Court Opinion

ID: 9451460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:17:53.357075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:45.200662
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
Again arises the problem presented where an executive officer or administrative agency of government has to make a finding of fact as to the matrimonial status of a party whose status is most material to the proper adjudication of the matter before the officer or agency. In a field of the law as confusing as that of matrimonial status in the now fifty states in which the courts themselves have reached so many seemingly inconsistent — and frequently curious— results, little wonder that situations akin to the situation here continue to arise. Illustrative are Wondsel and Estate of Borax, supra. Unfortunately, the desideratum of the mathematical certainty of an algebraic formula resulting in its satisfying Q. E. D. is not to be found— at least here.
1. The law is clear. Mathilde Rocker was entitled to Social Security benefits only if she were the wife of Louis Rocker on January 8, 1963, and if the courts of the State in which Louis was then domiciled could find that he was “validly married” to Mathilde at that time. The “law” is the only constant. Two variables (uncertain domicile and uncertain courts) have been injected into the formula. The law of mathematics tells us that no solution under these circumstances is possible. However, such circumstances are commonplace to courts and hearing examiners who frequently have to reach solutions insoluble except by them.
2. I accept as definite the validity of Louis’ Nevada divorce decree of October 10, 1960. Louis’ course of conduct in 1960 may well have been contrived to give an appearance of genuine residence in Nevada. However, at least he worked in that State (to be sure in a branch office of his New York brokerage house); and he had a room (to be sure in a guest house); and did register to vote, although he apparently never voted, but he did wait a respectful five months before instituting divorce proceedings in Nevada. And there was no proof that on the day of the divorce he had a return trip ticket to New York in his pocket. This routine was varied to the extent of obtaining a pre-divorce passport so that an extended European “vacation” might be made by him (or them). Nor was Louis ever quite unmindful of his long New York residence and his nostalgia to return because he told his customers in writing that after his return from his “vacation” he looked forward to a continued relationship with them. But New York has ever been a lodestone for many. In any event, it is not surprising to find Louis and his newly acquired wife Norma quickly abandoning Nevada for foreign travel, little thinking or caring where some court years hence would declare his domicile to be on January 6, 1963.
3. But just as Nevada had taken Louis and his marital status under its protective wing, so did New York protect Ma-thilde and reward her (March 14, 1961) for her loyalty by declaring Louis’ Nevada decree to be void, which meant that Norma was Louis’ wife probably everywhere in the world except New York and that Mathilde was his wife in New York.
4. To resolve the issue at hand, it is unnecessary for me to decide more than a few (to me) fundamentals.
(a) Louis should not have more than one wife at a time.
(b) Louis and Norma well may have been in January 1963 undecided as be*125tween Nevada, New York or very possibly many other places in the world for residential purposes.
(c) The material facts are in the record before us. Despite the failure of the Hearing Examiner to make a finding as to Louis’ domicile on January 8, 1963, this court can reach its own conclusion that a finding that New York was his state of domicile was not required by the facts in the record. Nor should we stigmatize this world traveler as a “man without a country.”
(d) New York’s decree did not destroy Nevada’s decree or Louis’ marriage to Norma.
(e) Merely because I cannot subscribe to our oft-repeated cliche about “substantial evidence” where there is none or indulge in my colleagues’ creation of an “implicit” finding of domicile where there is none is no reason why I should disregard the need to decide whether for Social Security purposes Norma or Ma-thilde was the wife. If they had both filed on January 8, 1963, Norma would have and should have prevailed.
Therefore, for practical reasons, I concur in the affirmance of the District Court’s decision and in the result reached by my colleagues except for their belief that Hearing Examiners in the Social Security field have an “expertise” in matters domiciliary, evidentiary or matrimonial, which makes their findings so conclusive that appellate review is presumptuous. However, Social Security examiners have to decide the actual situations before them and cannot enjoy metaphysical speculations as to how various, courts under various hypotheses might resolve the apparent conflict between Nevada and New York. In my opinion, the decision that Mathilde did not have a Social Security wifely status with Louis on January 8, 1963, is correct.