Grabois v. Jones, 597

• Citation: 89 F.3d 97
• Decision Date: 15 July 1996
• Docket Number: No. 597,D,597
• Parties: 20 Employee Benefits Cas. 1505 Stuart GRABOIS, in his fiduciary capacity as Assistant Director; The New York City District Council of Carpenters Welfare Fund, Pension Fund, Vacation Fund, Annuity Fund, Apprenticeship, Journeyman, Retraining, Education and Industry Fund, and Supplemental Fund, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Kay JONES, Defendant-Appellant, Annie Marie Jones, Defendant. ocket 95-7278.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 97

89 F.3d 97

20 Employee Benefits Cas. 1505

Stuart GRABOIS, in his fiduciary capacity as Assistant

Director; The New York City District Council of Carpenters

Welfare Fund, Pension Fund, Vacation Fund, Annuity Fund, Apprenticeship, Journeyman, Retraining, Education and Industry Fund, and Supplemental Fund, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Kay JONES, Defendant-Appellant, Annie Marie Jones, Defendant.

No. 597, Docket 95-7278.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Dec. 20, 1995.

Decided July 15, 1996.

Kay Jones, New York City, pro se.

Tom J. Ferber, New York City, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Before: MESKILL, ALTIMARI and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

This case, which is a disagreement over who is entitled to certain pension benefits, comes to us on a record that provides little or no guidance as to what law forms the basis of the dispute. It is in federal court under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1461. And, major issues in dispute may well have to be resolved under federal law. But deciding which of the two claimants is entitled to benefits also requires at least some recourse to New York law. Because the record leaves unanswered--and unanswerable--questions about the language of the benefit plan in dispute and the applicability of certain sections of ERISA, we remand the case to the district court for a fuller development of the record.

Background

Kay and Junior Jones were married by a judge in New York on July 6, 1962. For 29 years, until Junior's death in July 1991, Kay raised five of his children, kept their home, and cared for Junior--covering his expenses and nursing him--through an illness that lasted for the final twelve years of his life.

Prior to Junior's illness, he had been employed as a carpenter. As a member of a carpenters' union, he had paid dues into a pension fund, with the expectation that the fund would eventually provide him with pension benefits, or, in the event of his death, would pay benefits to his designated beneficiary. Because the contract pursuant to which Junior arranged his pension was not entered into the record in the district court, we do not know who he in fact designated as his beneficiary.

In October 1991, Kay submitted a Death Benefits Application to the pension plan. The appellees, administrators of the pension fund, began paying benefits to Kay on the basis of her claim, and continued to do so until May 1992, when the fund administrator received a claim from Annie Marie Jones, stating that she was in fact Junior's legal widow. ¹

Annie Marie sent the fund administrators a copy of a Certificate of Marriage attesting that she and Junior had been married in Robersville, North Carolina on October 16, 1948. ² There is no indication that Annie Marie had been in any way involved with Junior at least from July 6, 1962, the date of Junior's marriage to Kay, until the date of Junior's death. Nevertheless, Annie Marie claimed, her marriage to Junior had never been dissolved.

A number of facts concerning Kay's knowledge about Annie Marie's whereabouts and relationship to Junior were disputed. Annie Marie asserted that Junior and Kay had at all times known where she was living. Annie Marie also claimed that Kay had knowledge of the continuing validity of Junior's first marriage. But Kay claimed that she did not know precisely where Annie Marie was living, and that she had not realized that Annie Marie and Junior were married. In any event, Kay stated that she believed her marriage was legally valid because it had been performed by an official of the state of New In 1994, the fund administrators filed an interpleader complaint in the district court, pursuant to 29 U.S.C. §§ 1132(a)(3)(B), (e)(1) and (f), seeking a declaration as to which of the two claimants was entitled to receive the benefits.

York. For purposes of considering the propriety of a summary judgment extinguishing Kay's claim to any of Junior's death benefits, we must take the facts in light most favorable to her, see LaFond v. General Physics Servs. Corp., 50 F.3d 165, 171 (2d Cir.1995), and so, at least at this stage of the litigation, we credit her statements as true.

