Veterans Who Joined Up Elsewhere Sue for State Benefits

A class-action suit was filed Thursday on behalf of an estimated 800,000 California veterans who have been denied millions of dollars in benefits because they were not state residents when they enlisted in the military.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks to throw out a restriction in state law limiting educational, home loan and other veterans’ assistance programs funded by the state to veterans who were California residents when they began active duty.

At least 800,000 of the state’s 3.3 million veterans did not live in California when they enlisted and have been excluded from benefits as a result. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that the exclusion is unconstitutional.

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York statute giving job preference to veterans with such “fixed-point” residency status, holding that the limitation violated the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and freedom of travel.

“The enforcement of this eligibility requirement is an insult to the integrity of our constitutional system,” said Dan Stormer, who filed the lawsuit along with the Western Law Center for the Handicapped at Loyola Law School.

“Further, it is a direct attack upon the rights of veterans living in California to receive benefits to which they are entitled due to their military service. It serves no useful purpose and can be deemed nothing more than a punitive measure,” Stormer said.

The lead plaintiffs in the case, Korean War veteran Charles Del Monte and his family, who now live in Venice, claim they have been denied educational stipends for their two sons--both of whom were born in California--because Del Monte lived in New York when he enlisted in the Army in 1950.

State officials declined immediate comment on specifics of the lawsuit but said it has been a matter of state policy to provide some rewards for state residents who served in the military.

“The state Legislature wanted to confer this benefit only on those who were residents at the time they were called upon to serve in the military service, and not to those who were residents of other states at the time,” said Howell Jackson, chief attorney for the state Department of Veterans Services.

At issue are many of those benefits that California offers to its veterans in addition to regular Veterans Administration benefits the federal government offers all veterans. Among them are the Cal-Vet program, which provides low-interest home and farm loans to veterans, disaster indemnity benefits and a special program of tuition stipends offered to dependents of disabled veterans.

Some other benefits, including admission to the California Veterans Home and fee waivers at state colleges and universities for veterans’ dependents, are usually available to veterans in California, even though they did not reside in the state when they enlisted.

Del Monte, who left the Army in 1951 after he was hospitalized for recurring nightmares, excessive sweating, panic and uncontrollable crying, remains unable to work but has been denied educational stipends from the state for his two sons, except for a brief period immediately after the Supreme Court decision in the New York case. The family moved to California in 1963.