Title: Sherdrick v. Dept. of Social Welfare

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P.
 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                       Nos. 90-301, 90-302 & 92-070


 Terry Shedrick                               Supreme Court

      v.                                      On Appeal from
                                              Human Services Board
 Department of Social Welfare

                                              November Term, 1991
 Catherine Cook

      v.

 Department of Social Welfare


 Cynthia Desrosier

      v.

 Department of Social Welfare


 John Wesley, Chair (90-301, 90-302)

 Theodore Kramer, Chair (92-070)

 William R. Dysart, William J. O'Neill and Linda Shapiro, Vermont Legal Aid,
   Inc., Burlington, for plaintiffs-appellees

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, Montpelier, and Christina Byrum and
   Donelle S. Staley, Assistant Attorneys General, Waterbury, for defendant-
   appellant


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson and Johnson, JJ., and Peck, J. (Ret.),
           Specially Assigned


      ALLEN, C.J.   The Department of Social Welfare (DSW) appeals from
 three decisions of the Human Services Board declaring that, for food stamp
 eligibility purposes, a husband, wife and their minor children constitute a
 separate household from an adult child of one of the spouses living in the
 same household.  We agree with DSW that the governing federal and state
 regulations are consistent with federal statute and that requiring the
 inclusion of adult children of a parent with minor children in the parent's
 food stamp household is consistent with the intent of Congress.  We
 therefore reverse.
      Appellee Terry Shedrick is a disabled food stamp recipient who resides
 with his wife and two of his wife's children, a daughter of 16 and a 20-
 year-old son.  DSW notified appellee that his food stamp benefits would
 terminate because he did not provide information regarding the earnings of
 his wife's son, who does not purchase and prepare food with the other
 household members.
      Appellee Catherine Cook is a food stamp recipient who resides with her
 husband, two daughters, 19 and 15, and a granddaughter, 8, whose mother does
 not reside in the household.  Appellee received food stamps based on a
 household of four: herself, her disabled husband, her minor daughter, and
 her minor granddaughter.  Her 19-year-old daughter, who does not purchase
 and prepare food with the other household members, obtained a job, and DSW
 notified appellee that her monthly food stamp grant would be reduced from
 $197 to $126 and that she would be assessed for an overpayment of $974.
      Appellee Cynthia Desrosier is a food stamp recipient who resides with
 her son, 18, and her daughter, 15.  Her son works full time, pays rent to
 his mother, but purchases and prepares his food separate from his mother and
 sister.  DSW terminated appellee's monthly food stamp grant of $169 due to
 her failure to provide information regarding her son's earnings.
      Each recipient appealed to the Board, asserting that the adult child
 constituted a separate household and was not required to be included in
 appellee's household under federal law and regulations.  The Board agreed in
 all three cases, concluding that the applicable Vermont food stamp
 regulation, based on the identical language of the federal regulation, (FN1) 
 was inconsistent with the 1987 amendment to { 2012(i) of the Food Stamp Act.
      The 1964 Food Stamp Act defined "household" to include any single
 individual who prepared his or her own meals using separate cooking
 facilities and nearly any group of individuals functioning as a single
 economic unit and sharing common cooking facilities.  See 7 U.S.C. {
 2012(e)(1964).  In 1977 Congress amended the definition of "household" to
 require individuals or groups of individuals, related or not, who
 customarily purchased and prepared meals together to be treated as a single
 household.  7 U.S.C. { 2012(i)(1977).  This definition of "household"
 allowed individuals, whether living alone or with others, to qualify as
 separate households if they customarily purchased food and prepared meals
 separately.  In 1981 and 1982, in response to perceived abuses in the food
 stamp program, Congress again amended the Food Stamp Act, creating mandatory
 household designation in parent-child households and sibling households.
 The amendments provided that parents and children, or siblings, who live
 together shall be deemed to comprise a single household for food stamp
 purposes, regardless of whether the parent-child or sibling household
 purchased food or prepared meals separately or together, unless one of the
 parents or siblings was elderly or disabled.  7 U.S.C. { 2012(i)(1981,
 1982).  These amendments created an irrebuttable presumption that "parents
 and children, or siblings, who live together" purchase food and prepare
 meals together for home consumption.  See Robinson v. Block, 869 F.2d 202,
 211-12 (3d Cir. 1989).  Under the 1981-82 amendments, then, parents would be
 compelled to include their non-minor children in their households for food
 stamp purposes.
      Congress again amended the Food Stamp Act in 1987, creating the present
 definition of "household," which establishes a new exemption from the
 irrebuttable presumption created by the 1981-82 mandatory household
 composition provisions.  The current definition of "household" in 7 U.S.C.
 { 2012(i) reads in part:

           "Household" means (1) an individual who lives alone or
           who, while living with others, customarily purchases
           food and prepares meals for home consumption separate
           and apart from the others, (2) a group of individuals
           who live together and customarily purchase food and
           prepare meals together for home consumption, or (3) a
           parent of minor children and that parent's children
           (notwithstanding the presence in the home of any other
           persons, including parents and siblings of the parent
           with minor children) who customarily purchase food and
           prepare meals for home consumption separate from other
           persons, except that (other than as provided in clause
           (3)) parents and children, or siblings, who live
           together shall be treated as a group of individuals who
           customarily purchase and prepare meals together for home
           consumption even if they do not do so, unless one of the
           parents, or siblings, is an elderly or disabled member.
           . . .  (Emphasis supplied.)

           It is this new definition of "household" that is at the heart of the present
           controversy.
        DSW argues that the phrase "a parent of minor children and that
   parent's children" distinguishes between "minor children" and "children" in
   general, who might be minors or adults.  Read in that manner, the statute
   would mandate the inclusion of the adult child within a single food stamp
   household, thereby requiring consideration of that adult child's income in
   the food stamp determination.  In Shedrick and Desrosier, the failure to
   provide income information about the adult child would terminate
   eligibility.  In Cook, including the adult child's income in the food stamp
   budget would reduce benefits significantly.
        Appellees contend that the words "that parent's children" mean the
   children referred to earlier in the phrase, namely, "minor children."  Under
   this interpretation, in Shedrick and Desrosier the income of the son would
   not be included in the food stamp budget, since only the minor daughter
   would be included within the phrase in { 2012(i), "a parent of minor
   children and that parent's children."  Similarly, in Cook only the
   recipient's 15-year-old daughter, and not her 19-year-old daughter, would be
   part of the food stamp household.  The latter's income would not be factored
   into the food stamp budget calculation.
                                       I.
        Our task, in reviewing the Board's conclusion that the food stamp
   regulations are inconsistent with the statute, is to determine "whether
   Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue."  Chevron,
   U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,