Court Opinion

ID: 9445322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:24:56.972972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:12.299573
License: Public Domain

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
The majority opinion reverses the judgment of the district court because “The referee, who heard the testimony and found the facts, concluded that Mrs. Ferenz was not ‘living with’ her husband at the time of his death within the meaning of that term used in the Act.”
The referee’s decision was based on his conclusion, as emphasized in the court opinion, that “The condition under which the claimant and wage earner might have become members of the same household was never met.” The referee never, said that even if the condition insisted on by the wife had been met, the “living with” requirements of the Act would not have been fulfilled. The referee did say that an expression by the wage earner of an intent to resume living together with his wife would not have been enough under the circumstances. But there was far more than that before him. Actually there was a complete agreement of reconciliation between the husband and wife with cohabitation awaiting only the -release of Ferenz from the- hospital.
The sequence of events was that the Ferenz couple had-been married-twenty-one years when the husband took up with a woman called Smith, who was really a Mrs. Oates and married. Mr. and Mrs.' Ferenz had always lived in Duquesne; Pennsylvania. After the separation Mrs. Ferenz went to work in Pittsburgh. She came back to Duquesne in 1948. From that time until June, 1951, about two weeks prior to Ferenz entering the hospital, he visited his wife once every week or once every two weeks in an effort to persuade her to return to him. She was willing but insisted he give up Mrs. Smith. During his first day in the hospital he told his .-daughter he regretted the type of life he had been leading and evinced a strong desire to rejoin his wife. Advised of this by her daughter the mother agreed to take him back if he would give up the other woman. So far the referee’s statement of facts, as incorporated into the court opinion, is in accord. What the referee never mentioned and which is not alluded to by the majority, is that, by the uncontradicted evidence, Ferenz accepted his wife’s condition. This is indicated in the district court opinion as follows: “The .record also discloses that, when the wage earner asked his daughter if the claimant would resume living with him, he knew the attitude of the claimant and knew the condition under which she would return. The daughter inquired of her, was told she would on condition that the wage earner cease his meretricious relationship with the other woman, and conveyed the message to her father. The father expressed satisfaction, replying ‘That’s good’, and both mother and daughter testified that it was their understanding that the claimant and the wage earner were going to resume living together.” [138 F.Supp. 448.]
The little other affirmative evidence points unmistakably to a full meeting of minds between the parties. Mrs. Ferenz had accepted her husband’s proposal conditionally and he had consented to her terms. So the condition had been met. There was. reconciliation in fact. There was nothing more to be done pending the discharge of Ferenz from the hospital. Mrs. Ferenz did not visit her husband at the hospital because Mrs. Smith was around and Mrs. Ferenz sought to avoid *51a distressing spectacle in front of her sick husband.1
The above evidence, the most significant in the case, cannot be ignored if this appeal is to be decided on the proposition that the administrative “ * * * judgment was based upon conclusions reasonably reached upon due consideration of all relevant issues presented after parties in interest had been given a fair hearing or a fair opportunity to be heard upon the facts and the applicable law.” (Emphasis supplied.) Walker v. Altmeyer, 2 Cir., 1943, 137 F.2d 531, 533-534; Gray v. Powell, 1941, 314 U.S. 402, 411, 62 S.Ct. 326, 86 L.Ed. 301. Even if the grievously sick man’s informal approval of his wife’s conditioned acceptance of his proposal could reasonably be questioned because it is not a legally phrased formal acceptance of the condition, at least it must be considered by the referee. This court should not countenance a final disposal of the widow’s rights under the remedial statute involved when her primary contention, evidentially supported, that there was a complete agreement between herself and her husband which brings her within the “living together” provisions of the Act, has never been passed on. That it does, can be argued later at length. Here and now the important thing is to give the claimant a fair trial on her claim.

. The negative circumstances that Ferenz did not notify Mrs. Smith of his decision and that she continued to visit him until he died, are relied on heavily by the majority (following the referee’s decision) for holding that there was a continuation of that relationship and therefore never reaching the question of whether there was a firm reconcilation which satisfied the “living with” requirement of the Act. It might be well to have in mind that “such a finding is but a legal inference from other facts”. In Matter of Pioch, 3 Cir., 235 F.2d 903, 905, and that such inference “ ‘should reasonably be derived from the basic facts.’ ” Curtis Company v. Commissioner, 3 Cir., 1956, 232 F.2d 167, 168.
Of course Ferenz did not tell Mrs. Smith lie had reconciled with his wife. He had finally made a decision which he had avoided for nine years. As a result he had gotten himself straightened out. However, he was no stalwart. Weak morally, desperately ill physically, it is against ordinary experience for him to have faced up to that awful scene with Mrs. Smith at that time. Perhaps quietly going home as soon as he was able was as good a solution as any for both him and Mrs. Smith. Maybe he had no solution, but one thing sure, as his daughter said, he had some fear of Mrs. Smith and dreaded a row there in his hospital room. It is not denied that he told his daughter, as she testified, “Whatever you do Sis, don’t have any run ins with this woman. * * * Don’t stand around because she might come in any minute now.”