Court Opinion

ID: 9446295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:51:39.438474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:36.337457
License: Public Domain

KALODNER, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
A man isn’t “living with” his wife “at the time of his death” even though he dies while engaged in sexual intercourse with her.
That was the startling result reached in the instant case by the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in giving sanction to the Referee’s decision to that effect.
The District Court thought otherwise. I agree with the District Court.
Chief Judge Biggs has confined his consideration to the single issue as to whether Mrs. Boyd “was receiving regular contributions” from her deceased husband at the time of his death1 and on that score has determined that the District Court correctly held that the Referee erred in finding that she was not. I am in complete accord with that determination.
I am, however, apprehensive that the failure of this Court to specifically rule upon the issue presented by the Referee’s finding that Mrs. Boyd was not “living with her husband at the time of his death” because they “were not members of the same household at the time of his death”2 might be construed as acquiescence with that finding, despite the undisputed fact that Mr. Boyd’s death occurred while he was performing the marital act.
The Referee’s finding that the deceased wage earner was not “living with” Mrs. Boyd is, of course, an ultimate finding of fact, referred to in this type of case as “an inference drawn from the facts.”
It is true with respect to such an inference, that if it is supported by substantial evidence, it could not be rejected by the District Court.3
It is equally true that “ * * * courts must now assume more responsibility for the reasonableness and fairness” of decisions of federal agencies “than some courts have shown in the past” and “Reviewing courts must be influenced by a feeling that they are not to abdicate the conventional judicial function.” 4
*783As earlier stated, the Referee’s decision that Mrs. Boyd was not “living with” Mr. Boyd at the time of his death was based in part on his finding that they were not then “members of the same household.”
Putting it mildly, the Referee’s decision is something less than a model. For example, he never even mentioned the undisputed circumstance that Mr. Boyd’s death occurred while he was engaged in the act of sexual intercourse with Mrs. Boyd.
As to Mr. Boyd’s death all that the Referee said was “He died on the evening of December 10, 1954, while visiting the claimant.”
Here is what the record disclosed:
“Q. Had you and your husband had sexual intercourse on this evening? A. Yes, that’s how he died. Mrs. Bloom next door, her and I helped to put his underwear on half ways, we could just put it on half ways, and covered him up with the blanket. She asked me to get the alcohol and she rubbed his forehead and lips and he opened his eyes and mouth twice.”
In corroboration, Mrs. Bloom, in a statement which is part of the record, said:
“Then on the evening of death Mrs. Ann Boyd pounded on the wall for me to hurry and come over. Then I came over to Mr. Boyd and put cold water on his head and called his name he opened his eyes and mouth twice. Then I called the police ambulance at once they all out on call he was dead about an hour * * * I helped Mrs. Boyd put on Mr. Boyds underware one piece which we could only get on over hips.” *
The District Court was, of course, fully justified in taking into consideration the Referee’s failure to give weight to circumstances which prevailed at the very moment of Mr. Boyd’s death in assessing whether the Referee’s finding that the “living with” requirement had not been met was based on substantial evidence.
The Referee’s decision reveals that he construed the term “same household” as used in Section 216(h) (2) of the Social Security Act, to mean under a “single roof”.
In my opinion he erred in that respect.
As the District Court so well stated:
“The involvements and complexities which underly the marriage relationship do not lend themselves to rigid and dogmatic interpretation. To limit the evaluation of whether husband and wife were living together in one household to sole consideration of living under one roof is, in my judgment, unduly restricting and giving shallow effect to the meaning and significance of the sanctity of the marriage vows. The realities and pressures which are an inevitable consequence of children brought into the household born of previous marriages gives rise to subtle human conflicts and personality clashes which require the best and most able resources and ingenuity of the spouses to compromise and sublimate. I can recognize the circumstances of the claimant and decedent’s dual loyalties to their children and marriage, and of their zealous efforts to reconcile and preserve them both.” 149 F.Supp. at page 927.
