Lead Opinion
Aрpellants contend that Oregon’s $25 appellate court filing fee, as applied in this case, violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and, also, the First Amendment as incorporated into the Fourteenth. The Supreme Court of Oregon decided otherwise.
Appellant Ortwein (who also was receiving social security and an urban renewal allowance) sustained a reduction of approximately $39 per month in his Oregon old-age assistance when his county welfare agency determined that he shаred shelter and expenses with another person in a manner that relieved him of some of the costs upon which his original award had been based.
Appellant Faubiоn claimed that certain expenses related to work training under a federal program should have been deducted in calculating her income.
I
Relying on this Court’s opinion in Boddie v. Connecticut,
A. In Kras, we observed that one’s interest in a bankruptcy discharge “does not rise to the same constitutional level” as one’s inability to dissolve his marriage except through the courts.
B. In Kras, the Court also stressed the existence of alternatives, not conditioned on the payment of the fees, to the judicial remedy. Id., at 446. The Court has held that procedural due process requires that a welfare recipient be given a pretermination evidentiary hearing. Goldberg v. Kelly,
II
Appellants urge that the filing fee violates the Equal Protection Clause by unconstitutionally discriminating against the poor. As in Kras, this litigation, which deals with welfare payments, “is in the area of economics and social welfare.”
The purpose of the filing fee, as with the bankruptcy fees in Kras, is apparent. The Oregon court system incurs operating сosts, and the fee produces some small revenue to assist in offsetting those expenses. Cf. Ore. Rev. Stat. § 21.590 (1971). Appellants do not contend that the fee is disproportionate or that it is not an effective means to accomplish the State’s goal. The requirement of rationality is met.
Relying on Lindsey v. Normet, supra, appellаnts contend that the fee is not required of certain classes of litigants, and that an appeal is thus “capriciously and arbitrarily denied” to other appellants, such as themselves, also in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. See
If the Oregon courts have interpreted the applicable law to give special rights in the criminal area, in civil cases that result in loss of liberty, and in cases terminating parental rights, we cannot say that this cаtegorization is capricious or arbitrary.
A ,7 Affirmed.
Notes
The Division found that the county agency “acted within its discretion by determining that the claimant’s living arrangement represented a living situation in which shelter and expenses are shared.” The agency’s order explained that that reduction in the room and board allowаnce was proper because “[t]he eligibility of recipients who share shelter with non-recipients, and do not pay for room and board, shall be determined on a share/fraction basis at [Public Welfare Division] standards.” Record 9. In his petition for review, Ortwein contended that the order was not supported by “reliable, probative and substantial evidence in the whole record.”
Faubion received an incentive training allowance of $120 per month for approximately five months from a program under the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, as amended, 76 Stat. 23, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2571-2574. Record 12. Faubion also wаs receiving over $210 per month through a state-administered AFDC program. Jurisdictional Statement 4; Record 11. States, in making their income calculations under AFDC, deduct from gross income all expenses “reasonably attributable” to the earning of the income. 42 U. S. C. §602 (a) (7); 45 CFR § 233.20 (a) (3) (iv) (Sept. 1972). Faubion claimed that she had work-training expenses of $20 per month for essential clothing and grooming, of $20 per month for lunches on the job, of $30 per month for convenience foods for family use made necessary because of her job, of $5 per month for oil, tuneups and repairs, and of $5 per month for miscellaneous school supрlies. Record 13. Although the Division allowed some deductions, it determined that the remaining expenses were not “reasonably attributable” to the training program. Record 12. On appeal, Faubion sought to challenge this finding.
