Sutich v. Callahan

Plaintiffs

Ivo Sutich, Saman Muy (by her guardian ad litem Eam Tak), Roshanak Partovi, Maria Klein, Wing Yim Chan, on behalf of themselves and all other persons similarly situated

Defendant

John J. Callahan, Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration

Plaintiffs' Claim

That Section 402 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which rendered legal resident aliens ineligible for Supplemental Security Income, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Judge

Claudia Wilken

Place

San Francisco, California

Date of Decision

13 January 1998

Decision

Due to congressional restoration of Supplemental Security Income benefits for legal resident aliens as part of the Balanced Budget Act, the plaintiffs' case was dismissed without prejudice.

Significance

At least peripherally, Sutich seems to countenance philosophical questions of compassion versus self-reliance, of the benevolent state versus the well-managed one. As the attorneys for the plaintiff made clear in their presentation of the case, the legislation challenged in Sutich did not merely fail to achieve any of its purported goals such as fostering self-reliance; it would have achieved very nearly the opposite result, and at a great human cost.

Related Cases

• Abreu v. Callahan, No. 97 Civ. 2126 (S.D. N.Y. 1997).
• Rodriguez v. United States of America, No. 97 Civ. 1182 (S.D. Fla. 1997).