Court Opinion

ID: 9426280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:25.913224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.022653
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs, dissenting.
For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Richardson v. Wright, 405 U. S. 208, 212 (1972), I agree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals that, prior to termination of benefits, Eldridge must be af*350forded an evidentiary hearing of the type required for welfare beneficiaries under Title IV of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 601 et seg. See Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970). I would add that the Court’s consideration that a discontinuance of disability benefits may cause the recipient to suffer only a limited deprivation is no argument. It is speculative. Moreover, the very legislative determination to provide disability benfits, without any prerequisite determination of need in fact, presumes a need by the recipient which is not this Court’s function to denigrate. Indeed, in the present case, it is indicated that because disability benefits were terminated there was a foreclosure upon the Eldridge home and the family’s furniture was repossessed, forcing Eldridge, his wife, and their children to sleep in one bed. Tr. of Oral Arg. 39, 47-48. Finally, it is also no argument that a worker, who has been placed in the untenable position of having been denied disability benefits, may still seek other forms of public assistance.