California Welfare Rights Organization v. Brian

Opinion

BURKE, J.

In these consolidated cases, certain welfare recipients have challenged the validity, under federal and state law, of welfare regulations issued by the state Department of Social Welfare, which regulations affect the assistance grant to pregnant mothers. We have concluded that the regulations at issue are invalid because they purport to consider, contrary to the probable intent of federal and state law, that the mother’s body constitutes a “resource” of the fetus, the economic value of which “resource” may be deducted from the assistance grant otherwise payable to the mother…