1994 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

11-9-1994

Huff v. US Office of Personnel Mgmt, et al.

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 93-1706

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Recommended Citation

"Huff v. US Office of Personnel Mgmt, et al." (1994). 1994 Decisions. Paper 181.

http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_1994/181
 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

 FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

 ___________ 

 No. 93-1706 

 ___________ 

 CLIFFORD IRENE HUFF 

 v. 

 DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES OFFICE OF PERSONNEL 

 MANAGEMENT; ETHEL R. LEECAN 

 ETHEL R. LEECAN, 

 Appellant 

 ___________ 

 Appeal from the United States District Court 

 for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 

 (D.C. Civil Action No. 92-04978) 

 

 ___________ 

 Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) 

 February 17, 1994 

 PRESENT: BECKER, HUTCHINSON and COWEN, Circuit Judges

 (Filed November 9, 1994) 

 ____________ 

Debra A. Washington, Esquire 

First Floor 

340 South Sixteenth Street 

Philadelphia, PA 19102 

 Attorneys for Appellant 

Stephen L. Axelrod, Esquire 

Suite 1600 

1845 Walnut Street 

Philadelphia, PA 19103 

 Attorneys for Appellee 
 ____________ 

 OPINION OF THE COURT 

 ____________ 

HUTCHINSON, Circuit Judge. 

 Appellant, Ethel R. Leecan ("Mrs. Leecan"), appeals a 

declaratory judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania in favor of appellee, Clifford 

Irene Huff ("Huff"). This district court's judgment declared 

that Huff was the legal spouse of William N. Leecan ("Mr. Leecan" 

or "the decedent") at the time of his death. Both women claimed 

entitlement to decedent's federal employee survivor benefits as 

his surviving spouse. This case arose when the Director of the 

United States Office of Personnel Management ("USOPM") requested 

both claimants to file this action asking the district court to 

judicially determine who was Mr. Leecan's spouse at the time of 

his death. 

 For purposes of determining who is a spouse entitled to 

survivors' benefits, USOPM looks to applicable state law. It 

will apply the law of the state with the most significant 

interest in the marital status of the employee. The only two 

states whose law could apply to the dispute between Mrs. Leecan 

and Huff are Pennsylvania and Texas. We believe that 

Pennsylvania law would control in this case, as it has the 

greater interest in the marital status of the now deceased 

government employee. The district court did not do a choice of 

laws analysis but concluded instead that the outcome would be the 
same under either Texas or Pennsylvania law. It then looked to 

Pennsylvania case law and held that Huff was the legal spouse of 

the decedent at the time of Mr. Leecan's death absent proof of 

divorce or annulment of his marriage to her. 

 We think that the district court erred in analyzing 

Pennsylvania law and concluding that Pennsylvania has an 

absolutely inflexible rule that a second marriage is always 

invalid in the absence of strict proof of a divorce decree or 

annulment of the first marriage. The Supreme Court of 

Pennsylvania has specifically instructed courts applying that 

state's domestic relations law to perform a balancing test by 

weighing the evidence in the record to determine which of two 

presumptions, one in favor of continuation of the first marriage 

and the other in favor of the validity of the second marriage, is 

more easily sustained by the evidence. Concluding that the 

second presumption could never apply in the absence of strict 

formal proof of termination of the first marriage, the district 

court failed to do this. Therefore, we will remand this case to 

the district court so that it can properly balance the 

presumption in favor of the first marriage against the one 

favoring the second. In adjusting that balance, we think no 

mechanical rule will suffice. Instead, we think the court should 

consider the conduct of both parties and their respective 

contributions to the stability of the family each chose to 

support or deny in light of the value our society attributes to 

traditional families and evolving conditions of family life in 

this nation. On remand, we also think the district court should 
make an express finding as to when and how Huff first learned of 

the decedent's marriage to Mrs. Leecan and the reasons for her 

lack of curiosity for twenty-eight years about the man she now 

claims as her husband. 

I. 

 Huff and the decedent were married in 1956 in Victoria 

County, Texas.1 Shortly thereafter, they moved to Philadelphia. 

