Court Opinion

ID: 9702100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:54:23.554469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:33.648823
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. In my view the decision in Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, 94 S.Ct. 2496, 41 L.Ed.2d 363 (1974), requires us to alter our decision in Norton v. Weinberger, 364 F.Supp. 1117 (D.Md.1973), vacated and remanded, 418 U.S. 902, 94 S.Ct. 3191, 41 L.Ed. 2d 1150 (1974) (Norton I), and to hold that the portion of the statute attacked denies equal protection of the laws and should be declared invalid. Since the Secretary has found that the deceased wage earner, Gregory B. Norton, Sr., was the father of the claimant, I would remand the case to the Secretary with directions to award the claimed survivor’s benefit.
I.
I begin with an analysis of Jimenez, interspersed with comments on how it supersedes our prior holding. In Jimenez, the claimants, or applicants for disability benefits, were the illegitimate children of a disabled wage earner. They had been born after the onset of the wage earner’s disability. The statutory scheme in Jimenez provided that *1093when a wage earner suffers “disability,” defined elsewhere in the Act, his legitimate children, under certain ages or under a disability themselves, are entitled to benefits if, inter alia, they were dependent on the disabled wage earner. § 202(d)(1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 402(d)(1). Legitimate children are deemed dependent on the disabled wage earner irrespective of whether they live with him or he contributes to their support. § 202(d)(3) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 402(d)(3). By certain of the provisions of § 216, 42 U.S.C. § 416, which bear a marked similarity to the other provisions of § 216 which were considered in Norton I, certain illegitimate children can also recover benefits, i. e., illegitimate children entitled to inherit under the intestacy laws of the state (42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(2)(A)),1 children not entitled to inherit only because of some formal defect in their parents’ marriage (42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(2)(B)), and illegitimate children if the wage earner’s paternity has been established, prior to the beginning of disability, by formal acknowledgment, court order for support, or court decree of paternity (42 U.S.C. § 416(h) (3)(B)(i). In the case of these classes of illegitimates as well, the statute deems them dependent on the disabled wage earner irrespective of whether they live with him or he contributes to their support. If a claimant fits none of these categories, the claimant is still entitled to benefits if the claimant can demonstrate paternity in fact and that the wage earner was living with or contributing to the support of the claimant when the period of disability began (42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(3) (B)(ii).
In Jimenez, the latter provisions were under attack — (a) that which required the birth of the child before disability began, and (b) that which imposed the condition of “living with” or “contributing to the support of” the claimant when disability of the wage earner began— even though paternity of the claimant had been established by evidence satisfactory to the Secretary. Jimenez held that the complete bar to after-born illegitimates denied equal protection of the *1094law.2 It gave strong and clear indications that imposition of either of the alternatives of “living with” or “contributing to the support of” was similarly invalid.
In arriving at its holding, the Court declined to prescribe the quantum of proof which would be required to sustain a discrimination among illegitimates in the context of social security benefits.3 The Court adopted, as basic, the premise that “the primary purpose of the contested Social Security scheme is to provide support for dependents of a disabled wage earner.”4 417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct. at 2500. Accordingly, it firmly and explicitly rejected the argument (on which Norton I is premised) that the “requisite economic dependency” within the purposes of the legislation is limited to actual support received prior to the event insured against, which, in Jimenez, meant prior to disability. 417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct. 2496.5 No such showing, the Court pointed out, is required of either legitimate children *1095or any other class of illegitimates.6 Indeed, even under § 416(h) (3)(B)(ii)', a claimant can establish entitlement to benefits without showing actual support if he can demonstrate paternity and the fact he was living with the wage earner prior to the period of disability. Furthermore, the Court’s opinion rejected the Secretary’s attempt to justify a requirement that illegitimates be born before the wage earner’s death to entitle them to benefits on the basis that such claimants are less “likely to have the requisite economic dependency.” 7 The Court went further and stated that “[e] ven if children might rationally be classified on the basis of whether they are dependent upon their disabled parent,” the statutory scheme was both “under-inclusive” and “over-inclusive” —“deeming dependent” in some instances those who are not, and excluding in others those who are.8 Thus, the Court found that these after-born illegitimates were on the “same footing” with regard to the purpose of the statute (to provide for dependents of insured wage earners) as others whose claim to benefits was conceded. The difference in treatment was, therefore, a denial of equal protection.9 The Court remanded the case to the district court to allow the Secretary to contest the assertions of paternity, support, and acknowledgment of claimants, issues which he had not contested in the district court because he had defended the denial of benefits on the statutory exclusion of illegitimates born after the wage earner’s disability.
As I have noted, the statutory definitions of eligibility about which Jimenez and Norton I revolved — § 416(h)(3)(B) and (C), respectively — are, except for *1096the event insured against, identical. Once actual paternity was established, the only difference between the requirement that plaintiff in the instant ease must satisfy and that which the Jimenez children were obliged to meet, if the statute is read literally, is that, in the instant case, the crucial date is the date of death, while in Jimenez the crucial date was the beginning of disability. Otherwise, the requirement that the wage earner must be living with, or contributing to the support of, the applicant, is the same in both cases. In both eases, an illegitimate claimant was denied benefits by the Secretary because he had received no “actual contribution” to his support prior to the statutory cut-off date, and in both the Secretary maintained that it was rational to demand proof of actual support in that sub-class of illegitimates because it was less likely to be present than in other classes. Since Norton is treated differently from other classes of claimants on the same grounds which the Supreme Court held were inadequate to justify the different treatment of the Jimenez applicants, I would conclude that Norton is being denied equal protection of the law as well.
II.
