Court Opinion

ID: 9795313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:25:51.791527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:29:24.706551
License: Public Domain

OPINION ALARID, Judge. {1} We granted certiorari to review a judgment of the district court upholding an administrative decision of the Human Services Department (Department) establishing a claim for overpayment of food stamp benefits and rejecting the food stamp recipient’s defense that the Department should be equitably estopped from recovering the overpayment because the overpayment resulted solely from administrative error and without fault on the part of the food stamp recipient. We reverse on the ground that it is premature to address equitable defenses because the Department has not yet exercised its authority under federal law to settle, adjust, or compromise the overpayment claim. BACKGROUND {2} We have taken the following summary of the operative facts directly from the Department’s brief: Appellant took care of her two grandchildren first as a foster parent and then as a parent after she adopted them. Appellant received a subsidy from the New Mexico Children Youth & Families Department (CYFD) to help her care for her grandchildren while they were in foster care. This subsidy was not counted as income to the household for Food Stamp benefits while appellant’s granddaughters were foster children. Appellant adopted her grandchildren. The Second Judicial District [Court] issued a Final Decree of Adoption on November 24, 1997. Appellant then received an adoption subsidy from the CYFD to help her to care for her adopted children. The subsidy was $1,040.00 per month for both children. Appellant filled out and signed an application for Food Stamp recertification on March 22, 2004 with the Income Support Division of the Human Services Department (Department). Appellant also filled out and signed an application for decertification on September 21, 2004. On both of these applications, Appellant included as income the amount that she received from the CYFD for the adoption subsidy. The application packet includes a statement of Rights and Responsibilities that a household is responsible to pay back benefits that the household was ineligible to receive. This is also explained to the client. Pursuant to Department regulations, the foster care subsidy can be excluded from the household income for Food Stamp benefits purposes, and adoption subsidy is not. The adoption subsidy was erroneously excluded from the household income after Appellant adopted her grandchildren. In addition to the adoption subsidy, Appellant received income of $416.00 of Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) and $124.00 of Supplemental Security Income. Appellant’s total income (including the adoption subsidy) was $1,580.00 for the claim period. [Applying] ... the standard deduction of $134.00 ... Appellant’s [net] income [was] $1,446.00. The maximum net income eligibility for a household of three people for the claim period was $1,306.00. Appellant’s income was over the maximum eligibility limit for the claim period. Appellant erroneously received Food Stamp benefits for the claim period of February 2004 to January 2005. One of Appellant’s representatives at the fair hearing admitted that [Appellant] was ineligible for Food Stamps for the period from February 2004 through January 2005. The Department discovered the error when a Quality Control Review was conducted in 2004. The Restitution Bureau of the Department gave Appellant notice that she may have received benefits in error. DISCUSSION  {3} The Department’s reliance on the passive voice — “[t]he adoption subsidy was erroneously excluded from the household income” — does not disguise the crucial operative fact: the Department, not Appellant, erroneously excluded the adoption subsidy from the household income. Id. There is no dispute that Appellant provided the Department with all the information that it needed to correctly apply the law. It appears from the testimony of the Department’s witnesses that the Department made an internal coding error that caused the child-rearing subsidy to be carried forward on Department records as a foster care payment. Furthermore, there is no suggestion in the record that Appellant knew or should have known of the quirk of law by which her household — with the same number of mouths to feed before and after the adoption — became disqualified from receiving food stamps as the result of Appellant’s formal adoption of her grandchildren. {4} The Department maintains that, as a delegatee of federal authority, its hands are tied by federal law requiring recovery of overpayments even where the overpayment was caused solely by agency error and without fault on the part of the food stamp recipient. A careful examination of the relevant statutes, regulations, and interpretative statements indicates that the Department’s position is based on an unduly harsh interpretation of federal law. {5} 7 U.S.C.A. § 2022(a)(1) (2002) provides that: the Secretary [of Agriculture] shall have the power to determine the amount of and settle and adjust any claim and to compromise ... all or part of any such claim or claims arising under the provisions of this chapter or the regulations issued pursuant to this chapter, including ... claims arising from, ... nonfraudulent overissuances to recipients, including the power to waive claims if the Secretary determines that to do so would serve the purposes of this chapter. Such powers with respect to claims against recipients may be delegated by the Secretary to State agencies. (Emphasis added). We emphasize two points about this statute. First, claims arising from nonfraudulent overissuances — the type of claim at issue in the present case— are subject to the Secretary’s power to compromise. Second, the power to compromise all or any part of a claim includes the power to waive a claim. Pursuant to 7 C.F.R. § 271.4(b) (2008), the Secretary of Agriculture has delegated to state agencies the authority “subject to the standards in [7 C.F.R.] § 273.18 [2008] ... to ... settle, adjust [or] compromise ... any claim which results from ... nonfraudulent overissuances to