Court Opinion

ID: 9531315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:09:39.940094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:24.777376
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — Although I agree with the majority’s conclusion, I reach it through a slightly different analysis of the equal protection issues. I do not believe that the “minimum rationality” standard of review is unambigu*572ously conceded by appellants or is properly applicable in the context of this case.
The interests of children in receiving statutorily authorized welfare payments is literally, if not legally, fundamental. Recent equal protection jurisprudence has recognized that a higher level of scrutiny should be given to classifications affecting such interests than is appropriate in the review of business or economic regulation: they should be upheld if, but only if, they bear a “ ‘fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.’ ” Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351, 355, 40 L. Ed. 2d 189, 94 S. Ct. 1734 (1974); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 520-22, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491, 90 S. Ct. 1153 (1970) (Marshall, J., dissenting); see generally Gunther, Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1972). Although the Supreme Court has not explicitly declared that this newly-developed equal protection analysis is triggered by discriminatory classifications in social welfare legislation, it has indicated that the absolute “minimum rationality” test, which, in effect, “suspend [s] the operation of the Equal Protection Clause,” is no longer applicable in this area. Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 539, 39 L. Ed. 2d 577, 94 S. Ct. 1372 (1974); cf. Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, 41 L. Ed. 2d 363, 94 S. Ct. 2496 (1974). And even if minimal scrutiny were permitted under federal law, I would require more under article 1, section 12 of our state constitution, the scope of which is not delimited by restrictive interpretations of the similar provisions of the federal constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.
I find, however, that the laws appellants challenge are justifiable even under this heightened standard of review. The only statutory discrimination appellants seriously attack is that between children with stepparents and children in households where a person lives with, but is not married to, their natural parents. But this classification conforms to, indeed results from, those provisions of RCW Title 26 which place an enforceable legal obligation on stepparents *573to support their stepchildren. That duty, and the concomitant rights it creates, constitutes a real, not theoretical, difference between children with stepparents and those in homes with unmarried adults. In light of that difference, the statutory distinction appellants challenge bears a fair, substantial, actual relation to the permissible purposes of the welfare laws: distributing limited public funds to children most in need. It therefore survives even the stricter Scrutiny I would apply under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the prohibition of special privileges and immunities in Const. art. 1, § 12.
Essentially, what the system created by the statutes and regulations attacked here does is treat stepparents like natural parents. Appellants argue that stepparents and their stepchildren are treated more harshly than natural parents and their children by these laws, urging that stepparents are likely to have outside support obligations from former marriages which render the receipts of 100 hours of work per month (the cut-off level for AFDC-E eligibility under WAC 388-24-135) inadequate to support their stepchildren. But there is no reason to believe that natural parents are not just as likely as stepparents to have support obligations arising out of previous marriages. The possibility of outside support obligations is taken into account in the computation of need under WAC 388-28-560(1), although it is not a factor in the determination of eligibility. Whether the exclusion of this factor is wise or fair is not an issue before this court on this appeal; the sole question raised by appellants is answered by the fact that, right or wrong, it operates equally with respect to stepparents and natural parents, and the children thereof.
Indeed, if anything, two aspects of the statutory scheme would seem to favor stepparents and their children over natural parents with a number of dependents. The obligation to support children lies jointly and severally on stepparents and absent natural parents (State v. Finister, 5 Wn. App. 44, 48, 486 P.2d 114 (1971)), giving children with stepparents two possible sources of support, while children *574without stepparents have only one. In addition, the inability to make support payments which may result from statutory obligations to stepchildren may relieve the stepparent from the legal duty to support his or her natural children. State v. Godines, 9 Wn. App. 55, 57-58, 510 P.2d 835 (1973); State v. Finister, supra at 47; 59 Am. Jur. 2d Parent and Child § 54 (1971). This, though hardly a desirable result, could entitle the natural children to AFDC payments under the “absent parent” sections of the law, thus accomplishing the result sought by appellants, but as to different children. No such recourse is available to an underemployed parent living with, and obligated to, a large number of his or her own offspring.
For these reasons, I find that, although discrimination in this area requires something more than the minimal justification demanded for business and economic regulation, the statutory differentiations challenged by appellants survive constitutional scrutiny. I therefore concur in the decision of the majority.
Horowitz, J., concurs with Utter, J.
Petition for rehearing denied August 12, 1975.