I turn to two factors on which the majority relies to distinguish Jimenez from the instant case. The first is that Jimenez was concerned with children born (or conceived) after the wage earner’s date of disability, while the instant case concerns a child born before the date of death. Thus, it was physically impossible for the wage earner to contribute to the support of the Jimenez claimants, or to live with them, prior to the beginning of his date of disability. By contrast in Norton, Norton, Sr. could have contributed to the support of Norton, Jr., but did not; and Norton, Sr. could have lived with Norton, Jr. had Norton, Sr. not been in military service and stationed overseas. As a result, the majority reasons that when viewed against the background of the majority’s conviction — mistaken, I think — that the Act was designed to replace only loss of actual support, plaintiff has not been the subject of invidious ‘discrimination.
The second is the Court’s actual disposition of Jimenez, i. e., the remand to permit the claimants to establish, in an adversary proceeding, the truth of their allegations that they were the children of the disabled wage earner, that they lived with him all of their lives, that he acknowledged them as his children, and that he supported and cared for them since their birth. The significance of this disposition in that these are the very factors which would have made them eligible for benefits had they been present prior to the date of the wage earner’s disability.
On the basis of both of these distinctions, the majority, in effect, infers that only the validity of the cut-off date, i. e., the date of the wage earner’s death, was the point of decision in Jimenez: the Court was not invalidating the requirement that the wage earner live with or contribute to the support of the claimant as a condition of the claimant’s eligibility — it was merely extending the time-span in which these conditions could be met. Thus, the Norton I result is unaffected, so the majority concludes, because Norton, Sr. could obviously not “live with” or “contribute to the support of” plaintiff after the former’s death.
While I agree that Jimenez does not invalidate, per se, the alternate requirements of co-residence or actual support as conditions of eligibility, its reasoning, as well as its language, lead inevitably to that conclusion. It is true that the Court remanded the case to permit the claimants “to establish their claim to eligibility as ‘children’ of the claimant,” 417 U.S. at 637-38, 94 S.Ct. at 2502, and this I read to require a showing of dependency. But the opinion seems to make clear that, under the Act, actual support is not a necessary aspect of the concept of dependency. As I have previously stated, the legislative history the *1097Court cites for “the primary purpose” of the Act speaks of the “right to support,”10 and the opinion emphasizes in particular the inconsistency and injustice of requiring this particular subgroup of illegitimates to make a showing of actual contribution while not requiring a similar showing of any other class of applicants.11 At another point, the Court seems to equate “dependency,” “claim to support,” and “right to eligibility.”12 Of course, a claim to support, or a right of support arises from the fact of paternity alone, and it is only the fact of paternity that other subclasses of illegitimates are required to establish (by formal acknowledgment, court order, or court decree) in order to receive benefits. To me, it seems an inescapable conclusion from the premise that the Act was designed to provide a substitute for loss of the right to support, and not merely a substitute for loss of actual support, that proof of paternity alone, which gives rise to the right to support, is all that is needed to entitle this sub-class of illegitimates to benefits, that the purposes of the Act are fully served by proof of paternity alone and that a requirement of proof of more by this sub-class of illegitimate claimants results in invidious, unequal treatment. This I conceive to be the real thrust of Jimenez which the majority misses13
I place no contrary significance on the terms of the remand in Jimenez. The remand merely referred inclusively to the allegations made by the claimants in support of their claim; it did not purport to establish a standard of eligibility. Although the claimants had alleged as facts all of the issues that the remand directed to be explored, none had been previously considered or litigated, because of the undisputed fact that the birth of two of the children had followed the beginning of the wage earner’s disability by two and five years, respectively. It seems fairly obvious that since the provision of the statute making the fact of subsequent birth an automatic disqualification was invalidated, it was appropriate to order a full adversary evidentiary exploration of all of the allegations to determine what sort of case the claimants could prove and what statutory standards governing eligibility would be applicable. The Court did not say that all of the allegations must be proved for the claimants to recover; and I do not infer that the Court meant that all, or even some combinations, of the allegations must be proved by the Jimenez claimants to establish their entitlement to benefits. This is so because there can be no question that certain combinations — for example, formal acknowledgment of paternity and actual support — are plainly more than what is required under the Act once the limitation on the time of acknowledgment was removed. Moreover, although the *1098remand directs attention to allegations beyond actual paternity, such facts as co-residence, acknowledgment and support, if proved, could be persuasive corroboration of actual paternity and therefore highly relevant to the determination of that basic issue. Surely the Secretary would be entitled to consider them in determining whether paternity was established “to [his] satisfaction.” 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(3)(B)(ii). The terms of the remand, thus, are not inconsistent with my conclusion that for the sub-class of illegitimates, of which plaintiff is a member, proof beyond that of paternity of the deceased wage earner may not be constitutionally required.
III.
For these reasons, I would enter a judgment declaring unconstitutional the portion of § 216(h) (3) (C) (ii) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 416(h) (3) (C) (ii), which requires proof that “such insured individual was living with or contributing to the support of the applicant at the time such insured individual died.” I would also remand the case to the Secretary, with the direction that plaintiff’s claimed benefits be allowed dating from the death of Gregory B. Norton, Sr., because I see no need for further evidentiary proceedings.
In proceedings prior to the action to review, the Secretary found that Norton, Sr. was the plaintiff’s father. As the court’s opinion in Norton v. Richardson, 352 F.Supp. 596 (D.Md.1972), demonstrates, the evidence supporting this finding was not insubstantial. This is not a case where only the surviving mother claims that a deceased wage earner was the father of her child. By his act and deed, Norton, Sr. conceded paternity prior to his death, even to the point of taking positive, but legally ineffective, steps to provide a military allotment for the support of his son. On this record, unlike Jimenez, there is no need for further litigation.