participating households.” The Secretary’s delegation of the more general power to compromise claims necessarily extends to a delegation of the included power to waive claims. {6} In the course of our research, we came upon an interpretive statement by the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture that was published in the Federal Register along with the July 2000 revisions to the federal regulations governing claims collections: We received four comments recommending that we establish a policy similar to SSI for waiving [Agency Error] claims. In SSI, a claim may be waived if: (a) The overpaid individual was without fault in connection with the overpayment, and (b) Adjustment or recovery of the overpayment would either: (1) Defeat the purpose of the SSI program, or (2) Be against equity and good conscience, or (3) Impede efficient or effective administration of the SSI program due to the small amount involved. The commenters are particularly interested in waiving [Agency Error] claims that fit criteria (b)(1) and (b)(2) above. We recognize that this recommendation does have some merit. However, we believe that State agencies already have similar authority. State agencies are currently authorized to compromise claims when households are unable to pay because of hardship of similar reasons. Therefore, we do not believe that this change is necessary. Food Stamp Program: Recipient Claim Establishment and Collection Standards, 65 Fed.Reg. 41, 752, 41, 765 (July 6, 2000) (revising 7 C.F.R. Parts 272 and 273) (emphasis added). An agency’s response to public comments on a proposed regulation is part of the legislative history of the regulation, and “while not conclusive, gives insight into the intent of the drafters.” Kelly v. Keystone Shipping Co., 281 F.Supp.2d 313, 324 (D.Mass.2003). The emphasized language indicates that the drafters of the federal regulations governing collection of overpayments understood and intended that state agencies administering food stamp programs have the authority to forego collection of claims resulting from agency error. Federal regulations specifically authorize a state agency to “compromise a claim or any portion of a claim if it can be reasonably determined that a household’s economic circumstances dictate that the claim will not be paid in three years.” 7 C.F.R. § 273.18(e)(7). {7} The purpose of federally funded food stamp programs is to “provide an eligible household ‘an opportunity to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet,’ ” Knebel v. Hein, 429 U.S. 288, 292, 97 S.Ct. 549, 50 L.Ed.2d 485 (1977) (citation omitted); “to ensure that every citizen of this nation receives sufficient nutrition to enjoy a healthy existence,” United States v. Hassan, 211 F.3d 380, 384 (7th Cir.2000); and “to provide assistance to individuals with limited incomes and resources to ensure that their basic nutritional needs will be met,” Hilliards v. Jackson, 28 Va.App. 475, 506 S.E.2d 547, 550 (1998). As a federal district court has observed, “[r]ealistically, recoupment of overpayment does not ‘even things out,’ because, when food stamps are intended to provide marginally adequate coverage, a temporary reduction, even for ‘recoupment,’ is a reduction below the marginally adequate level.” Bliek v. Palmer, 916 F.Supp. 1475, 1488 n. 10 (N.D.Iowa 1996) (concluding that due process required Iowa Department of Human Services to notify food stamp recipients of the state’s authority to compromise claim for overpayment). There is an obvious tension between the purpose of the food stamp program and the very concept of recovering overpayments from a household that entirely depends upon governmental subsidies for the bare necessities of life. The tension is heightened, where as here, the overpayment is the result of the agency’s own error.  {8} In the present case, there is no indication in the administrative record that the Department exercised its discretion to compromise the claim for overpayment. A failure to exercise discretion conferred by law is, of itself, an abuse of discretion. See Sandoval v. Chrysler Corp., 1998-NMCA-085, ¶ 12, 125 N.M. 292, 960 P.2d 834 (discussing trial court’s failure to rule on the defendant’s motion for remittitur; holding that the trial judge’s failure to exercise his discretion was, in itself, reversible error). To the extent the Department failed even to consider a compromise or waiver, the Department acted “arbitrarily or capriciously” and “not ... in accordance with law.” NMSA 1978, § 39-3-1.1(D)(1), (3) (1999). {9} We are reluctant to consider engrafting equitable doctrines such as equitable estoppel onto an administrative scheme when it appears that, properly interpreted, the governing statutes and regulations provide an adequate remedy at law. In view of our conclusion that the Department has authority under federal law to compromise all or part of the claim against Appellant, we think that it is premature to reach the extremely difficult questions1 presented by the application of equitable estoppel to the federally created, but locally administered, food stamp program. Section 39-3-l.l(H)(2) (defining “final decision” as “an agency ruling that as a practical matter resolves all issues arising from a dispute within the jurisdiction of the agency, once all administrative remedies available within the agency have been exhausted”). We vacate the judgment of the district court with instructions to remand this matter to the Department to reopen the fair hearing so that the Department may exercise the discretion conferred by federal law to settle, adjust, or compromise the overpayment claim. Appellant shall have thirty days from the date that Appellant receives written notice of the Department’s amended final decision to move the district court for reinstatement of her appeal. NMSA 1978, § 27-3-4 (1999). {10} IT IS SO ORDERED. I CONCUR: RODERICK T. KENNEDY, Judge. JONATHAN B. SUTIN, Chief Judge (dissenting).  . Vang v. Saenz, No. C016270, 2002 WL 434733 (Cal.Ct.App. Mar.20, 2002) (unpublished), illustrates the complexity of the issues that are involved in deciding whether to apply equitable estoppel to preclude a local agency from recovering food stamp overpayments.