See also Huffman v. Boersen,
These evidentiary hearings, of course, must meet the minimal requirements of due process. Goldberg v. Kelly,
Appellants also claim a violation of their First Amendment right to petition for redress. Our discussion of the Due Process Clause, however, demonstrates that appellants’ rights under the First Amendment have been fully satisfied.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The majority today broadens and fortifies the “private preserve for the affluent.” Meltzer v. C. Buck Le Craw & Co.,
I
Appellants, welfаre recipients whose benefits were reduced after adverse determinations by the Oregon Public Welfare Division, were denied access to the Oregon courts for review of those decisions solely on the grounds that they were unable to pay a $25 filing fee. Judicial review of administrative decisions is not otherwise available under Oregon law. I continue to believe that this invidious discrimination against the poverty-stricken — a classification based upon wealth — is proscribed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Meltzer, supra; Boddie v. Connecticut,
There is an additional consideration relevant here. The majority properly notes that “[t]his Court has long recognized that, even in criminal cases, due process does not require a State to provide an appellate system.” We are concerned in this case not with appellate review of a judicial determination, but with initial access to the courts for review of an аdverse administrative determination. By analogizing these two situations, the majority sub silentio answers a question this Court studiously has avoided — whether there is a due process right to judicial review. See 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 28.18. Access to the courts before a person is deprived of valuable interests, at least with respect to questions of law, seems to me to be the essence of due process. Cf. Lindsey v. Normet,
Accordingly, I cannot agree that a “rational justification” will support the Oregon statute as it аffects the poor. The primary justification by the State and fixed upon by the majority is the State’s interest in offsetting the expenses of its court system. This interest falls far short of the “compelling interest” required to justify a suspect classification or discrimination which infringes on fundamental rights. See Boddie v. Connecticut, supra, at 382; Shapiro v. Thompson,
II
The majority affirms the judgment below without the benefit of briefs or argument, relying on United States v. Kras, supra. Although I did not join the Court’s opinion in Boddie v. Connecticut, supra, I am compelled to comment on the propriety of disposing of this case summarily in view of the decision in that case. However one views the merits of Kras, it seems to me that this case falls far closer to Boddie than Kras.
The majority distinguished Kras from Boddie on three
(1) The majority in Kras concluded that a debtor's desire to obtain a discharge in bankruptcy does not implicate a “fundamental interest.” While it is true that our decisions attach less constitutional significance to welfare payments than the interests of the Boddie appellants, we have never decided that there is no constitutional right to judicial review of an adverse administrative determination. The majority also noted in Kras that “[gjaining or not gaining a discharge [in bankruptcy] will effect no change with respect to basic necessities.”
(2) Unlike Kras, who had a theoretical oрportunity to seek relief from his creditors in a non judicial accommodation, appellants' only avenue of relief lies in the courts.
(3) Unlike Kras, who was afforded the opportunity to pay the bankruptcy filing fee in installments over six months, appellants must file their fee in a lump sum.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I adhere to my dissenting opinion in United States v. Kras,
In Kras, the majority correctly noted that “[t]here is no constitutional right to obtain a discharge of one’s debts in bankruptcy.” Id., at 446. Therefore, the only issue in the case was whether the Government could, on the basis of a de jacto wealth classification, limit access to a remedy which it could concededly deny altogether.
The question here is quite different. Appellants seek a judicial remedy for the action of an administrative agency which deprived them of a pre-existing right. As my Brother Douglas demonstrates, it is at very least doubtful that the Due Process Clause permits a State to shield an administrative agency from all judicial review when that agency acts to revoke a benefit previously granted.
That opportunity was denied in this case, and important benefits were thereby taken from appellants without affording them a chance to contest the legality of the taking in a court of law. Cf. Fuentes v. Shevin,
The extent to which the State may commit to administrative agencies the unreviewable authority to restrict pre-existing rights is one of the great questions of constitutional law about which courts and commentators have debated for generations. See generally Hart, The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362 (1953); 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 28.18 (1958). Because I am not ready to decide that question summarily, sub silentio, and without the benefit of full briefing and oral argument, I must dissent from the Court’s decision.
The majority’s statement that “[t]his Court has long recognized that, even in criminal cases, due process does not require a State to provide an appellate system,” ante, at 660, is thus true, but irrelevant and misleading. The cases cited by the majority all involve efforts to secure appellate review of a decision by a lower court. Here, in contrast, no court has ever examined appellants’ claims on the merits. Appellants assert only that they must have some access to some court to contest the legality of administrative action adversely affecting them.
Dissenting Opinion
dissents, believing that the doctrine of Boddie v. Connecticut,
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Although I am in substantial agreement with my Brothers Douglas and Marshall that this case is distinguishable from our recent decision in United States v. Kras,