Court Opinion

ID: 9529592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:52:16.562707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:51.063176
License: Public Domain

Dore, J.
(dissenting)—The majority holds that the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) can deny the State's GAU financial help4 to disabled persons, who but for their marital status to SSI5 &recipients would receive such aid. The majority tries to justify this inequity by saying that ineligible spouses already get benefits through federal SSI to their aged, blind or disabled *425spouses. I disagree with this view because it erroneously contemplates that the State's optional supplement6 is "federal-aid assistance."7 It also contravenes congressional and legislative intent by cutting off qualified persons from legitimate benefits.
The majority's characterization of our State's supplement to SSI unfairly denies all but very limited "acute and emergent"8 medical coverage to an SSI-ineligible spouse. This interpretation ignores the intent of the Washington Legislature. By enacting the GAU program, our Legislature saw a need and made provision to help that class of persons represented here: persons unable to work due to mental or physical disability who do not receive federal-aid assistance.
All GAU recipients qualify for medical care services under RCW 74.09.035, but SSI-ineligible spouses do not qualify. There is no question that persons in this class would get GAU medical aid if not married to an SSI recipient. By adopting the DSHS interpretation, the majority unjustly differentiates between persons whose spouses receive SSI and those whose spouses receive income for some other reason.
In 1974 Congress found it necessary to enact the SSI program and set minimum assistance levels to the poor and disabled because previous state programs were inadequate. By setting a minimum standard, Congress was not thereby encouraging the states to abandon their own legislative mandates. In addition to providing SSI assistance, the federal government also bears administrative costs for both the SSI and the state supplement program. By the majority's logic we are led to believe that, after benefiting by federal administration of the State's own funds, the State may then term such funds "federal-aid assistance" and deny *426needy citizens the very benefits ordered by the Legislature and available to other similarly situated recipients.
The most callous aspect of the majority's interpretation is that it ignores an entire category of persons who have fallen through a crack between two systems. DSHS agrees that disablement from work due to mental or physical infirmity would qualify these persons for GAU under one of two requirements. It should be apparent that the other requirement is also met because such persons do not qualify for federal-aid assistance. To say that state payments constitute federal-aid assistance because the federal government takes the State's administrative burden to itself, strains credulity.
The basic goal of all statutory construction is to carry out the intent of the Legislature. Millers Cas. Ins. Co. v. Briggs, 100 Wn.2d 1, 5, 665 P.2d 891 (1983). Where disagreement regarding such intent arises, this court must construe the statute's language to effectuate the purpose of the act as a whole. Condit v. Lewis Refrigeration Co., 101 Wn.2d 106, 110, 676 P.2d 466 (1984). The purpose and intent of RCW Title 74, "Public Assistance," is to provide "such public assistance as is necessary to insure ... a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health.” (Italics mine.) RCW 74.98.040.
Because a construction of RCW 74.04.005 to withhold GAU benefits from SSI-ineligible spouses unreasonably discriminates between persons similarly situated, it is an infringement of federal equal protection and Washington's privileges and immunities clause. State v. Hall, 104 Wn.2d 486, 493, 706 P.2d 1074 (1985); Myrick v. Board of Pierce Cy. Comm'rs, 102 Wn.2d 698, 701, 677 P.2d 140, 687 P.2d 1152 (1984); Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr.,_U.S._, 87 L. Ed. 2d 313, 105 S. Ct. 3249, 3258 (1985); United States Dep't of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 533, 538, 37 L. Ed. 2d 782, 93 S. Ct. 2821 (1973); Ranschburg v. Toan, 709 F.2d 1207, 1211-12 (8th Cir. 1983). By refusing to identify state funds as federal-aid assistance, the trial court honored the purpose and intent of RCW Title 74 and *427correctly sustained the entitlement of this class to benefits our Legislature found necessary for maintaining decency and health among our citizens.
Conclusion
I dissent from the majority. I would affirm the trial court because (a) RCW 74.04.005 does not exclude SSI-ineligible spouses from GAU benefits, and (b) the DSHS exclusion violates both federal equal protection under U.S. Const. amend. 14, § 1 and our State's privileges and immunities clause in Const. art. 1, § 12.
Utter and Pearson, JJ., concur with Dore, J.
Reconsideration denied March 16, 1987.

"General assistance—unemployable" state funded public assistance program. RCW 74.04.005(6).

Federal Supplemental Security Income, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1381, 1381a, 1382 (1982 & Supp. 2,1984).

RCW 74.04.620.

RCW 74.04.005(5).

WAC 388-100.