Lyng v. Castillo

Eligibility and benefit levels in the federal food stamp program are determined on a “household” rather than an individual basis. The statutory definition of the term “household,” as amended in 1981 and 1982, generally treats parents, children, and siblings who live together as a single household, but does not treat more distant relatives, or groups of unrelated persons who live together, as a single household unless they also customarily purchase food and prepare meals together.1 Although there are variations in the facts of the four cases that were consolidated in the District Court, they…