Youakim v. Miller, 425 U.S. 231 (1976)

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

Syllabus

Although appellants’ complaint described their action challenging the foster care payment scheme provided by Illinois as part of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program as an action seeking an injunction on equal protection grounds, and it does not appear that appellants separately relied on the Supremacy Clause or that the District Court, in holding that the scheme did not deny appellants equal protection, addressed the relationship between the scheme and the Social Security Act independently of the equal protection issue, nevertheless this Court is justified in dealing with the question of the conflict between the state scheme and the federal Act presented in the jurisdictional statement to the extent of vacating the judgment below and remanding the case for consideration of that question, where it appears that the question could have been pursued under certain allegations in the complaint and that the District Court, based on certain language in its opinion, would have rejected the Supremacy Clause claim, if made, as a separate ground for decision. Moreover, after the jurisdictional statement was filed, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare issued a "Program Instruction" indicating, and the Solicitor General filed a statement in this Court urging, that the state scheme was inconsistent with the federal Act, neither of which developments was available to the appellants or the District Court when the case was there.

374 F.Supp. 1204, vacated and remanded.