# Brown v. Smith

> Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · October 28, 1981 · 662 F.2d 464

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8914151

## Case

- **Full name:** Elizabeth BROWN, and James Brown by his next friend, Michael Brown, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated v. Robert SMITH, individually and as the Acting Administrator of the Indiana Department of Public Welfare and Elizabeth Samkowski, individually and as Director of the Marion County (Indiana) Department of Public Welfare
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- **Decided:** October 28, 1981
- **Citations:** 662 F.2d 464
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Pell
- **Judges:** Grant, Pell
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8914151

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that the Supreme “Court did not reach our first holding requiring an individualized factual determination of the non-institutionalized spouse’s needs in computing the potentially available funds subject to deeming”

## Opinion text

PELL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part, concurring in part.
While the Supreme Court did, as the majority opinion notes, hold that “deeming” was not antithetical to the general statutory requirement that Medicaid eligibility be based solely on resources “available” to the applicant, the Court did not in its opinion preclude a reasonable determination by the states of the amounts which could be required to be paid by a contributing spouse. I regard the judgment of the district court as setting forth an acceptable plan for this determination, and as not inconsistent with the Court’s holding in Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 2633 , 69 L.Ed.2d 460 (1981). I therefore concur in that part of the present opinion of this court on that issue.
I adhere, however, to the position I took in my original dissent that there is no entitlement to attorneys’ fees and respectfully dissent as to that portion of the majority opinion. I am unable to conceive, on the present record, that these appellants have prevailed in a practical sense in the particular litigation before us and it is that "litigation with which we are now concerned.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8914151. Public record. Not legal advice.