Court Opinion

ID: 9634100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:28:23.941098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:09.907474
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
The challenged regulation, 18 N.Y.C. R.R. § 352.30(d), is not unconstitutional. It sets up no “irrebuttable presumption not necessarily or universally true in fact.” Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S. 441, 452, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 2236, 37 L.Ed.2d 63 (1973).
In Taylor v. Lavine, 497 F.2d 1208, (2d Cir. 1974), the Second Circuit considered the validity of section 352.30(d) in light of section 406 of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 606(a) (1970), and 45 C.F.R. § 233.90(a). In Taylor the court held that section 352.30(d) does not create an irrebuttable presumption of contribution offensive to section 406(a) or the federal regulation.1 It reasoned that prorating shelter costs between AFDC-eligible and non-eligible members of a household insures that AFDC funds are disbursed only to individuals who have demonstrated their need for assistance. It found that the New York regulation is reasonably justified by considerations such as the severability of individual needs, the divisibility of space, and the economies of scale that result from combining small living units into larger groups:
“Prorating housing costs between the recipient and non-recipient simply reflects the separability of the need of the AFDC-eligible family members from the needs of persons who have not demonstrated their eligibility for public assistance. Indeed, if a section 352.30(d) lodger can separately dem*178onstrate his eligibility for public aid, the AFDC shelter allowance is increased to include his share . . . . ” Taylor v. Lavine, 497 F.2d 1208, 1215.
The Taylor holding controls the present case. A non-contributing lodger, like the majority’s Mr. M., must by necessity'either have the means to make a pro rata contribution to the recipient household, or he must lack such means. If the lodger is financially able to contribute to the cost of maintaining the household, New York surely does not offend due process by abating the shelter allowance of the AFDC recipient pro rata according to the lodger’s share. If the lodger is not financially able to contribute his share, New York permits him to establish his separate eligibility for public assistance. We have been assured that New York does not require persons of demonstrated need to go without shelter. Should the lodger establish his eligibility, it is admitted by all parties that a household like the Mrs. D-Mr. M. household would receive a shelter allowance increased over the amount received by the D household alone.2
It is thus clear that the New York regulation “presumes” that a lodger has the will and means to contribute his or her fair share toward housing expenses unless the lodger demonstrates separate eligibility for public assistance. Any “presumption” of the lodger’s means may be refuted at the lodger’s initiative in the same forum in which the AFDC recipient was initially required to establish a need for aid. The “conclusive presumption” denounced by the majority is the same “presumption” that attaches to every member of our society: that he is able to pay his own way until and unless he demonstrates the contrary. If the lodger is eligible for public assistance but does not apply, his silence cannot be put at the state’s door. If the lodger is too proud to accept welfare— Mrs. D’s testimony indicates that such was Mr. M’s motive for not applying for aid — then he ought to be too proud to accept aid from the state indirectly through the eligible AFDC recipient. A noncontributing lodger like Mr. M. has and eats his public assistance cake without demonstrating his need.
The majority states that the aid recipient’s “Fair Hearing” under 18 N.Y.C. R.R. §§ 358.1-358.27 is a “reasonable alternative means” for determining the amount a lodger is willing or able to pay toward the cost of housing. But this statement glosses over the obvious difficulty of determining the means or intent of a person who has not put his affairs before the Social Services Department by applying for public assistance. In none of the recent Supreme Court due process cases cited by the majority did the reasonable alternative means of fact-finding entail intrusion into the affairs of any person who did not apply for or seek a governmentally administered benefit or right.
Section 352.30(d) does not “exacerbate [ ] the familial disintegration already experienced by the urban poor.” It does not necessarily upset the established patterns of cooperation between people of limited and uncertain means. So long as each member of a group cooperating as a household establishes his eligibility for public funds, cooperating will increase the shelter allowance due the whole. In any event, the procedure implicitly sanctioned by the majority, requiring the lodger to submit his affairs to the New York Social Services Department in the context of the AFDC recipient’s “Fair Hearing,” is surely no less conducive to “familial disintegration” than requiring the lodger to demonstrate his need on his own application.
While assailing the rationality of section 352.30(d), today’s majority em*179braces irrationality. It creates a unique class of persons who may receive the benefit of state aid without demonstrating any need for such aid. It prefers lodgers in AFDC recipient households over all other lodgers. It prefers lodgers in AFDC households over the eligible AFDC recipients themselves, since the latter must bear the burden of demonstrating their eligibility. In our complex society there are no simple means of identifying households in need of state assistance, or of allocating the limited stock of resources among individuals who have demonstrated a need for such assistance. Section 352.30(d) is a valid attempt by New York to make such an allocation and it ought to be upheld.

. The Taylor court remanded the case so that the constitutional issues might be considered by a three-judge district court. The present case is the result of that remand. The opinion of the present majority ignores the Taylor rationale and in effect holds that section 406(a) of the Social Security Act and 45 C.F.R. § 233.90(a) are unconstitutional as applied in the Second Circuit.

. Under locally administered regulations, shelter allowances increase in rough proportion to the number of eligible persons in the recipient household. Were Mr. M. to establish his eligibility for public assistance there would be an additional eligible person in the household, and the shelter allowance would accordingly be increased.