Opinion ID: 838950
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The substantial relation test applied to this case

Text: The dissent stresses that dower is underinclusive even with regard to economically disadvantaged widows and overinclusive with regard to widows who do not face financial difficulty. These points are well-taken. But dower is not unconstitutional merely because it is imperfect. First, although dower may apply only in limited circumstances, those circumstances are meaningful. As the dissent notes, `[s]ince a surviving spouse generally takes a dower or curtesy interest free from debts, these interests may offer more protection than other spousal protection provisions.' Post at 245, quoting 15 Powell, Real Property, § 85.20[2][c], p. 379. Significantly, dower also normally attaches to the marital home. [22] Further, dower is not available on a purely random basis. Rather, it is a viable option only if a husband transfers real property without his wife's consent, see MCL 558.13, and also leaves a minimal estate; in other words, it is available in cases such as this one, in which Sharon Miltenberger's husband transferred the marital home and his office without her consent shortly before his death and left an estate with a net worth of only $8,823.06. Finally, dower is only available from transferees who received the property with notice that it was subject to a wife's dower rights; presumably, if the property is purchased, the wife's contingent rights are reflected in a lower purchase price. Thus, although dower may become available in rare circumstances to a widow who is not economically advantaged, the grantee is not unjustly caught unaware of her potential claim. Dower is also underinclusive in the sense that it does not benefit the statistically smaller group of needy widowers. But dower does not denigrate women's earnings, as did the laws at issue in Wengler, Goldfarb, and Weinberger. The dissent asserts that [p]recluding men from asserting a dower right in their wife's lands provides female landowners fewer protections than male landowners. Post at 254. But what prevents a woman from selling her land for a lower price in order to provide her husband a contingent 1/3 remainder during the course of his life? Indeed, because any landowner has such an option, dower appears primarily applicable to cases like this one, in which a spouse explicitly sought to shield his wealth from his mate, who may have relied on her dower right. In contrast, Goldfarb, Wengler, and Weinberger involved disparate treatment of women in public schemes that directly devalued their earnings and for which they had no private remedy. [23] The gender-based distinction in the federal program addressed by Goldfarb, which paid benefits to widows automatically but to widowers only upon proof of dependency, result[ed] in the efforts of female workers required to pay social security taxes producing less protection for their spouses than is produced by the efforts of men.... Goldfarb, 430 U.S. at 206-207, 97 S.Ct. 1021. The workers' compensation scheme in Wengler similarly allowed automatic benefits for widows, but not for widowers, without regard to a deceased wife's past work and earnings. Wengler, 446 U.S. at 151, 100 S.Ct. 1540. In Weinberger, the Court explicitly observed that although the notion that men are more likely than women to be the primary supporters of their spouses and children is not entirely without empirical support, the social security taxes at issue were deducted from [the wife's] salary during the years in which she worked. Thus, she not only failed to receive for her family the same protection which a similarly situated male worker would have received [because only widows with children automatically received death benefits], but she also was deprived of a portion of her own earnings in order to contribute to the fund out of which benefits would be paid to others. [ Weinberger, 420 U.S. at 645, 95 S.Ct. 1225.] In sum, dower is not a perfect proxy for need or a complete remedy for past discrimination even within the relevant population of surviving spouses. But dower is not as imperfect  or as easily replaced  as the dissent suggests. Although we may not like the current state of affairs in which women  and widows in particular  are economically disadvantaged as a result of discrimination or of arguably outdated gender-based family roles, the data show that dower is not based on mere `assumptions as to dependency' inconsistent with contemporary reality. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. at 207, 97 S.Ct. 1021 (citations omitted); post at 246-48. Dower also imposes no particular harm on women landowners who are not economically disadvantaged, because they may contractually protect their husbands. Similarly, landowning men may remove the burden of dower from their transactions simply by soliciting their wives' signatures. Retaining dower also protects the choices of women who have historically relied on its existence while taking time off from work to raise children or maintain their homes. Most significantly, dower serves important, constitutionally sound governmental objectives that are not equally served by hypothetical gender-neutral schemes without additional burdens on the state. Unlike the gender-neutral schemes available in Orr and Goldfarb, gender-based dower cannot be eliminated without compromising the effort to aid disadvantaged women. See Orr, 440 U.S. at 282, 99 S.Ct. 1102. The gender distinction here is not gratuitous. See Weinberger, 420 U.S. at 653, 95 S.Ct. 1225. I would wholeheartedly support laws that provide more direct means of reallocating income or other personal wealth than providing a life estate in a portion of lands owned by a woman's husband[.] Post at 253. But this Court cannot direct the Legislature to create complex social support regimes out of thin air. Indeed, I am not convinced that the Legislature could feasibly adopt a genderneutral dower scheme, as the dissent suggests. Post at 251. First, no mechanism exists to determine whether a spouse is sufficiently dependent to justify a dower right in property owned by a third party. Most significantly, gender-neutral dower for husbands in land already transferred would compromise vested property rights; although a woman's right to dower has always been embedded in Michigan law pertaining to real property, a man's right to dower has never been recognized or taken into account during past transactions involving real property. For these reasons, I conclude that the dissent wrongly equates the shortcomings of dower with its unconstitutionality. There is undeniable evidence that widows are economically disadvantaged as compared to widowers, particularly in Michigan. Because dower does not denigrate women, and because no system of social welfare or remedy for past discrimination can achieve complete success, I conclude that the gender distinction inherent in Michigan's dower statutes is sufficiently related to the goals of dower to withstand equal protection scrutiny.