The undisputed evidence discloses that Mrs. Boyd moved into her own quarters in August, 1952, because of friction, which took on the aspects of violence, between her and her adult stepsons. Shortly before her moving she caused one of them to be arrested on the charge that he had threatened to kill her. He was fined by the local alderman and released. During the hearing before the Referee this stepson, Charles W. Boyd, *784Jr., testified “I cannot remember” when asked as to whether he had threatened to kill Mrs. Boyd.
Between the time of her moving in August, 1952, until Mr. Boyd’s death in December, 1954, they lived together as man and wife. The birth of their twin children on April 22, 1954, and the posthumous child on May 30, 1955, is eloquent testimony that the Boyds were not separated, although they maintained separate quarters, and that they continued unbroken the chain of marital relationship.
Mrs. Boyd testified, and her testimony was not refuted, with respect to her relationship between August, 1952, and the date of Mr. Boyd’s death, as follows:
“Q. Now he visited you, I understand, often after you left in August, 1952 ? A. We were seeing each other- every day. He was either at our house or I was down at his house, and I’d go Friday after school and stay over the weekend, and if I didn’t want to go down he’d come to our place.
“Q. Did you go to Brixner Alley and stay overnight? A. Yes, and sometimes in the middle of the week.
* * # * * *
“Q. Well, you and your husband didn’t live together in the same house on a permanent basis, is that correct ? A. He went to work from our place, and he went back and forth until I had the babies and I couldn’t go back and forth.
“Q. I didn’t understand that. A. He was either at our house or we were down at his house every day.
“Q. Where were his clothes ? A. Both places. He used to bring his pajamas at our house and his clothes back and forth. He’d go to work from our place.
“Q. Why didn’t you move into Brixner Alley? A. He said the boys didn’t want me.
“Q. Why didn’t you ask him to come and live with you where you were living? A. He said he couldn’t work any more and he was sick half the time. He said what could he do, there wasn’t much he could do.
* * * ->:• *
“Q. What did he say? A. He said he couldn’t leave his family, that’s how he put it. He married me but he had a family and wouldn’t leave.”
It is pertinent to note that in the state where the Boyds resided, Pennsylvania, the courts have construed the term “living with”, as used in the Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act,5 as not requiring living under the same roof.
Thus in Sheaffer v. Penn Dairies, Inc., 1948, 161 Pa.Super. 583, at page 585, 56 A.2d 368, 369, it was held:
“ ‘Living with’ does not always import physically dwelling together in the same house * * * Whether parties are ‘living with’ each other is a question of fact, but it is to be determined, not by consulting only one facet of the relationship, but by inspecting the whole picture. And where it is found that for the convenience of the parties, or for some other moving and reasonable motive they dwell in separate homes without estrangement or repudiation or release of their legal obligations, and with constant recognition of the marital tie, it is no strain upon logic or credulity to find that they were ‘living with’ each other * -» * jpor jn ^is class of cases, we look beyond the form to the substance, from outward appearances to the realities behind them.”
*785In Healey v. Folsom, D.C.S.D.N.Y. 1955, 139 F.Supp. 285, which the Referee cited as “analogous” to the instant case, the claimant and wage earner were married in 1941 but separated in 1947 because he was an alcoholic. Between the time of separation and the wage earner’s death in 1951, he made sporadic visits to the claimant’s home and had marital relations with her and would then disappear. Three children were born during the period of separation. The Referee based his finding that claimant was not “living with” the wage earner at the time of his death on these undisputed facts: in her application for her own benefits she stated that she was not living with her husband when he died; in her application for “child’s insurance benefits” she also stated “* * * my husband did not contribute regularly and substantially to my support. Wo were separated at the time of his death”; and finally, her own attorney had stated in a letter to the Social Security Administration that the claimant and her husband “were not living together at the time of Mr. Healey’s demise, due to unhappy differences which had arisen between the parties.”
What has been said disposes of the Referee’s ultimate finding of fact that Mrs. Boyd was not “living with” Boyd “at the time of his death.” It need only be said with respect to that finding that not only was it unsupported by substantial evidence but it was also in patent disregard of the “facts of life”.
