State v. Z.C.

Alaskan children in foster care who received federal benefits brought a lawsuit against Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services (OCS), challenging OCS’s practice of appropriating children’s federal SSI and OASDI benefits. 

Juvenile Law Center and 10 other advocacy organizations and advocates joined an amicus brief filed by Children’s Advocacy Institute and Venable LLP in the Supreme Court of Alaska in support of the plaintiffs. The brief argued that children in foster care desperately need their financial benefits, and that the law does not pose any obstacles to them receiving benefits. The brief further argued that OCS’s policy violates equal protection under the Alaska Constitution, and that plaintiffs are entitled to restitution. 

Juvenile Law Center later joined Children’s Advocacy Center, Venable LLP, and 11 other advocacy organizations in filing an additional amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Alaska. The brief argued that children in foster care have a constitutional right to notice when the state obtains and seeks to control federal benefits on their behalf. The brief further argued that federal law does not preempt this right to due process under the Alaska constitution.

Importantly, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld children’s right to notice holding that “OCS must inform foster children of its systematic self-reimbursing representative payee scheme” and inform impacted children of their ability “to nominate a private rep payee that will not systematically offset one stream of benefits against another” because “foster children have a property interest in . . .  state foster care payments and Social Security benefits.” Disappointingly, the Court also held that federal law preempts the equal protection claim and did not address the merits of equal protection.