Court Opinion

ID: 9468132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:05:48.539768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:42.372751
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Appellant is not one of those cheats, frauds, or freeloaders that it has become so popular to conjure up these days. To the contrary, she is one of those innocent victims of an erstwhile unknown legal impediment to an otherwise valid marriage, for whom Congress went to a lot of trouble when it passed the “deemed widow” statute, 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(1)(B).1 The problem with the majority’s very restrictive construction of the statute is that it relies inordinately on two words at the expense of the plain meaning of the statute as a whole. If read out of context and without regard to the usual interpretive standards by which the courts seek to implement the will of Congress, those two words tend to emasculate the whole of the “deemed widow” statute, the purpose of which is to enable “deemed widows” 2 to collect Social Security benefits.
*434The exclusionary provision of § 416(h)(1)(B) states in pertinent part:
The provisions of the preceding sentence shall not apply ... if another person is or has been entitled to a benefit under [42 U.S.C. § 402] and such other person is . . . [a] widow ... of such insured individual under subparagraph (A) at the time such applicant files the application....
(Emphasis added). The “is . . . entitled” language of this provision implements the congressional policy against double dipping into the federal treasury — a policy against permitting a deceased wage earner to have both a “legal widow” under § 416(h)(1)(A) and an array of “deemed widows,” each of whom could draw full Social Security widow’s benefits. To avoid such duplicate payments, Congress added to § 416(h)(1)(B) the “is . . . entitled” language, giving the “legal widow” priority over the “deemed widow.” This policy is not inconsistent with the fundamental purpose underlying § 416(h)(1)(B) of enabling “deemed widows” to collect Social Security benefits. If it were the only exception to the fundamental purpose of the statute, the statute still would enable a “deemed widow” to apply for and to obtain benefits whenever the “legal widow” became ineligible for them.
The “has been entitled” language, however, if uninterpreted, goes well beyond implementing the policy against double dipping and cannot be reconciled with the fundamental and meaningful purpose of § 416(h)(1)(B) to enable “deemed widows” to collect Social Security benefits. The statute makes clear that the mere fact that the “legal widow” has survived her insured spouse does not automatically preclude the “deemed widow” from obtaining benefits. Rather, the statute permits the “deemed widow” to receive benefits unless and until the “legal widow” makes a formal and successful application for widow’s payments:
The entitlement to a monthly benefit . . . based on the wages ... of [an] insured individual, of a person who would not be deemed to be a ... widow ... of such insured individual but for this subparagraph, shall end with the month before the month ... in which the Secretary certifies . . . that another person is entitled to a benefit under [§ 402(e)] if such other person is ... [the] widow .. . under subparagraph (A) ....
Section 416(h)(1)(B) (emphasis added). The record in this case and the facts in other cases dealing with § 416(h)(1)(B) suggest strongly that the Secretary — if not the “deemed widow” herself — nearly always learns of the legal impediment to the status of the “deemed widow” as a spouse only when the above statutory requirement is invoked — that is, when a competing “legal widow” applies successfully for a benefit and the Secretary subsequently makes a certification as to her status. In other words, it appears that in most “deemed widow” cases, until the “legal widow” has applied for a benefit, the “deemed widow” has absolutely no need to invoke the “deemed widow” provision, subparagraph (B), because, until such time, she can rely upon the “legal widow” provision, subparagraph (A). Thus, more often than not, sub-paragraph (B) is unused and without purpose unless and until a “legal widow” applies for and obtains a certification and a benefit.
At the moment of that certification, the “deemed widow” finds herself in a catch-22 paradox under the mechanical reading of the exclusionary clause. As soon as the “legal widow” comes forward and is certified as eligible for a benefit, she proves that the “deemed widow” must invoke § 416(h)(1)(B) if the “deemed widow” is ever to qualify for a benefit. Yet in every instance in which the “legal widow” does become certified, or ever has been certified, to receive a benefit based on her prior marriage to the insured of the “deemed widow” —even where she later becomes ineligible for the benefit, as by her own death — she “is or has been entitled to a benefit,” and the “deemed widow,” therefore, would be forever barred from invoking § 416(h)(1)(B) and claiming a benefit based on her marriage to the same insured. In short, pre*435cisely when nearly every “deemed widow” has reason to invoke § 416(h)(1)(B), that is, after the “legal widow” has come forward and has been certified, is the time when- the exclusionary clause would make her doing so futile — even in cases where double dipping is not an issue. Under a mechanical reading of the exclusionary clause, the statute would confer a benefit upon “deemed widows” only in the unusual case where no “legal widow” has ever been certified to receive a benefit and where the Secretary nonetheless learns of the impediment to the “deemed widow”; in the usual case where the Secretary learns of the impediment because the “legal widow” has applied for and has been certified to receive the benefit, § 416(h)(1)(B) would confer no benefit upon anyone, its apparent conferral of a benefit being utterly illusory.
This result cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted § 416(h)(1)(B), especially when examined with the usual interpretive standards by which the courts seek to implement the will of Congress. “It is a familiar maxim of statutory interpretation that courts should enforce a law so as to achieve its overriding purpose, even if the words of the act leave room for a contrary interpretation.” Rosenberg v. Richardson, 538 F.2d 487, 490 (2d Cir. 1976); Haberman v. Finch, 418 F.2d 664, 666 (2d Cir. 1969). “[I]t is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning.” Cabell v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir.) (L. Hand, J.), aff’d, 326 U.S. 404, 66 S.Ct. 193, 90 L.Ed. 165 (1945). Finally, because Congress intended the Social Security Act to be an adequate program of social insurance— one in which working people would pay “premiums” and would then be entitled to rely on the program to provide security for themselves and their dependents in their old age — the Act must be “liberally construed and applied.” Rosenberg v. Richardson, 538 F.2d at 490. On the basis of these standards and the manifest intent of Congress that § 416(h)(1)(B) have some substantial meaning in conferring a benefit upon “deemed widows,” I am compelled to conclude that Congress intended to deny the conferral of the benefit to “deemed widows” qualified in every respect apart from the exclusionary provision, only where the result of doing so would be to allow two or more persons to receive full simultaneous benefits on the basis of a purported marriage to the same insured.