They had no children together. In 1961, they separated and Huff 

returned to Victoria County, Texas. Huff continued her residence 

there until 1964 when she moved to Houston in Harris County, 

Texas. The decedent continued to live in Philadelphia. In 1962, 

Huff commenced divorce proceedings against the decedent in 

Victoria County, Texas. The action was dismissed for lack of 

prosecution in 1964. A record search of Victoria and Harris 

Counties, Texas, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania produced no 

record of divorce or annulment.2

 

1. Mrs. Leecan argues that Huff's marriage to the decedent was 

invalid because Huff was only seventeen years of age at the time. 

This impediment renders the marriage merely voidable, not void. 

Because Huff did not, at any time, disclose this impediment to 

the district court and because a declaratory judgment is an 

equitable remedy, Mrs. Leecan also argues that Huff should be 

precluded from recovery because she did not come into court with 

clean hands. Huff and the decedent continued to live together as 

husband and wife after Huff attained the age of majority, and no 

action for annulment was commenced within sixty days of the 

marriage ceremony. See 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 3303, 

3305(a)(2) (1991). Therefore, we reject these arguments. 

2. Texas law requires a plaintiff in a divorce action to have 

resided in the county where the action was filed for six months 

prior to institution of the action. See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. 
 Huff later took up residence with Thomas Bennett and 

had three children with him, all bearing the surname Bennett. On 

the children's birth certificates, Huff's name is given as Irene 

Bennett. Huff never married Bennett. 

 Following his separation from Huff, the decedent was 

hired by the United States Post Office in Philadelphia. His 

employment there entitled his spouse to federal survivor annuity 

benefits. On November 8, 1967, the decedent completed his death 

benefit form naming Ethel Leecan as his wife. Three days later, 

on November 11, 1967, the decedent and Ethel Leecan, after 

obtaining a Pennsylvania marriage license, were married.3 The 

decedent, in applying for the marriage license, declared that he 

had never been married before. Following their marriage, the 

decedent and Mrs. Leecan held themselves out as husband and wife, 

bought property together and had two children together.4 

 Decedent died in an automobile accident in June of 

(..continued) 

§ 3.21 (West 1994). Huff appears to have resided only in Harris 

and Victoria Counties, Texas. 

]

3. Decedent's designation of "Ethel Leecan" as his beneficiary 

would be ineffective if she is not his wife. Only spouses and 

certain unmarried children are entitled to death benefits under 

the Federal Employees Health Benefit's Program. See 5 U.S.C.A. 

§ 8341 (West Supp. 1994). Indeed, the Death Benefits 

Registration Form in which decedent listed his spouse as 

"Ethel R." identified the family member eligible for death 

benefits. See Appendix ("App.") at Doc. 14. 

4. The ages of the decedent's children do not appear in the 

record. If we assume that any children born to Mr. and Mrs. 

Leecan were born after the date of Mr. Leecan's attempt to 

contract a valid ceremonial marriage to Mrs. Leecan in 1967 and 

the decedent's death in 1971, these children would today be 

between the ages of 23 and 27. 
1971. Later that same year Mrs. Leecan began collecting 

survivors' benefits as his spouse. Not until about eighteen 

years later, in 1989, did Huff petition the USOPM to award her 

any survivors' benefits due Mr. Leecan's spouse.5 Thus, Huff and 

Mrs. Leecan now both claim entitlement to benefits as the legal 

spouse decedent at the time of his death. Initially, USOPM 

awarded Huff a retroactive payment of $58,819.20 and ordered Mrs. 

Leecan to repay the benefits she had received over the eighteen 

years that preceded Huff's petition, but USOPM reversed this 

decision after deciding that Huff had waited too long to 

challenge decedent's marriage to Mrs. Leecan and ordered Huff to 

repay the retroactive award. 

 At the urging of USOPM, both parties filed an action in 

the district court seeking a declaratory judgment determining who 

was the legal spouse of the decedent under applicable state law 

at the time of his death. USOPM suspended all benefit payments 

and efforts to collect repayments pending the district court's 

decision. 

 Huff filed a motion for summary judgment which the 

district court denied, holding that there was sufficient evidence 

at the summary judgment stage to overcome Pennsylvania's 

presumption of favoring the continued existence of the first 

marriage. This evidence included testimony that the decedent 

believed he had been divorced, that he told others he had 

 

5. Applications for survivor annuities may be filed within 

thirty years of the death of an employee. See 5 U.S.C.A. 