. In Jimenee, it is stated flatly that “[u]nder the statute it is clear that illegitimate children born after the wage earner becomes disabled qualify for benefits if state law permits them to inherit from the wage earner, § 416(h) (2) (A).” 417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct.. at 2501. With protestations of due deference and respect, the majority opinion undertakes to prove the statement inaccurate, as indeed it concedes that it must in order to preserve its thesis that Gregory B. Norton, Jr., has not been the subject of invidious discrimination. Majority opinion, n. 7. I think the Supreme Court’s statement accurate: § 402(d)(1) requires, inter alia, that a “child,” to be entitled to a child’s insurance benefit, be “dependent” upon the insured person entitled to an old-age or disability insurance benefit. By § 402(d)(3), so far as pertinent, a child is deemed dependent upon his father unless his father was not living with the child or contributing to his support and the child is neither the legitimate nor adopted child of the father. Section 416(h)(2)(A), however, states that “[i]n determining whether an applicant is the child ... of a fully or currently insured individual . . .,” the Secretary shall apply the law relating to the devolution of intestate property in the state in which the insured individual is domiciled. It then states, “[applicants who according to such law would have the same status ... as a child . . . shall he deemed such." (Emphasis added.) The “child” that they are thus deemed to be is defined in § 416(e) to mean “the child or legally adopted child of an individual . . . .”
I read the statutes together to mean that an illegitimate who would inherit from his father under applicable state intestacy law is to be deemed a “child,” and since he is deemed to be a “child,” he is deemed dependent under § 402(d) (3). Even if he does not live with his father or is not supported by his father, the child does not fit into the exception in § 402(d)(3) for illegitimate or non-adopted children, because, by § 416(h)(2)(A), he is deemed to have the status of a legitimate child who may inherit. The fact that § 402(d) (3) makes special provision for illegitimates of the categories defined in §§ 416(h)(2)(B) and 416(h)(3), but not § 416(h)(2)(A), is not significant, because, again, § 416(h) (2) (A), as I read it, says that illegitimates who can inherit under state intestacy law are deemed to have the status of legitimate children (thus, rendering any further special treatment unnecessary), while §§ 416(h)(2)(B) and 416(h)(3) do not.