That this construction of the statute more faithfully carries out the will of Congress than the mechanical construction is clear not only from the purpose of § 416(h)(1)(B) but from its express language as well. The language of that provision, quoted three paragraphs above, indicates that unless and until a “legal widow” comes forward and applies for a benefit, and is certified to receive it, the “deemed widow” may continue to receive the benefit. In view of this language, the Secretary concedes that appellant was entitled to receive payments as a “deemed widow” until the “legal widow” not only has appeared on the scene but also has made a lawful claim on the treasury. The Secretary concedes, therefore, that even if the “legal widow” existed, and the Secretary knew her to exist and knew her to be the “legal widow,” the Secretary would hold the “deemed widow” entitled to receive the benefit until the “legal widow” has made a successful claim on the treasury. The only adequate legal principle that is capable of explaining this language and the Secretary’s view relative to it is the policy against double dipping. There is no adequate principle on the basis of which I can distinguish “deemed widows” receiving a benefit until a qualified “legal widow” gets around to applying successfully for the benefit, from “deemed widows,” like appellant, receiving a benefit where the “legal widow” becomes disqualified to receive the benefit. Therefore, both groups of “deemed widows” should be treated alike: both should receive the benefit.
It is uncontestably revealed in the Secretary’s stated policy and practice that the Secretary has concluded, as I conclude, that *436the “has been entitled” language of § 416(h)(1)(B) cannot, consistent with congressional intent, be read mechanically but must be interpreted. In addition to her other interpretations of the statute, the Secretary construed the statute at oral argument to allow the “deemed widow” to receive the benefit as soon as the “legal widow” dies. Under this view, when the “legal widow” who had once been certified to receive the benefit and had thereby preempted all competitors dies, the “deemed widow” immediately becomes eligible to receive that very benefit. Unfortunately, the Secretary then draws a line, one that I find unjustifiable and unanalytic as a matter of statutory interpretation, that would not allow the “deemed widow” to apply for a benefit where the “legal widow” becomes ineligible for the benefit because of some impediment other than death, such as remarriage. In my view, there are only two principled interpretations of the exclusionary clause — the mechanical reading, which Congress surely did not intend, and the interpretation of this opinion. Any intermediate position is essentially arbitrary. Of course the Secretary might argue that the government’s construction is rationally based in that it avoids the administrative costs, in both labor and paper, that the government would incur if every time a gap in, rather than a permanent impairment to, the eligibility of the “legal widow” appeared, the “deemed widow” were permitted to apply and qualify for the benefit. The cost of shuffling a few papers, however, is far too insubstantial a consideration to override the clear intent of Congress in § 416(h)(1)(B) to enable “deemed widows” to receive Social Security benefits.
No one denies that appellant’s relationship to the deceased insured was typical of “deemed widows,” whom Congress intended § 416(h)(1)(B) to benefit. No one disputes that the “legal widow” in this case for a time received Social Security benefits as a subparagraph (A) widow and that she later became ineligible for the benefit but did not die. No one contends that this case violates the policy against double dipping into the federal treasury. And no limit to the fundamental purpose of Congress to benefit “deemed widows” other than the policy against double dipping is apparent from the statute or the record in this case, nor am I able to conceive of one. Under these circumstances, I can see no reason to deny appellant the Social Security benefit to which her marital arrangement with the insured working person should entitle her.
Admittedly, the noisiest trumpets of our day call us to reduce the burden on the federal fisc. But the notes that signal us to do so by shifting that burden onto the backs of deserving persons, like appellant, are less than clarion. As Judge Kaufman has pointed out:
Although preservation of the fisc is a laudable goal, public officials must pursue it with discretion, lest deserving individuals be deprived of payments Congress clearly intended them to have. This maxim applies with even greater force when the benefits are not government largesse, but instead have been purchased .. . for the claimant [by her spouse],
Rosenberg v. Richardson, 538 F.2d at 488. It is inconceivable to me that Congress intended for the government — which in this context is an insurer who has received “premiums” from the insured for the benefit of the insured’s spouse — to enrich itself by paying no benefits to the insured’s only eligible spouse. Accordingly, I would reverse the Secretary’s decision and would order that the Secretary carry out the policy of Congress.

. This statute applies both to widows and to widowers, making no distinctions on the basis of sex. But as usual, in terms of actual impact, women will bear the heavier burden of any restrictive construction of the benefit conferred by the statute.

. Section 416(h)(1)(B) defines “deemed widow or widower” as one who
in good faith went through a marriage ceremony . .. resulting in a purported marriage . . . which, but for a legal impediment not known to the applicant at the time of such ceremony, would have been a valid marriage, and such applicant and the insured individual were living in the same household at the time of the death of such insured individual....
The term “widow” as used throughout this opinion should be read generically to include “wife,” “husband,” and “widower,” as those terms are used in § 416(h)(1)(B).