§ 8345(i)(2) (1980). 
obtained a divorce from Huff, that he had children with Mrs. 

Leecan, and that Huff never attempted to contact the decedent 

until eighteen years after the decedent's death and almost 

twenty-eight years after her separation from him. 

 Later, at a bench trial, other evidence showed the 

decedent told Mrs. Leecan he had been married previously but that 

this marriage had been annulled and decedent's half-brother also 

testified that the decedent had told him before he married Mrs. 

Leecan that his marriage to Huff had been annulled. He also 

testified that Mr. Leecan had hosted a party to celebrate his 

annulment. 

 Unfortunately for Mrs. Leecan, the district court did 

not credit this testimony, but found instead there was no 

credible evidence that the decedent and Huff were ever divorced 

or that their marriage was ever annulled. The district court did 

not expressly find that Huff lacked knowledge of Mr. Leecan's 

subsequent marriage to Mrs. Leecan but did find, "she had not had 

any contact with him or any knowledge about him since prior to 

his death in 1971." Appendix ("App.") at Exhibit 4, p.6 

(District Court oral op.). 

 Mrs. Leecan did not raise any conflict of law issues 

before the district court, nor did she or Mrs. Huff object to the 

district court's application of Pennsylvania law to the question 

of who was Mr. Leecan's spouse at the time of his death. The 

district court, without deciding whether Texas or Pennsylvania 

law applied, concluded that the outcome would have been the same 

under the law of either state. 
 Because there was no evidence that the decedent and 

Huff were ever divorced, or that their marriage had been 

annulled, the district court held that Mr. Leecan's second 

marriage to Ethel Leecan was void ab initio. It went on to 

conclude that Huff was still legally married to the decedent at 

the time of his death but noted, "[t]his result may seem 

inequitable under the facts of this case." Id. at Exhibit 4, 

p.7. 

 Mrs. Leecan filed a timely notice of appeal.6

 

6. The district court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C.A. § 1332 because of diversity of citizenship. We have 

appellate jurisdiction over Leecan's appeal from the district 

court's final order granting the declaratory judgment under 28 

U.S.C.A. § 1291. We exercise plenary review over the district 

court's decision that no conflict of laws analysis was required 

and that under the law of Pennsylvania Huff was the legal spouse 

of the decedent at the time of his death. Epstein Family 

Partnership v. Kmart Corp., 13 F.3d 762, 765-66 (3d Cir. 1994). 

Any subsidiary factual findings, however, are subject to the 

clearly erroneous standard of review. Id.
II. 

 In deciding who is entitled to federal survivor 

benefits, USOPM looks to state common law to define marriage and 

to determine who is the legal widow of the decedent: 

 "Marriage" means a marriage recognized in law 

or equity under the whole of the jurisdiction 

with the most significant interest in the 

marital status of the employee, Member or 

retiree unless the law of that jurisdiction 

is contrary to the public policy of the 

United States. If a jurisdiction would 

recognize more than one marriage in law or 

equity, the Office of Personnel Management 

(OPM) will recognize only one marriage, but 

will defer to the local court to determine 

which marriage should be recognized. 

5 C.F.R. § 831.603 (1994) (emphasis added). The only question 

before us on appeal of this declaratory judgment action is who 

was the legal spouse of William Leecan when he died in 1971. 

 In deciding this issue, we agree with the district 

court that it is unnecessary to perform a conflicts analysis as 

the result is the same under either Texas or Pennsylvania law. 

Compare In re Estate of Watt, 185 A.2d 781, 785-86 (Pa. 1962) 

(discussed infra) with Parson v. Parson, 387 S.W.2d 764, 766 

(Tex. Civ. App. 1965) (if previous marriage has not been 

terminated by divorce, annulment or death of prior spouse, party 

does not have capacity to enter into second marriage and any 

attempted second marriage is void ab initio); Hudspeth v. 

Hudspeth, 198 S.W.2d 768, 769 (Tex. Civ. App. 1946) (Texas law 

presumes validity of second marriage and that presumption 

prevails until it is rebutted "by evidence which negatives the 
effective operation of every possible means by which a 

dissolution of the prior marriage could have taken place"); see

also 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 1702 (1991); Tex. Fam. Code Ann. 

§ 2.22 (West 1994). 

