In California, if a CalFresh household loses its fair hearing, the household can request rehearing. [Welf. & Inst. Code § 10960; MPP § 22-065.] The household has 30 days from the date of the hearing decision to request rehearing. [Id.] The time to request rehearing can be extended to up to 180 days for good cause. [Id.] In addition, a household can appeal the decision in Superior Court. [7 C.F.R. § 273.15(q)(3)(i); Welf. & Inst. Code § 10952.5; MPP § 22-063.112.] The household can file a court appeal without requesting rehearing or after the rehearing request is denied. Filing a court appeal is a complicated process, so CalFresh recipients who want to appeal an administrative decision affecting their benefits should contact their local legal aid office for assistance. The household has one year from the date of the hearing decision to file a court appeal. [Welf. & Inst. Code § 10962.]
If the household keeps on getting the same amount of CalFresh benefits while waiting for its fair hearing to be decided and it then loses the hearing, the CalFresh benefits that the hearing decision says the household should not have received become an overpayment, more commonly called an overissuance. [7 C.F.R. §§ 273.15(r)(1), 273.15(s)(2); MPP § 63-801.1.] The CalFresh office can reduce the amount of CalFresh benefits the household gets in the future to recover those back benefits. (To better understand how all this works, see the sections of this Guide about overissuances and fraud.)