Court Opinion

ID: 9725714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:04:30.931034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:18.808014
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Acting P. J.
I concur in the result but would support it in a somewhat different manner. As the court’s opinion points out, Welfare and Institutions Code section 12053 is hopelessly confused. Two basic rules of statutory interpretation are mandatory upon us: One, the statute is not surplusage, cannot be ignored and must be given effect if at all possible. Two, it must be given an effect, if at all possible, consistent with the discerned objective of the larger enactment of which it forms a part.
Welfare and Institutions Code section 12200 declares that recipients shall receive SSP payments which, when added to federal benefits and other nonexempt income resources, equal specified monthly amounts. For this purpose, section 12051 defines income as both earned and unearned income as defined by title XVI of the Social Security Act (H.R.-1). Section 12053, the troublesome and almost incomprehensible statute in suit, declares: “An applicant’s share of his spouse’s community property income is defined as the income which is community property subject to the direction and control of the applicant, except for the earnings of his or her spouse.”
By permitting the various states to exempt or exclude certain kinds of income for the purpose of their own SSP programs, title XVI of the Social Security Act gives each state leeway to fix the living standard of recipients at a level selected by the legislature of that state. The same leeway also permits each state to adopt income exclusions which conform to that state’s marital property system.
*90California’s community property law traditionally vested the husband with management and control of community personal property, except as to the wife’s earnings. (Civ. Code, § 5124.) Commencing January 1, 1975, Civil Code section 5125 will vest either spouse with control over community personal property (without exclusion of cither’s earnings). In framing the 1973 SSP legislation, the Legislature faced the necessity of deciding how a married couple’s community income would aífect SSP payments when one spouse was eligible and the other ineligible.
Section 12051 fulfilled part of the need. By including earned as well as unearned income in the definition of income, section 12051 assured that a married applicant’s entire earnings, although community property, would be classed as nonexempt income resources under section 12200. In addition to direct receipts of community income, a married applicant would be entitled to a “share” amounting to one-half the community income, earned and unearned, received by the ineligible spouse. To complete the statutory spectrum, the draftsman needed some other provision to specify the effect of “the applicant’s share” of community income which came into the hands of the spouse.
Despite its opaque language, section 12053 seems designed to fulfill that need. Its initial phrase an applicant’s share of his spouse’s community property income appears as a feeble but genuine attempt to describe an economic resource to be included in the nonexempt income resources mentioned in section 12200. So included, an applicant’s share (i.e., one-half the income) would form a disqualifying or diminishing factor in calculating SSP aid. If section 12053 does not serve that purpose, it serves no purpose at all.
Once section 12053 is accepted as a specification of nonexempt income, the next inquiry is whether it draws a line between unearned and earned community income. At that stage, an argument could be made that the section’s last phrase except for the earnings of his or her spouse is designed to exclude the spouse’s earnings from the applicant’s nonexempt income. Four factors impel rejection of that argument: (1) community ownership of the ineligible spouse’s earnings; (2) the possibility of a high level of earnings; (3) mutual duties of inter-spousal support, and (4) the SSP program’s aim of assisting only the needy.
The total objective of the entire enactment repels the interpretation sought by petitioners. Section 12053 expresses a design to charge a share of community property income to the applicant spouse, but narrows that *91charge to income which is subject to the direction and control of the applicant. In turn, the exception for earnings narrows (i.e., it serves as a proviso) upon the category of income which is subject to the direction and control of the applicant. However clumsily, the final clause serves as an exception to the last and not the next-to-last antecedent. Only thus may it fulfill a function consistent with the aggregate objective of the comprehensive enactment in which it plays a part. Thus, as I construe this perplexing statute, it includes as part of the applicant’s nonexempt resources one-half of all community income received by the ineligible spouse.
Petitioners’ application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 19, 1975.