 In any event, to the extent that there are any material 

differences in the law of Texas and Pennsylvania, we believe 

standard conflicts analysis points to Pennsylvania law. 

Pennsylvania had the "most significant interest in the marital 

status of the employee." 5 C.F.R. § 831.603 (1994) (emphasis 

added). Although Huff and the decedent were married in Texas, 

they moved to Pennsylvania shortly after their marriage in 1956 

and they resided here until their separation in 1961. Mrs. 

Leecan's marriage to the decedent occurred in Pennsylvania and 

they resided there until decedent died. In addition, the 

decedent's federal employment was in Pennsylvania. The only 

contacts with Texas are Huff's marriage to Leecan and Huff's 

longtime residence there. See Headon v. Pope & Talbot, Inc., 252 

F.2d 739, 742-43 (3d Cir. 1958) (giving great weight to forum 

state's presumptions where parties lived in forum during most of 

marital relationship). 

 Pennsylvania law has two conflicting presumptions, both 

of which apply in this case. The first presumption is that a 

valid first marriage continues until it is proven to be dissolved 

by death, divorce or annulment. Watt, 185 A.2d at 785. The 

second presumes the innocence and validity of a second marriage. 

Id. In case a conflict between these presumptions arises, we are 

advised "that presumption should yield which from the evidence 
and inferences therefrom render it the least probable to 

sustain." Id. at 786.7

 The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania considered the impact 

of these two presumptions in In re Estate of Watt. In Watt, in 

upholding the first marriage, the supreme court stated that any 

subsequent marriage is void unless the first marriage is 

dissolved in some manner. Id. at 785. It went on to say that 

even assuming the second wife "acted in the utmost of good faith 

and in reliance upon [a fraudulent] decree of divorce, per se 

such good faith and reliance on her part would not breathe 

vitality into her marriage to decedent unless, in fact, decedent 

had the legal capacity to enter into such a marriage." Id. 

Therefore, to overcome the first presumption, there must be proof 

of facts and circumstances that make it apparent that the first 

marriage has been dissolved or the spouse has died. Id.; see In 

re Estate of Henry, 353 A.2d 812, 813-15 (Pa. 1976) (because 

there was no evidence of divorce between deceased and his first 

wife or that deceased's first wife died prior to deceased's 

second marriage, first marriage was valid unless during trial, on 

remand from grant of summary judgment, second wife could prove 

that first marriage had never been consummated and decedent had 

never lived together with first wife, as she alleged). 

 

7. Texas law also presumes the validity of the second marriage, 

but that presumption is destroyed by evidence which negates the 

effective operation of every possible means by which dissolution 

of the prior marriage could have taken place. See Hudspeth, 198 

S.W.2d at 770 (citations omitted). 
 At the same time, the supreme court recognized that it 

had to reconcile this presumption in favor of the continuing 

validity of the first marriage with a competing presumption: 

"the presumption of innocence in contracting a second marriage as 

well as the presumption of the validity of a second marriage, the 

former furnishing the rationale for the latter." Watt, 185 A.2d 

at 785. "Underlying [these latter] presumptions is the theory 

that parties to the second marriage did so innocently and without 

criminal or wrongful purpose or intent and that the law will 

infer matrimony rather than concubinage." Id. Where children 

have been born of the second marriage, as in Mrs. Leecan's case, 

the presumption of legitimacy considerably strengthens the 

presumption of the validity of the second marriage. Id. at 785 

n.6. The birth of children is not sufficient, in itself, 

however, to rebut the presumption in favor of the continuing 

validity of the first marriage. See In re Estate of Henry, 353 

A.2d at 814; see also Johnson v. J.H. Terry & Co., 126 A.2d 793, 

797 (Pa. Super. 1956), aff'd, 133 A.2d 234 (Pa. 1957). A long 

period of absence or desertion, as well as the fact that the 

first spouse may have also remarried, and proof that the decedent 

recognized the validity of the second marriage, may also support 

the second presumption. See In re Estate of D'Ippolito, 218 A.2d 

224, 225 (Pa. 1966) (where twenty-four year period elapsed 

between time decedent was deserted by her first husband and her 

second marriage, and where whereabouts of first husband continued 

to be unknown and decedent had attempted to locate him prior to 

her second marriage, continuance of decedent's first marriage, so 
as to defeat second husband's right to decedent's estate, was not 

established). 