The district court looked to New York law to determine who was the appropriate beneficiary of Junior's pension fund. New York Domestic Relations Law provides that a purported marriage is void if one of the parties was already legally married, see N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 6 (McKinney 1995). Accordingly, the district court found that Kay's marriage to Junior was void and concluded from that that she was not entitled to any of Junior's benefits. The court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, ordering the fund administrator to begin paying benefits to Annie Marie, and further ordering Kay to return those benefit payments she had already received. ³

Kay appealed to this Court, arguing that the existence of a previous, undissolved marriage between Junior and Annie Marie should not eliminate Kay's right to some portion of Junior's death benefits since Kay married Junior in a formal ceremony, believing in good faith that her marriage was legal, and her marriage continued until Junior's death.

After reviewing the parties' arguments--which implicated questions unsettled in either New York or federal law--we decided to certify to the New York Court of Appeals the following question: "whether a second spouse whose marriage is void due to the existence of a prior, undissolved marriage, is nonetheless entitled to some portion of her or his spouse's death benefits when the second marriage was the result of a formal ceremony, undertaken in good faith, and the second marriage continued until the spouse's death." 77 F.3d 574, 576 (2d Cir.1996).

On April 2, 1996, the New York Court of Appeals declined the certified question, placing particular emphasis on "the likely rarity of any recurrence of this issue." The Court further noted its reluctance to take the case given the pro se status of the claimants, which would ensure the court "only limited assistance from the parties in deciding this issue." Finally, the Court chose not to decide the question because, since it arises in an ERISA context, the question might "be more appropriate for resolution in the first instance by the Federal courts." Grabois v. Jones, 88 N.Y.2d 254, ----, 644 N.Y.S.2d 657, ----, 667 N.E.2d 307, ---- (N.Y.1996).

On further review, we have concluded that the record below did not provide a sufficient factual basis to warrant summary judgment. The district court, moreover, apparently did not consider New York law's strong presumption in favor of the validity of a second marriage. Accordingly, we remand the case to the district court for further development of the record and consideration of the relevant legal questions.

Discussion

Summary judgment is appropriate if, in light of the evidence presented, there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The moving party bears the burden of establishing the absence of any genuine issue. Adickes v. S.H. Kress The problem we confront in considering this case is that, on the record developed below, we are in no position to make any final determination, either as to the relevant legal standards or as to their application to the facts of this case. Thus, in granting summary judgment, the district court stated that "[t]here is no dispute about ... the fact that, upon [Junior Jones's] death in July 1991, his lawful widow was entitled to the benefits in question." But the contract pursuant to which the benefits were to be paid was never part of the record below, nor was a copy of that contract part of the record on appeal. Accordingly, we have no way of knowing whether the contract required payment of pension benefits exclusively to Junior Jones's legal widow, or to someone denominated, for example, more generally as "my wife".

                & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 157, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 1608, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970).   When we review a district court's grant of summary judgment, we apply these standards and conduct a de novo review
                

The parties--both Kay, appearing pro se, and the pension fund administrators--argued that this dispute could be resolved by application of New York law. There are two possibly relevant questions as to which New York law might provide an answer. With respect to the first--which of two claimants is the legally recognized widow of Junior Jones--New York law clearly applies and provides the framework for reaching a conclusion. As the district court recognized, N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 6 states unambiguously that a second marriage is invalid if either of the parties to that marriage is already married.

What the district court does not appear to have considered, however, is that it is also well established New York law that when a court is confronted with the claim that a formal second marriage is invalid because of the existence of a valid first marriage, a strong presumption of validity attaches to the second marriage. See, e.g., Seidel v. Crown Indus., 132 A.D.2d 729, 730, 517 N.Y.S.2d 310, 311 (3d Dep't 1987); Frassetti v. Frassetti, 57 A.D.2d 826, 826, 394 N.Y.S.2d 65, 65 (2d Dep't 1977); In re Estate of Bihanskyj, 55 A.D.2d 836, 837, 390 N.Y.S.2d 322, 323 (4th Dep't 1976). The presumption of the validity of the second marriage, moreover, grows stronger and stronger where a substantial injustice would be created by invalidating that marriage. See Dolan v. Celebrezze, 381 F.2d 231, 237-38 (2d Cir.1967) (Friendly, J.) (canvassing New York cases and noting that the presumption favoring the validity of the second marriage varies in its force with the attendant facts and circumstances). "[T]he decisions that have held the second marriage to be valid on the basis of the presumption are explicable in...