Kelley v. State Board of Social Welfare

MOORE, P. J.

—Appellant petitioned the superior court to review the proceedings which he had instituted before respondent board for the purpose of obtaining its order directing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to reimburse him in certain sums deducted from their “short” payments of old age aid to appellant. While his petition contains a number of demands and although the court below “reviewed the entire proceedings” as required by sections 2182 and 2182.1 of the Welfare and Institutions Code yet at the time of oral argument appellant waived all his contentions for reversal except' his claims that his relief should not be diminished on the hypothesis that he owns a community interest in his wife’s earnings.

During the period for which his aid was reduced his wife was employed. He appealed to respondent on a number of occasions from the orders of the board of supervisors relative to his asserted rights to increased allowances. On each review the board considered his contention that his wife’s earnings were her separate property. In each instance it was held that Mrs. Kelley’s earnings belonged to the community. On a former occasion the superior court approved respondent’s order and on appeal that judgment was affirmed by this court in Division Three (82 Cal.App.2d 627 [186 P.2d 429].) In that decision the court considered the board’s “finding that the spouse’s income is community income” and held that a release signed by appellant relinquishing all rights to his wife’s earnings was ineffective in view of the facts that the wife had applied her earnings to the needs of the community, and also she considered her earnings to be community property. After that decision, upon appellant’s petition to have reviewed the status of the wife’s earnings, the matter was again in June, 1948, brought before respondent board. At that time the board considered a second agreement of appellant and his wife dated in January, 1948, which was after the decision by Division Three. By such agreement it was provided that her earnings would be her separate property. Respondent board decided that such agreement was impotent to effectuate appellant’s

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wishes. In July, 1948, by amended petition, the identical point was presented by appellant’s assertion that his wife’s earnings had been her separate property for 25 years.