenting upon the difficulty the county faced in upholding the ordinance, we remarked that “[t]he Board’s ability to distinguish Mooney depends . . . upon a strong showing of change of fundamental circumstances which would cause Mooney to be distinguishable. Mooney rests, at least arguably, upon the premise that ‘the county can surely find many ways which do not violate state statute in which it can limit General Assistance payments to the financial resources available’ [citing Mooney at p. 680].”

Trial before the Honorable Judith L. Haller, sitting without jury, commenced in August 1992. The court’s statement of decision was finalized on October 28, 1992. The court concluded that the ordinance was lawful because of the extraordinary fiscal crisis facing the county. We elected to treat the prompt writ petition brought from this ruling as an expedited appeal, and continued the stay of enforcement. Recognizing the fiscal crisis imposed upon the county, we have endeavored to finalize our decision with dispatch. The difficulty of the issue, however, which required postargument briefing, has to some extent thwarted our efforts to arrive at an early decision.

Format for Deliberations

An abridged overview of the positions taken by the parties on appeal is as follows: Plaintiffs argue that the obligation to provide general relief to indigent poor is created by state statute. Counties are delegated the burden of carrying out the state mandate as agents of the state. Numerous court decisions, of which the Mooney decision is preeminent, have emphasized that counties have no discretion but to carry out the state mandate, and that fiscal difficulty is no defense. If forced to accept the possibility that “impossibility” of performance because of lack of funds might be a defense, the plaintiffs point to the fact that impossibility in this case has not been demonstrated. Plaintiffs’ position is that in order to assert the defense of impossibility, the county is obliged to show that funding for all county discretionary programs has been terminated before funding for the general relief program, a “mandatory” state program, can be impaired.

The county, on the other hand, focuses on the statement in Mooney to the effect that the county “can surely find . . . ways ... in which it can limit General Assistance payments to the financial resources available.” The financial status of counties has changed dramatically, it is pointed out, since 1971 when Mooney was decided. If funding of the general relief program is to be continued without reduction, other programs of equal or greater public importance must be cut. While not creating a situation of classic “impossibility,” the county argues, the present status of fiscal affairs is one which realistically does not meet Mooney's assumption that there would be ways to support the program through “financial resources available.”

We have concluded that it is not necessary for us to address the issue which has been posed and argued at length by the parties. That issue might be phrased: “When a county can establish extreme financial difficulty which requires the diminished spending on virtually all its programs, does the county have discretion to impose reduction of expenditures on so-called state-mandated programs, such as the general relief program?” Were we to accept the proposition that the answer to this question could be “yes” under certain circumstances,² we would nevertheless reverse the trial court’s decision in this case, Assuming, but again not deciding, that the county has discretion under some circumstance to fail in complete fulfillment of the state welfare mandate, the county’s effort as reflected by this ordinance must fail.

The reason for this conclusion is that the county by this ordinance has not simply shorted its payment obligation, as might be reflective of possible impossibility of compliance. The county has instead attempted redefinition of specific eligibility criteria. The county has determined to exclude a specific segment of welfare beneficiaries, making a value judgment that single employable persons are less deserving of support than other indigent individuals. The county has also determined that it is reasonable to put a cap on benefits for this class of recipients after they are paid for three months in any twelve-month period.

The county cannot reduce benefits in this fashion. The statute mandating general relief requires that it be made available to “all incompetent, poor, indigent persons. . . .” (Welf. & Inst. Code,³ § 17000.) Again and again our courts have voided county ordinances which have attempted to redefine eligibility standards set by state statute. When the County of San Francisco attempted to exclude employable single men from relief assistance, the Supreme Court struck down the action, stating: “When a statute confers upon a state agency the authority to adopt regulations to implement, interpret, make specific or otherwise carry out its provisions, the agency’s regulations must be consistent, not in conflict with the statute. . . .” (Mooney v. Pickett, supra, 4 Cal.3d at p. 679.) This result was in harmony with an earlier Court of Appeal decision which struck down a county regulation excluding alcoholics from welfare aid, finding the local regulation in conflict with state law and hence invalid under Government Code former section 11374. (Rosas v. Montgomery (1970) 10 Cal.App.3d 77, 92 [88 Cal.Rptr. 907, 43 A.L.R.3d 537].) An Alameda County ordinance attempted to deny relief benefits to adults under the age of 21 (after the state had lowered the age of majority to 18). Stressing that the statute imposed a duty to support all indigent persons, the reviewing court held that . . the ordinance and regulations are invalid because they are in conflict with the statutes of this state which control eligibility for General Assistance payments.” (Bernhardt v. Board of Supervisors (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 806, 808 [130 Cal.Rptr. 189].) Our court in Nelson v. Board of Supervisors (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 25 [235 Cal.Rptr. 305] struck down an ordinance which would have denied benefits to individuals without residence addresses, stating that when a county adopts regulations implementing a state statute “ ‘ . . the agency’s regulations must be consistent, not in conflict with the statute . . . (Id. at pp. 29, 30, quoting City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 44, 49 [128 Cal.Rptr. 712].)

To summarize, the county in its efforts to reduce expenditures for general relief has not approached the problem in a manner which might reflect financial impossibility of compliance. It has instead sought to reduce its expenditures by redefining the people who will be eligible for benefits, and the redefinition was clearly contrary to then existing state requirements.⁴ While a county in financial extremes may not be required to commit economic suicide in vain attempts to fund all programs fully, it may not meet its financial burdens by redefining state standards of eligibility. That is what the county has attempted to do in this case, and its effort in terms of San Diego County Administrative Code section 257.2 is invalid.

Disposition

The judgment is reversed with instructions to enter judgment for the plaintiffs. Costs on appeal are awarded to plaintiffs.

1 Before Wiener, Acting P. J., Froehlich, J., and Nares, J.

2 We hasten to caution that one reason for this brief “per curiam” opinion is that we have elected not to attempt resolution of this issue. We therefore affirmatively do not determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s finding of severe financial crisis, nor do we address the trial court’s conclusion that there are other programs as important or more important than the general welfare program, resulting in its determination that cuts in the welfare program are warranted. The panel has concluded that it is not necessary to a resolution of this case to broach these issues, and that their determination is best left to future inquiry which may be based upon a county ordinance with more effective focus on the issue.

3 All statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise specified.

4 The Legislature in September 1992 adopted amendments to section 17001.5, which specifically addressed the conditions upon which a county could suspend benefits to employable indigent recipients. The new amendment is clearly in conflict with the standards set by the county ordinance. While our review of the superior court’s judgment would normally be limited to the record before the court (which would not include a statute enacted after the ordinance in question), it would be appropriate for us to consider the fact that subsequent events had made the issue before us moot. (See 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Appeal, § 253, pp. 259, 260, and § 522, p. 504; O’Neal v. Seabury (1938) 24 Cal.App.2d 308, 311 [74 P.2d 1082].) We could, therefore, have issued a brief opinion pointing out the new statute, declaring that obviously the guidelines for terminating relief contained in the new statute preempt those previously set forth in the ordinance, and dismissing the appeal as moot.

Additionally the Legislature very recently adopted new section 17000.6, which creates an administrative avenue for possible reduction of the level of welfare benefits. (Stats. 1993, ch. 72, § 1.) As with the amendments to section 17001.5, mentioned above, this new provision postdates the issues before the trial court in this case, and hence technically is not relevant. In any event, since the ordinance in question is so clearly contrary to state eligibility standards, we elect to resolve the case on this ground without regard to the subsequent legislation.