Court Opinion

ID: 9710372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:08:15.491783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:56.318098
License: Public Domain

*540DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
The Industrial Board, after hearing, determined in its findings that Richard, the deceased worker, was the father of Rhonda, the child claimant, but denied benefits because Richard had not acknowledged her during his lifetime. In so doing, the Board correctly construed and applied pertinent provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act defining presumptive dependents. Ind. Code § 22-8-8-19. Since Rhonda was not born in wedlock, she could not qualify for benefits as a "legitimate child" of Richard. She could only hope to qualify for benefits by proving that she came within the category of "acknowledged illegitimate children." According to the interpretation given these statutory provisions by the Board, she could qualify as an "acknowledged illegitimate" child only upon proof of two elements: paternity and acknowledgment. If a child seeking benefits through this category proved only acknowledgment he would not. qualify. If a child proved only paternity he would not qualify. In this case, Rhonda successfully made it over the paternity hurdle but was unable to surmount the acknowledgment hurdle.
In order to determine whether this requirement that illegitimate children prove acknowledgment is discriminatory in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, we are mandated to use the intermediate serutiny test set down in Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., (1972) 406 U.S. 164, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 31 LEd.2d 768. The classification of illegitimate children claimants upon the basis of whether they have been acknowledged or not, must bear some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose and:
"The essential inquiry _. _. _. is . _. a dual one: What legitimate state interest does the classification promote? What fundamental personal rights might the classification endanger?"
I agree with Judge White's statement of the purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Act as being in part to compensate children for their ". loss of support, actual or legally required, resulting from the death of a parent in an industrial accident."
The majority has concluded that the state interest in requiring acknowledgment is to DECREASE TWO PROBLEMS: (1) locating illegitimate children, and (2) determining questionable claims of parenthood. One could speculate endlessly over what is meant by these "problems," and what is meant by a decrease of them; however, I choose to regard the majority's statement as meaning that the state has an important interest in maintaining a fair and effective process of determining if a child claimant is in fact the illegitimate child of a deceased worker. After so doing, one must question how the acknowledgment requirement in the statute promotes the fairness and effectiveness of this process of posthumously determining paternity. It cannot be doubted that it will limit the scope of the search for illegitimate children and give maximum protection to the employer and his agents against the payment of false and fraudulent illegitimacy claims. But, at the same time, it does so by excluding a large segment of the class of all illegitimate children, i. e., those upon whom their father did not bestow an acknowledgment. This requirement will prove an insurmountable barrier, not only to claimants such as Rhonda, whose father died without even knowing her mother was pregnant, but to all those other potential claimants whose fathers did not choose, for whatever reason, to acknowledge them. It has been stated that a statute such as this must be "carefully tuned to alternative considerations." Mathews v. Lucas, (1976) 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 LEd.2d 651. See also Trimble v. Gordon, (1977) 430 U.S. 762, 97 S.Ct. 1459, 52 L.Ed.2d 31.
The reach of the acknowledgment requirement extends far beyond what is nee-essary to provide the employer and his agents with a fair and equitable posthumous determination of illegitimacy, and thereby discriminates against the sub-class of unacknowledged, illegitimate children, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As the law stands now *541acknowledgment stands as an insurmountable barrier to the qualification of many dependent illegitimate children who have suffered loss of support through the death of a parent by industrial accident. This statute needs to be retuned. The General Assembly must develop and enact different means for protecting employers and their agents from specious claims.