Court Opinion

ID: 9475396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:26:04.902869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:41.624268
License: Public Domain

NIES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would uphold the Secretary’s interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(1)(B) which is reasonable in light of the language, policies, and legislative history of the statute. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). As stated therein:
When a court reviews an agency’s construction of the statute which it administers, it is confronted with two questions. First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administrative interpretation. Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.
Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82 (footnotes omitted).
A court need not conclude that the agency’s interpretation is the only one which permissibly could have been adopted, or that it is the preferable reading. Federal Election Commission v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 454 U.S. 27, 39, 102 S.Ct. 38, 46, 70 L.Ed.2d 23 (1981); Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U.S. 443, 450, 98 S.Ct. 2441, 2445, 57 L.Ed.2d 337 (1978). We are limited to determining whether the agency’s interpretation is reasonable. Where the agency’s interpretation is long-standing, as here, even greater deference is due it. See Young v. Community Nutrition Institute, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 2360, 90 L.Ed.2d 959 (1986). In view of these considerations, the Secretary’s interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(1)(B) must be upheld, as it has been in other circuits. Martin v. Harris, 653 F.2d 428 (10th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1165, 102 S.Ct. 1039, 71 L.Ed.2d 321 (1982); Dwyer v. Califano, 636 F.2d 908 (3rd Cir.1980); Davis v. Califano, 603 F.2d 618 (7th Cir.1979).
I do not agree with the majority that the alternative “holding” in Woodson v. Schweiker, 656 F.2d 1169 (5th Cir.1981), controls. Only by posing a hypothetical case did the Woodson court have an opportunity to make the alternative “holding.” It reached out to decide a case not before it and, in doing so, opined that the Congres-sionally-imposed limitation on entitlement had to be nullified to make the statute rational. Since the decision in Woodson can rest on the first ground which comports with the statute, I conclude that the second ground need not be considered binding precedent.1
The majority points to no explicit legislative history leading to its conclusion. It divines legislative intent from the statute itself. Congress, per the majority, could not have intended the illogical result that sequential payments are permitted only if the deemed widow is the first to receive benefits.
In my view the majority confuses a deemed widow’s right to retain payments rightfully received until a legal widow *1279makes a claim, as provided in 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(1)(B), with whether a claimant meets the basic conditions for rightfully receiving such payments as a deemed widow. Only if there have been no payments to the legal widow may the Secretary rightfully make payments upon application of another. It is not enough to meet the personal conditions of a deemed widow to establish one’s entitlement.
The express provisions of the statute are not, to me, illogical and unintended, but carefully crafted. If the legal widow has received payments, there can, by definition, be no deemed widow. Thus, Congress expressly denied the sequence of payments to a legal widow and then to what the majority wrongfully denominates a “deemed” widow. A deemed widow can exist only if no payment has been made to a legal widow. The trial court accepted that view of the agency, and I see no basis for reversal.
In reaching the conclusion that affirmance is required, I have also considered the equities in this case. The claimant here is eligible for benefits on the record of former husbands, Paul Colson and Louis Jenkins. Thus, this case has none of the equities facing the court in Rosenberg v. Richardson, 538 F.2d 487 (2nd Cir.1976), which led that court to apportion benefits between two claimants.
One point that did trouble me is the following statement in Judge McKay’s dissent in Martin v. Harris, 653 F.2d at 436:
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. (Emphasis added.)
I agree with Judge McKay that it would be unjustifiable to ignore a benefit received by a legal widow in one instance and not the other. However, that point was not raised by the claimant here who is represented by able counsel and is not discussed in any of the other opinions dealing with deemed widows’ rights. Nor does it appear in the regulations. I can only conclude it was a misstatement at oral argument by counsel in Martin or possibly was misinterpreted.

. Moreover, even as an “alternative" holding, Woodson is limited by the fact that the valid widow in Woodson had remarried. That fact distinguishes that case, if necessary, from the present one. The valid widow here has not remarried. Thus, resolution of the present case on the basis of the “alternative" holding of Woodson represents an extension of that holding, not merely its application.