 In deciding how to balance these conflicting 

presumptions the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in Watt, cited 

Madison v. Lewis, 30 A.2d 357, 360 (Pa. Super. 1943), with 

approval. 

 "When a valid marriage is proven the law 

presumes that it continues until the death of 

one of the parties (actual or presumptive 

after seven years), or a divorce is shown. 

Without either of these appearing if one of 

the parties marries again, while another 

presumption arises that it is innocent, that 

alone is not sufficient to overcome the 

previously existing presumption of the 

continued validity of the first marriage. 

The second presumption does not of itself 

destroy the first but requires some proof of 

facts and circumstances to be given the 

effect of overcoming the first; as for 

instance, the long lapse of time during which 

the other party may be presumed to have died, 

the question of legitimacy of a child of the 

second marriage, the fact that the other 

spouse had likewise remarried, proof that the 

decedent, whose heirs are attacking the 

second marriage, had himself recognized the 

validity of it." 

Watt, 185 A.2d at 785-86 (quoting Madison, 30 A.2d at 360) 

(footnote & citations omitted); cf. In re Estate of Bruce, 538 

A.2d 923, 923 (Pa. Super. 1988). In our case there is evidence 

that the decedent himself had recognized the second marriage as 

valid, two children were born of the second marriage, there was a 

long lapse of time, approximately twenty-eight years, during 

which the decedent and Huff had no contact with one another, and 
Huff lived with another man, used his surname and had children 

with him. 

 The Watt court continued: 

 From the presumption in favor of the validity 

of the second marriage and the presumption of 

innocence upon the part of the parties to 

that marriage there follows, as a corollary, 

another presumption i. e. that either death 

or divorce had terminated the prior marriage, 

and he who claims the invalidity of the 

second marriage must over come that . . . 

presumption by proof of some nature. The 

presumption that a first marriage has been 

terminated by death or divorce is neither 

absolute nor inflexible and each case must be 

resolved on the basis of its own facts and 

circumstances and such inferences as fairly 

arise and can be reasonably drawn from them. 

Watt, 185 A.2d at 786 (citations omitted). 

 We believe the real thrust of the several presumptions 

is to place the burden of proving the invalidity of the second 

marriage upon the person who claims such invalidity and we think 

that requires proof of some nature that the first marriage was 

not dissolved by death or divorce at the time of the second 

marriage. Id. at 785-86; but see Headen v. Pope & Talbot, Inc., 

252 F.2d at 741 ("The validity of the marriage in question [the 

second marriage] may be sustained only if there is proof of the 

dissolution of [the first marriage]."); D'Ippolito, 218 A.2d at 

225 ("[T]he burden remains upon the party supporting the validity 

of the subsequent marriage to produce such facts as will shift 

the burden of proof back to the party supporting the validity of 

the prior marriage."). While Pennsylvania cases exhibit 
considerable confusion about who has the burden of proving the 

termination of the first marriage and the strength of the 

evidence that is needed to establish that fact, they indicate to 

us the absence of an entirely mechanical rule and, under the 

circumstances of this case, we believe that Huff should bear the 

burden of proving the first marriage was not dissolved at the 

time of the second marriage. 

 As the district court recognized in denying Huff's 

motion for summary judgment, there is evidence which could 

overcome the presumption of the continued existence of the first 

marriage. This evidence includes the fact that the decedent 

advised others that he had obtained a divorce from Huff, Mrs. 

Leecan and the decedent had two children together in the second 

marriage and Huff bore decedent no children. Huff used the 

surname of her children's father, a man with whom she lived, in 

her correspondence with USOPM and on the birth certificates of 

her children, and Huff never attempted to contact the decedent 

until eighteen years after his death and twenty-eight years after 

their separation. The district court nevertheless declined to 

balance the conflicting presumptions but instead held if there is 

no divorce decree or annulment of the first marriage, the second 

is automatically void ab initio. We think this reading of 

Pennsylvania law renders the second presumption meaningless; no 

weighing of the evidence is even necessary because a second 

marriage automatically becomes void ab initio unless a decree of 

divorce or annulment is produced. This seems to us contrary to 

the state supreme court's analysis in Watt. Because there was 
evidence supporting each presumption, we think that the district 