. In a suit of this nature between an individual and the federal government, the constitutional guarantee at issue is the fifth amendment and it, unlike the fourteenth amendment, contains no equal protection clause. However, it is established that the guarantee of equal protection of the laws is part of the concept of “due process” which the federal government must afford. Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 168, 84 S.Ct. 1187, 12 L.Ed.2d 218 (1964) ; Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954).

. The Supreme Court declined to declare illegitimacy a “suspect classification” requiring “strict scrutiny,” 417 U.S. at 631-32, 94 S.Ct. 2496, because it found that the discrimination in Jimenez was unconstitutional even under the somewhat looser and vaguer standard articulated in Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 175-76, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 1407, 31 L.Ed.2d 768 (1972) : “the classification is justified by no legitimate state interest, compelling or otherwise.” There are, however, numerous indications in recent Supreme Court opinions that, in a proper case, a majority of the Court would find that illegitimacy was a suspect classification. See Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 686, 93 S.Ct. 1764, 36 L.Ed.2d 583 (1973) ; San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 60, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973) (concurring opinion) ; Id. at 108, 93 S.Ct. 1278 (dissenting opinion) ; Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 657, 93 S.Ct. 2842, 37 L.Ed.2d 853 (1973) (dissenting opinion). I, too, see no need to decide the issue, because I would conclude that the discrimination presented here fails under the Weber and Jimenez standards. I fear, however, that from the language of the majority opinion, n. 5, the majority harbors notions that the “rationally related” test of Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970), has some application to his case. I call attention that application of Dandridge was specifically rejected in Jimenez. 417 U.S. at 632-34, 94 S.Ct. 2496.

. Citing the House-Senate Committee Conference Report on 1965 Amendments to the Social Security Act, 111 Cong.Rec. 18387 (July 27, 1965) ; and the Report of the Advisory Council on Social Security, The Status of the Social Security Program and Recommendations for its Improvement, 67 (Washington, D. C., 1965). These documents speak of the Act as providing benefits if the insured father had an “obligation” or a “legal obligation” to support the child. In Norton I, the importance of this language in assessing the purposes of the Act was underestimated. There, the Court said only that it is “descriptive of the Act’s effect.” 364 F.Supp. at 1127, n. 6.

