Heikes v. Fleming

• Decision Date: 23 December 1958
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. P-2094.
• Citation: 168 F. Supp. 675
• Parties: Shirley L. HEIKES, Next Friend of Michael K. Hodges, a minor, Plaintiff, v. Arthur S. FLEMING, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois

168 F. Supp. 675

Shirley L. HEIKES, Next Friend of Michael K. Hodges, a minor, Plaintiff, v. Arthur S. FLEMING, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. P-2094.

United States District Court S. D. Illinois, N. D.

December 23, 1958.

Leonard C. Berry, Macomb, Ill., for plaintiff.

Harlington Wood, Jr., U. S. Atty., Springfield, Ill., for defendant.

MERCER, Chief Judge.

This is an action to review a decision of the Appeals Council of the Social Security Administration disallowing plaintiff's claim for child benefits under the provisions of Section 202(d) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 402 (d).

Plaintiff, Shirley L. Heikes, married Edwin Hodges, the deceased wage earner, on March 12, 1952. A son, Michael K. Hodges, was born of this union on January 15, 1953. In the meantime, plaintiff and Hodges were separated and the child never lived with his father. The plaintiff obtained a divorce from Hodges on February 8, 1955 and, thereafter, on April 2, 1955, was married to George Heikes. Hodges died on October 17, 1955. On January 13, 1956, plaintiff, on behalf of Michael, filed an application under Section 202(d) of the Act for child's insurance benefits.

Section 202(d) (3) of the Act provides in pertinent part, that a child who has not attained the age of eighteen is deemed dependent upon his natural father, and, therefore, entitled to insurance benefits upon the death of the natural father, (Section 202(d) (1) (C), unless at such time the father was not living with or contributing to the support of the child, and such child was living with and was receiving more than one-half of his support from his stepfather. Other exclusionary conditions of that subsection have no application to this case.

On April 30, 1956, the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance of the Social Security Administration denied plaintiff's application for child's benefits on the ground that the child, Michael, was, at the time of the death of Hodges, the natural father, living with and receiving more than one-half of his support from his stepfather, Heikes. Thereafter, upon plaintiff's request, a hearing was had before a Referee, who, on October 23, 1957, reversed the Bureau's determination and allowed plaintiff's claim. The Appeals Council on its own motion then reviewed the Referee's decision and on January 21, 1958 reversed the decision and disallowed the claim. This proceeding followed.

Plaintiff prays a summary judgment reversing that decision of the Appeals Council and reinstating the decision of the Referee. The cause is an appropriate one for summary decision, there being no questions of fact before the court for decision. Rule 56, F.R.Civ.P., 28 U.S.C.A.

The Social Security Act provides that upon judicial review of administrative agency decisions, the findings of the agency are conclusive if supported by substantial evidence. 42 U.S.C.A. § 405 (g). That conclusive restriction upon the courts extends as well to the inferences drawn by the agency if they have a substantial basis upon the record evidence. Rosewall v. Folsom, 7 Cir., 239 F.2d 724.

Unfortunately, that guiding principle of judicial review of administrative decisions is much more easily stated than applied. "Support by substantial evidence" is not a term of art admitting of precise definition. As the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit so aptly said in Osceola County Co-Op Creamery Ass'n v. N. L. R. B., 251 F.2d 62, 64, "no definite formula for judicial review" of administrative decisions can be devised and "much must be left to the sound judicial discretion of the reviewing court." In the sense here used however, "sound discretion" must be read in the light of existing judicial pronouncements which point the way to a happy balance between the seemingly irreconcilable concepts of finality of administrative decision and the exercise of judicial discretion on review thereof.

Any review of judicial decisions pertinent to this question must begin with the decision in Universal Camera Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456, the first definitive ruling as to the permissible scope of judicial review under the "substantial evidence" principle. In that case, a trial examiner assigned to hear a petition for reinstatement of certain discharged employees recommended that the petition be dismissed. The Board overruled the examiner and ordered reinstatement. On review the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that substantial evidence supported the Board's order and that the court, under the substantial evidence principle could attach no significance to the Board's rejection of the findings of its trial examiner. National Labor Relations Board v. Universal Camera Corp., 179 F.2d 749. The decision of the Court of Appeals was reversed and the cause remanded, the Court holding that the findings of the examiner were relevant to a determination whether the administrative order was supported by substantial evidence. In pertinent part, the Court said, 340 U.S. at pages 496-497, 71 S.Ct. at page 169:

"We do not require that the examiner's findings be given more weight than in reason and in the light of judicial experience they deserve. The `substantial evidence' standard is not modified in any way when the Board and its examiner disagree. We intend only to recognize that evidence supporting a conclusion may be less substantial when an impartial, experienced examiner who has observed the witnesses and lived with the case has drawn conclusions different from the Board's than when he has reached the same conclusion. The findings of the examiner are to be considered along with the consistency and inherent probability of testimony. The significance of his report, of course, depends largely on the importance of credibility in the particular case. To give it this significance does not seem to us materially more difficult than to heed the other factors which in sum determine whether evidence is `substantial.'

"The direction in which the law moves is often a guide for decision of particular cases, and here it serves to confirm our conclusion. However halting its progress, the trend in litigation is toward a rational inquiry into truth, in which the tribunal considers everything `logically probative of some matter requiring to be proved.' * * * It would reverse this process for courts to deny examiners' findings the probative force they would have in the conduct of affairs outside a courtroom.

"We therefore remand the cause to the Court of Appeals. On reconsideration of the record it should accord the findings of the trial examiner the relevance that they reasonably command in answering the comprehensive question whether the evidence supporting the Board's order is substantial."

While a court, within the scope of the principle announced in the Universal case, may not circumscribe the power of an administrative agency to reverse the findings of its referee or examiner within the narrow confines of the "clearly erroneous" concept established by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, F.C.C. v. Allentown Broadcasting Co., 349 U.S. 358, 75 S.Ct. 855, 99 L.Ed. 1147, it is the duty of a court in reviewing an administrative...