Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Bessie Thompson v. Edward Thompson, A Minor, by Helen Mae Thompson, 368 F.2d 791, 3rd Cir. (1966)
Uploaded by
Scribd Government DocsMetropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Bessie Thompson v. Edward Thompson, A Minor, by Helen Mae Thompson, 368 F.2d 791, 3rd Cir. (1966)
Uploaded by
Scribd Government Docs368 F.
2d 791
METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY,
v.
Bessie THOMPSON, Appellee,
v.
Edward THOMPSON, a Minor, by Helen Mae Thompson,
Appellant.
No. 15844.
United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.
Argued September 29, 1966.
Decided November 23, 1966.
Raymond L. Shapiro, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.
Jerome L. Markovitz, Philadelphia, Pa. (Jerry Zaslow, Harry A. Cantor,
Markovitz, Brooks & Cantor, Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.
Before HASTIE, SMITH and SEITZ, Circuit Judges.
OPINION OF THE COURT
SEITZ, Circuit Judge.
This case presents the single question of the proper statutory construction of the
word "child" in the section of the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act
which provides for payment of death proceeds.
The decedent Cornelius R. Thompson was a federal employee covered by a life
insurance policy which the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company issued to the
United States Civil Service Commission pursuant to the Federal Employees'
Group Life Insurance Act, 5 U.S.C.A. 2091 et seq. Admitting its liability, the
insurance company interpleaded the two conflicting claimants Bessie
Thompson, the decedent's mother, and Edward Thompson, who the parties
agree was decedent's natural son. Because the decedent was never lawfully
married under the laws of New York, the state where he lived with Edward's
mother as husband and wife, it is conceded here as in the court below that
Edward is illegitimate under that state's laws.
3
Under 5 U.S.C.A. 20931 children of a federal employee who like decedent
here dies without having designated a beneficiary and without having left a
surviving spouse take ahead of the employee's parents. The District Court,
however, awarded the proceeds to decedent's mother, holding that his
illegitimate son was not a "child" under the Act. The Court reached this
conclusion by reasoning that local law is controlling and that New York law
denies to illegitimates the status of children. From this adverse ruling decedent's
minor son Edward takes this appeal by his mother and natural guardian, arguing
that in federal legislation the word "child" presumptively includes an
illegitimate child, that local law is not determinative of federal rights which
should be uniformly interpreted, and that existing case law does not preclude
his recovery.
Viewing this matter first without resort to case law, we note the general rule of
construction that, absent some other statutory reference, the meaning of terms
in a federal statute is a federal question. In the Federal Employees' Group Life
Insurance Act Congress has denominated categories of takers in a descending
order of preference. One such category is that of "child" or "children".
According to ordinary usage a child is still a child even though his natural
father may have failed to meet the requisite standards of a lawful marriage in a
particular state. Further, in this legislation Congress had indicated no intent to
differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate children. Cf. United States v.
Philippine National Bank, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 250, 292 F.2d 743 (1961).
Finally, by 1954 when the Employees' Insurance Act was passed the unfairness
to the child of distinctions based on his parents' behavior had long been
recognized.
If the meaning of the term "child" in the Act were considered to be a question
of local law it would become necessary to determine what part of the law of the
particular jurisdiction should be deemed determinative of rights under the
federal statute. In addition, variations among jurisdictions as to the definition
and status of illegitimate children would destroy federal uniformity and give
rise in each case to the preliminary issue of which jurisdiction's law to choose.
These difficulties are all avoided by construing the denominated categories of
the Act uniformly in accordance with their ordinary meanings. Of course, there
being no federal law of domestic relations, whether a particular claimant falls
within the federally-defined classification must often be resolved by reference
to state law. Here it is clear that Edward is the insured's child.
The limited legislative history of the Act also supports the conclusion, reached
apart from a consideration of case law interpretation, that a child is not to be
deprived of the proceeds of his father's insurance solely because of illegitimacy
under local law. In the President's message to Congress on May 19, 1954 it was
stressed that one of the two main purposes of the insurance bill was to cause
federal employees to be "better enabled by this low-cost life-insurance
protection to carry out their responsibilities to their families." 1954 U.S. Code
Cong. and Admin. News, p. 3056. That the purpose of the bill was geared
toward assuring support for dependents rather than passing on accumulated
wealth to relatives according to local laws of inheritance is also seen from the
fact that the insurance is term, not ordinary life, insurance, a fact which House
Report No. 2579 indicated should be made clear to federal employees. 1954
U.S. Code Cong. and Admin. News, p. 3053.