. The language of the Court, apparently overlooked by the majority, could not be more specific:
The Secretary maintains that the Act denies benefits to . . . [certain classes of illegitimates] because it is “likely” that these illegitimates, as a class, will not possess the requisite economic dependency on the wage earner which would entitle them to recovery under the Act .... Under this view the Act’s purpose would be to replace only that support enjoyed prior to the onset of disability; .... We do not read the statute as supporting that view of its purpose. (Emphasis supplied.)
417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct. at 2500.
The court’s reliance in Norton I on this discredited view of the purpose of the Act was expressed at several places in its previous opinion. See, e. g.:
The purpose of the Act, consistent with this dual concept, is to replace the support lost to a child when a wage earner dies.
364 F.Supp. at 1127.

. It said:
Indeed, as we have noted, those illegitimates statutorily deemed dependent are entitled to benefits regardless of whether they were living in, or had ever lived in, a dependent family setting with their disabled parent.
417 U.S. at 637, 94 S.Ct. at 2502.

. 417 U.S. at 634, 637, 94 S.Ct. at 2496. In Norton I, the Court stated that it was “rational” for the statutory scheme to assume that the classes of children “deemed dependent” were the recipients of actual support, and likewise rational to require applicants in plaintiffs’ class to prove that fact. 364 F. Supp. at 1128. Deference was granted to the factual assumptions underlying the statutory scheme in reliance, inter alia, on Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). In Jimenez, however, the Court held that the Dandridge reasoning was inapplicable because “the purpose of the statutory exclusion of some after-born illegitimates . . . [was not] to achieve a necessary allocation of finite resources . . .,” 417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct. at 2500. In effect, a heavier and insupportable burden of justification was placed on the federal government than was placed on state governments in Dandridge, and the assumptions which were declared adequate to support the statutory classifications in Norton I were rejected by the Supreme Court in Jimenez. Compare Norton I, 364 F.Supp. at 1128, with Jimenez, 417 U.S. at 634, 94 S.Ct. 2396.

. See note 6 supra. It is clear that the instant case presents the same problem of “over-inclusiveness” with regard to dependency. The government has argued, however, that the converse problem of under-inclusiveness is not presented because all claimants who were actually supported by the insured individual, or lived with him prior to his death would be eligible for benefits, including children conceived before, but born after, the death of the insured individual, Wagner v. Finch, 413 F.2d 267 (5 Cir. 1969). Even conceding the soundness of Wagner’s holding that a child en ventre sa mere is living with the father when the father and the mother are living together, the government’s argument cannot avoid the fact that many illegitimates who could prove neither actual dependency nor co-residence are concededly entitled to benefits. Of course it is not necessary that a statute be both under- and over-inclusive for it to deny equal protection. In any event, the premise of the government’s argument is unsound, because in Jimenez it was stated that the purposes of the Social Security Act as a whole do not depend on actual contribution. Thus, to exclude Norton’s claim on the basis of the absence of that factor is simply without rational basis; and this is true whether or not all the children who received actual support from deceased wage earners can recover or not.

. 417 U.S. at 637, 94 S.Ct. 2496.

. See n. 4, supra.

. 417 U.S. at 634, 636-37, 94 S.Ct. 2496.

. The Court said :
Their dilemma is compounded by the fact that the statute denies them any opportunity to prove dependency in order to establish their “claim” to support and, hence, their right to eligibility.
417 Ü.S. at 635, 94 S.Ct. at 2501. While it is difficult to be sure of what this means, the phrase “claim to support” is pointless in the sentence if it is not the counterpart of both dependency and eligibility.

. Unlike the majority, I am not disturbed by the fact that this conclusion renders superfluous “approximately 80 lines of the statute’s text . . . defining who is deemed ‘dependent.’ ” It must be remembered that the Act, not simple in form at the time of its original enactment, has grown by accretion over a time span of approximately forty years. It is not surprising that in this period there have been refinements, extensions and modifications of congressional purpose and that there may be surplusage in congressional articulation. Unquestionably, there is other overlap between §§ 416(h)(2)(B) and 416(h)(3). What impresses the majority is more an argument for the need for restatement of the terms and provisions of the Act than a reason not to give effect to the Fifth Amendment.