LYNG, Secretary of Agriculture v. Castillo et al. (477 U.S. 635)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 27, 1986 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 477 U.S. 635 · 106 S. Ct. 2727
- Decided
- June 27, 1986
- Term
- October Term 1985
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Stevens
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. 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. Although there are variations in the facts of the four cases that were consolidated in the District Court, they all raise the question whether the statutory distinction between parents, children, and siblings, and all other groups of individuals violates the guarantee of equal treatment in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. l-H Appellees are families who generally buy their food and prepare their meals as separate economic units; each family will either lose its benefits or have its food stamp allotment decreased as a result of the 1981 and 1982 amendments. Moreover, as appellees’ counsel eloquently explained, in each case the loss or reduction of benefits will impose a severe hardship on a needy family, and may be especially harmful to the affected young children for whom an adequate diet is essential. Appellees accordingly filed these…
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