The question becomes, then, whether the existing case law necessitates a
different conclusion from the one independently reached that an illegitimate
child is a "child" as that term is used in the Act. This Court has considered the
related but distinct problem of whether an employee's child who has been
adopted into another family with the insured's consent is still eligible to collect
the proceeds of his natural father's insurance. The conclusion reached was that
the child could not recover, for the New Jersey adoption statute
"* * * quite obviously proposes to create so far as possible a place for the
adopted child in the new family. And we think it equally clear that it is
designed, so far as possible, to cut off the previous legal relationships of the
adopted child with its natural parents who gave their consent to its adoption by
others." La Bove v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 264 F.2d 233, 235 (3rd Cir.
1959).
Thus, a child adopted by another under state law can truly be said no longer to
qualify as a "child" of his natural parent within the meaning of the federal
category. In contrast, the minor child in the case presently under consideration
was not cut off from being the child of his natural father by any affirmative act
of the state. Cf. Foster v. Cheek, 212 Ga. 821, 96 S.E.2d 545 (1957) where a
state court held that an adopted child could collect under the insurance policy
of the adopting parent.
10
In certain other cases the courts have not had to reach the question of the rights
of illegitimates under the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act, for
under the particular local law assumed to be applicable the children were held
to be legitimate. Grove v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 271 F.2d 918 (4th Cir.
1959); Varker v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 184 F.Supp. 159 (D.C. N.C.1960).
The only other case involving this Act is Brantley v. Skeens, 105 U.S.App.D.C.
246, 266 F.2d 447 (1959). There the court looked to the inheritance law of the
jurisdiction where the claim arose, the District of Columbia. Under that law an
illegitimate child could share equally with legitimate children in the natural
mother's estate, and therefore the illegitimate child could share in the proceeds
of the federal insurance which the mother possessed at her death. In looking to
local law the court followed the procedure outlined in DeSylva v. Ballentine,
351 U.S. 570, 76 S.Ct. 974, 100 L.Ed. 1415 (1956). If we are required likewise
to look to local law, it is clear that the illegitimate minor Edward cannot
recover the proceeds of his father's insurance since under New York law a
bastard is nulius filius for purposes of inheritance from his father's estate.
11
Although the Supreme Court of the United States has not ruled on the meaning
of "child" in the present Act, we now specifically consider DeSylva v.
Ballentine, supra, because appellee relies heavily thereon. That case involved
the question of the correct interpretation of "children" under 24 of the
Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.A. This Act provides for a second 28-year copyright
after the expiration of the original 28-year term, and 24 provides that a
deceased author's children, among others, may renew the copyright. The Court
held that an illegitimate child could share in the renewal rights because under
California inheritance law, which was there deemed the relevant source of
rights under the Copyright Act, an illegitimate is included within the term
"children". Whether the same reasoning would be employed today to exclude a
New York author's illegitimate child from copyright renewal rights does not
require our speculation. For however appropriate it may be to follow state laws
of inheritance where the problem is essentially one of passing accumulated
wealth to succeeding generations, we think it reasonable to infer here that
Congress intended the distribution of proceeds of term insurance to provide a
substitute source of income for that lost by the insured's death. Therefore, the
DeSylva case which involved a different Act with different purposes does not
control the resolution of the present problem of statutory construction.
12
It is true that the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act grants insureds
the usual privilege of designating any beneficiaries they please. While a wholly
undeserving individual of course is sometimes selected, such a provision more
often allows the insured to designate as the recipient of his insurance proceeds a
particularly dependent person, who might not otherwise take under the statute.
In the absence of designation by the insured, it may be assumed that the insured
desires the proceeds to go in the order established by statute which is called to
his attention. Or, if the insured is considered not to have thought about the
matter, the order of priority which the statute sets up seems based on a general
calculation of priority of need.
13
Many other cases involving the interpretation of the word "child" in other
federal statutes have been called to our attention and have been considered by
us. However, while the reasoning in many of these cases supports the result
reached here, it has particular application to the statutes there involved with
their varied language, legislative history and general purposes. We have found
no case construing an analogous statute which reaches an inconsistent
conclusion.
14
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court will be reversed and the
proceeds of Cornelius R. Thompson's federal insurance is ordered paid to his
son Edward.
Notes:
1
Section 2093 reads as follows:
"Any amount of group life insurance and group accidental death insurance in
force on any employee at the date of his death shall be paid, upon the
establishment of a valid claim therefor, to the person or persons surviving at the
date of his death, in the following order of precedence:
"First, to the beneficiary or beneficiaries as the employee may have designated
by a writing received in the employing office prior to death;
"Second, if there be no such beneficiary to the widow or widower of such
employee;
"Third, if none of the above, to the child or children of such employee and
descendants of deceased children by representation;
"Fourth, if none of the above, to the parents of such employee or the survivor of
them;
"Fifth, if none of the above, to the duly appointed executor or administrator of
the estate of such employee;
"Sixth, if none of the above, to other next of kin of such employee entitled
under the laws of domicile of such employee at the time of his death."