With respect to the Referee’s finding that Mrs. Boyd “at the time the wage earner died * * * was not receiving regular contributions from him toward her support” this might well be added to what was said by Chief Judge Biggs:
It is true that from the time Mr. Boyd was compelled to stop working because of ill health (September, 1953) until his death (December 10, 1954), he contributed only small sums to Mrs. Boyd’s support — $8.00 monthly for hospitalization and medical insurance and $5.00 to $10.00 at various times. But these contributions must be assessed against the circumstance that here was a sick man receiving pension payments of $126.00 a month out of which he had to maintain a home for himself and his children and Mrs. Boyd was at the time receiving $146.73 monthly from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Assistance. She was eligible for such assistance payments; he was not eligible because of his pension payments. The “facts of life” of this day and age are that this type of family situation is far from uncommon — that public assistance is granted where because of illness the head of a household cannot “support” those who are dependent upon him.
The Referee made much of the public assistance extended to Mrs. Boyd, stating “ * * * it is apparent that he [Mr. Boyd] was quite willing to have public assistance furnish the complete support for the claimant and the children. His attitude along these lines is indicated from what took place on April 16, 1952, eleven days after he married the claimant. At this time his wages were averaging some $240.00 a month and he applied for public assistance for his wife, her children and his daughter, Nancy.”
It must be said that the citation of the April 16, 1952 public assistance application is totally unjustified and evidences quite clearly an inexplicable attitude of antagonism which should have no place in the performance of an administrative function.
The plain fact of the matter which the Referee failed to mention in his Decision is, that on April 16, 1952, as the record discloses, there was a strike at Mr. Boyd’s place of employment and the assistance application was designed to, and did, cover only the strike period. Only a “one-time” grant of assistance was made at the time.
Of the same piece is the Referee’s finding that Mr. Boyd only made eleven payments of $30.00 each to Mrs. Boyd from November 30, 1952, through July, 1953 — a total of $330.00 over a seven-month period. What the Referee did not mention, let alone find as a fact, was *786that during this period Mr. Boyd was unable to work because of illness for almost three months. The record shows that when working, during this period, he paid Mrs. Boyd $30.00 twice a month; a substantial proportion of his wages.
The Referee was certainly on notice of the frequent interruptions in Mr. Boyd’s employment, as the following excerpt from the testimony of Frank Boyd, a son of the deceased, establishes (p. 81 N.T.):6
“Referee: Well, his wage record shows — I don’t have the breakdown of the wage reportings by quarters - — but it shows he earned $3600 in 1951 [the Boyds were married in April, 1952] that was the maximum creditable under social security. In 1952, $2900. So he must have been out of work for some time in ’52.
“Mr. Frank Boyd: Most of the time in ’52 and ’53 he didn’t work very good. It must have been ’53 when he retired.”
This only remains to be said. Contribution to support is a flexible element and must be evaluated in the light of the contributor’s “ability to pay”. The record reveals that Mr. Boyd supported Mrs. Boyd although circumstances beyond his control diminished the quantum of the support but not its existence.

. Sec. 216 (h) (2) of the Act.

. Ibid.

. “The reviewing authority of the District Court is not unlimited, for it may not substitute its inferences for those of the referee which are supported by substantial evidence.” Ferenz v. Folsom, 3 Cir., 1956, 237 F.2d 46, 49, certiorari denied 1957, 352 U.S. 1006, 77 S.Ct. 569, 1 L.Ed.2d 551.

. Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1951, 340 U.S. 474, 490, 71 S.Ct. 456, 466, 95 L.Ed. 456; Goldman v. Folsom, 3 Cir., 1957, 246 F.2d 776, 778.

 The spelling, and punctuation, or lack of it, are Mrs. Bloom’s.

. Section 307 of the Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act, 77 P.S. § 562, provides as follows:
“No compensation shall be payable under this section to a widow, unless she was living with her deceased husband at the time of his death, or was then actually dependent upon him and receiving from him a substantial portion of her support.”

. Frank Boyd was called as a witness by tlie Referee. He could scarcely be called a “friendly witness” as far as Mrs. Boyd was concerned.