court should have weighed one against the other in light of the 

social value of each claimant's conduct and the contribution of 

each to the family which Mr. Leecan wanted to benefit with funds 

which he treated as his own after Mrs. Huff returned to Texas and 

entered into a relationship with another man that produced a 

separate family which Mr. Leecan not only had no contact with, 

but knew nothing about. Rather than weighing the competing 

presumptions favoring Mr. Leecan's first and second marriages, as 

suggested by Watt, the district court ended its analysis with a 

rule of law that no divorce or termination of the first marriage 

had been proven and therefore the second marriage was void ab

initio. We do not criticize the district court for doing so 

because there are indeed indications in Pennsylvania case law 

that such a strict rule exists, and we recognize the strong need 

for certainty and definiteness in the rules governing a status so 

important to society's well being as marriage. Nevertheless, it 

seems to us that inflexible application of a rule requiring, 

without exception, that the first marriage be shown conclusively 

to terminate before the second can be recognized would make the 

competing presumption in favor of the validity of the second 

marriage meaningless. Because that presumption also has strong 

underpinnings in desirable social policy, we do not think 

Pennsylvania would totally ignore it under the circumstances that 

this case presents. 

 Moreover, the district court may have erred in 

concluding that Huff had conclusively demonstrated that no 
divorce or annulment existed based only upon a search of the 

court records in Victoria and Harris Counties, Texas and 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, there is no sixmonth residency requirement as in Texas and the requirement of 

venue may be waived by entry of a general appearance by 

defendant, see Chasman v. Chasman, 53 A.2d 876 (Pa. Super. 1947); 

see also Shields v. Folsom, 153 F. Supp. 733 (E.D. Pa. 1957). 

This record does not show that all counties in Pennsylvania were 

searched to establish conclusively that there was no divorce or 

annulment here. Thus, although the evidence shows that Huff 

resided only in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Victoria and 

Harris Counties, Texas, we are not convinced that the record 

search Huff offered was broad enough to be conclusive. 

 Finally, even assuming Huff can establish on remand 

that no divorce or annulment exists and the district court 

concludes the presumptions balance in her favor, we believe it 

also erred in failing to make a finding as to when Huff learned 

of the decedent's marriage to Mrs. Leecan. California and Texas 

law persuasively support the equitable principles that Watt seems 

to foreshadow and later Pennsylvania law does not preclude. 

USOPM decisions concerning entitlement use similar principles. 

Thus, USOPM may bar the first wife from asserting a claim as the 

legal surviving spouse where she unreasonably delayed taking 

legal action to challenge the validity of her husband's later 

marriage within a reasonable time after gaining knowledge of it. 

See Jacobs v. Office of Personnel Management, 13 M.S.P.R. 23, 26 

(1982) (citing United States v. George-Pacific Co., 421 F.2d 92, 
96 (9th Cir. 1970); Brown v. Brown, 79 Cal. Rptr. 257 (Cal. App. 

1969), modified, 82 Cal. Rptr. 238 (Cal App. 1969)); see also

Simpson v. Simpson, 380 S.W.2d 855, 859-60 (Tex. Civ. App. 1964). 

We agree that Huff would not be barred from challenging the 

validity of the second marriage if she knew only that the 

decedent "had a woman." Brief of Appellant at 11. This is 

clearly insufficient under Watt. See Watt, 185 A.2d at 790 n.9. 

The district court, however, failed to make any finding on when 

Huff learned of decedent's second marriage. For all these 

reasons, we conclude this case should be remanded to the district 

court for further proceedings.8

III. 

 For the foregoing reasons we will vacate the order of 

the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion. 

 

8. We note that the district court was itself troubled by the 

length of time between the decedent's death and Huff's claim of 

entitlement to the survivor benefits as well as the inequitable 

result if Mrs. Leecan were now ordered to repay the $58,819.20 

she was previously awarded through no fault or bad faith on her 

part. Thus, the equitable doctrines of laches and equitable 

estoppel, as well as waiver of overpayment under OPM regulations, 

may be applicable in fashioning a final benefits award even if 

the district court concludes after balancing the conflicting 

presumptions in light of all the evidence that Mrs. Huff has 

established a continuing validity of the marriage to Mr. Leecan 

and the consequent invalidity of his second marriage to Mrs. 

Leecan.