Policy Research Articles and Reports

Alsdorf v. Department of Human Resources, Division of Child and Family Services: Nevada Court Rules That Uniform Policy Against All Retroactive Adoption Assistance Benefits is a Violation of Constitutional Due Process

[Added: September 2000]

On July 6, 2000, in the case of Alsdorf v. the Nevada Department of Human Resources, a district court ruled that the state’s policy of automatically denying the adoptive parents’ request for retroactive adoption assistance payments constituted an abuse of it’s discretion and remanded the case back to an administrative hearing to be determined on its individual merits.  The decision by Nevada’s Fourth Judicial District Court for Elko County is significant because a number of states have taken the position of blanket opposition to all requests for retroactive adoption assistance benefits.  The implication of the court’s ruling is that adoptive parents are entitled to a hearing on retroactive adoption assistance payments based on the specific facts of the their case.  A state agency does not have the discretionary authority to automatically reject all claims for retroactive benefits.

In order for child to obtain adoption assistance after finalization, the administrative hearing must determine that the child met the eligibility requirements prior to the final decree of adoption.  Moreover, the parents must establish that they were not adequately informed about the program, their children’s special needs or encountered some other “extenuating circumstance” that prevented them for establishing adoption assistance prior to finalization.  Once their children are determined eligible, families have a strong argument that they would have been receiving assistance since the initial date of eligibility, that is: from the date of placement or some point prior to finalization.  Being entitled to a hearing on the individual merits of the case would appear to strengthen adoption families’ chances of being awarded retroactive payments.

The children in question were placed in 1987.  When they finally applied for adoption assistance in 1998, the state agreed that the children met the eligibility criteria for adoption assistance at the time of the placement.  According to the court decision, it was "also obvious that the agency did not inform the Alsdorfs that benefits were available at the time of the placement or finalization of the adoption.  The record further reveals that the State denied the existence of the availability of the benefits when the Alsdorfs continued to inquire throughout the term of the adoption."

The subsequent administrative hearing awarded future adoption assistance, but in the court’s words, "neither the State nor the Hearing Officer reviewed or seriously considered the underlying facts and circumstances in this case when deciding not to award retroactive benefits."  A policy which denies “all claims for retroactive benefits without considering the underlying facts of a case,” in the Court’s view is "a denial of due process and is in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Nevada."

Noting that the Alsdorfs had requested approximately $48,000 in retroactive payments, the judge expressed the opinion that “by finally granting the adoption benefits 11 years after the placement of the children with the Alsdorfs, the State acknowledged their failures in this adoption.  It would therefore appear that if the agency had seriously considered the facts and equities in this case, instead of relying on the ‘automatic denial policy,’ and exercised its discretion in this case, the Alsdorfs would have been seriously considered for an award of retroactive benefits.