Department of Health and Human Services
Departmental Appeals Board
AFDC QUALITY CONTROL REVIEW PANEL
SUBJECT: New Jersey Department
of Human Services
Docket No. A-92-121
Decision No. QC45-R
DATE: March 22, 1993
DECISION ON RECONSIDERATION
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
requested
reconsideration of the Panel's decision in New
Jersey Dept. of Human
Services, DAB QC24 (1992) (Board
Docket No. A-92-121). In that
decision, the Panel
reversed ACF's Quality Control (QC) review determination
that the New Jersey Department of Human Services (New
Jersey) overpaid
an Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) assistance unit for the
review month of
March 1991. ACF had determined that New Jersey should
not have included the needs of the minor child's father
in the grant of
assistance, where the father's paternity
had not been legally established as
of the review date.
The Panel's guidelines provide that a party may request
reconsideration
of a Panel decision upon a showing of a
clear error of fact or law.
For the reasons explained
below, we find that ACF has shown persuasively in
its
request that provisions of the Social Security Act
governing AFDC
eligibility require that a father be
legally obligated to support a minor
child prior to being
included in the assistance unit. We find that our
previous decision was erroneous as a matter of law for
focusing on the
father's biological status, rather than
on the uncontested fact that he did
not meet this
standard as of the review date. Accordingly, we sustain
ACF's original error determination.
Background
The assistance unit consisted of the recipient, her minor
child, and
D.L., the child's father. Eligibility for
AFDC was based on D.L.'s
unemployment as the principal
wage earner, and his needs were included in
calculating
the $424 award of assistance for the review month of
March
1991. ACF maintained that D.L. should not have
been included in the
assistance unit as the child's
father during the review month because his
paternity was
not legally established until a court order dated June
26,
1991. ACF maintained that New Jersey overpaid the
assistance unit $102
by including his needs in
calculating the grant of assistance.
In reversing ACF's error determination, the Panel
observed that since
D.L. was later adjudicated the
child's father, he must have been the father
as of the
review date. Based on the fact that New Jersey's
designation of D.L. as the father was ultimately correct,
the Panel
declined to find that New Jersey committed a QC
error by including him in
the assistance unit. ACF, in
its request for reconsideration, argued
that the Panel
committed a clear error of law by holding that D.L. could
be included in the assistance unit prior to the
adjudication of
paternity.
Analysis
Title IV-A of the Social Security Act (Act) provides for
payments to
needy families with dependent children.
Section 406(b) of the Act
defines "aid to families with
dependent children" as money payments with
respect to a
dependent child, and includes money payments to meet the
needs of the relative with whom any dependent child is
living.
Section 402(a)(38) requires that the income,
resources, and needs of a
dependent child's parents be
considered in determining the child's
eligibility and
need for assistance. Section 406(a) of the Act defines
a
"dependent child" as a needy child who has been deprived
of parental
support by reason of the continued absence
from the home of a parent.
Section 407(a) provides that
a dependent child also includes a needy child
who has
been deprived of parental support by reason of the
unemployment
of the parent who is the principal wage
earner.
As ACF pointed out in its request for reconsideration,
the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in King v. Smith, 392
U.S. 309 (1968) limited the term
"parent" in section
406(a) of the Act to those persons with a legal duty of
support. 329 U.S. at 327. King v. Smith struck down an
Alabama policy that treated as a "substitute father" any
man having a
relationship with a child's mother, thus
rendering the household ineligible
because the "family"
is intact. This policy had been applied to deny
assistance where the mother was having a relationship
with a married man
who lived with his wife and children
in another household.
While we found in our decision that the particular facts
in King v. Smith
were distinguishable from those here, we
now find that we are bound by the
larger principal cited
by ACF, that a "parent" under section 406(a) includes
only those fathers who have a legal duty to support their
minor
children. This holding is equally applicable to
section 407(a) of the
Act, which provides an additional
basis for finding parental
deprivation. Since a putative
father with no legal duty to support is
not a parent
under the relevant provisions of the Act, he is also not
one of the specified relatives whose needs and income may
be included in
determining a grant of assistance under
section 402 of the Act. We
conclude that there is no
basis to find that the term "parent" has different
meanings in these sections of the Act. Thus, we find
that under
King v. Smith, a putative father must be
legally obligated to support the
child in order to be
included in a grant of assistance and for deprivation
to
be based on his unemployment.
In this case, ACF established that under New Jersey law,
D.L. was not
legally obligated to support his minor child
as of the review date.
New Jersey did not take issue
with ACF's position that in New Jersey a duty
of support
may be imposed on a putative father only after paternity
has
been legally established. New Jersey also did not
dispute that
paternity may be established in New Jersey
only by or with the approval of a
court. Moreover, New
Jersey did not disagree that in this case,
paternity was
not legally established prior to the June 26, 1991 court
order. Furthermore, New Jersey was unable to indicate
why its
eligibility workers had designated D.L. as the
minor child's father as of
the March 1, 1991 review date.
Consequently, D.L. was not eligible to
be considered a
"parent" under the Act whose unemployment could be a
basis for a finding of parental deprivation or whose
needs could be
considered in the grant of assistance,
even though he was subsequently
adjudicated to be the
minor child's father.
Although excluding the man acknowledged to be the father
from the
assistance unit may seem to be an absurd result,
ACF has shown that this
result was compelled by
applicable law. ACF has also shown significant
policy
grounds for requiring that a father's duty to support his
minor
child be legally established before he can be
included in the assistance
unit. As ACF pointed out,
allowing state workers to make paternity
determinations
without legal authority could create intact families
ineligible for assistance (since there is no parental
deprivation), even
though the fathers are not legally
obligated to support their minor
children. That this was
not the case here was because eligibility was
based on
unemployment of the principal wage earner. Under this
basis for eligibility, deprivation may exist even though
both parents
are present. However, where unemployment of
the principal wage earner
is the basis for eligibility,
the failure of either parent to qualify as an
unemployed
principal wage earner under section 407(a) of the Act
would
eliminate parental deprivation and render the
entire assistance unit
ineligible. Once again, the child
would be denied assistance based on
the presence in the
home of a man who has no legal duty to contribute to the
child's support. Consequently, the policy interests
cited by ACF
for requiring that a father's duty to
support a minor child be legally
established prior to his
being included in the assistance unit still
apply.
Conclusion
For the reasons discussed above, we find upon
reconsideration that our
earlier decision was based on a
clear error of law, and that New Jersey
should not have
included D.L. in the assistance unit for the review
month. Therefore, we sustain ACF's error determination.
Sara Anderson
Maxine Winerman
Jeffrey A.
Sacks