Madewell v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 February 1949
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1061.
• Citation: 84 F. Supp. 329
• Parties: MADEWELL v. UNITED STATES et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

84 F. Supp. 329

MADEWELL v. UNITED STATES et al.

Civ. A. No. 1061.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, N. D.

February 1, 1949.

Jennings, O'Neil & Jarvis, Knoxville, Tennessee, Elmer L. Eblen, Kingston, Tennessee, for plaintiff.

J. B. Frazier, Jr., United States Attorney, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ferdinand Powell, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Knoxville, Tennessee, and O. T. Ault, successor to J. B. Frazier, Jr., Chattanooga, Tennessee, for defendant United States of America.

Langford & McKay, Cookeville, Tennessee, for defendant Maude Madewell.

TAYLOR, Chief Judge.

Suit was commenced by plaintiff, Mary Jean Madewell, to recover benefits under a National Service Life Insurance certificate issued to Orville O. Madewell, in which plaintiff is designated as the wife of the insured and named as his beneficiary. The Veterans Administration has disallowed her claim for benefits on the ground that she is not the legal widow of the insured. There is no material controversy here as to the relevant facts. Copies of certain California court records were admitted in evidence subject to plaintiff's objections as to their admissibility. In the Court's view of the case, their admission does not prejudice plaintiff's position. Otherwise the Court would be disposed to exclude them as being inadmissible.

Orville O. Madewell entered military service July 13, 1943, was discharged therefrom August 10, 1944, and died December 29, 1945. For sometime prior to his discharge he was confined to hospitals as a tuberculosis patient. Before his death, plaintiff received benefit payments from Veterans Administration as the wife of Orville O. Madewell. After his death payments to her were discontinued, although certain payments to her children have been continued. What prompted the Veterans Administration to inquire into the validity of her marriage is not entirely clear. Neither the plaintiff nor the defendant Maude Madewell, mother of the insured, knew of any question as to the validity of the marriage until they were informed by the Veterans Administration that plaintiff was not Orville O. Madewell's widow.

Through its investigation, which seems to have been quite thorough in respect to proving invalidity of the marriage, the Veterans Administration learned that plaintiff and the insured went through a formal marriage ceremony in Rossville, Georgia, March 21, 1942. At this time the insured had a wife against whom divorce proceedings were pending in California. The interlocutory decree in the suit was not entered until June 19, 1942, and it was not until September 16, 1943, that the final decree of divorce was entered in that state. Other information obtained by the Veterans Administration, most of it furnished by the plaintiff at the request of the Administration — furnished by her in utmost good faith and without any suspicion that it might be used to affect her rights adversely — tended to show that her ceremonial marriage to the insured, invalid at the time it was entered into, continued invalid until his death.

Following the ceremony at Rossville, the couple returned to Tennessee, where they resided for several months, part of the time in the home of her father, part of the time in the home of his father. Plaintiff knew the insured had been married before, but she believed he had been divorced. There is evidence that he entertained a similar belief. She clearly had no doubts on the point. They cohabited as husband and wife and were accepted as such in the communities where they resided. Two children were born to them as a result of their union. They also lived together for a short time in the State of Ohio, but under what conditions is not apparent. There was an estrangement between them a few months before his death, but no divorce proceedings were commenced by either of them. So far as is known, they continued to regard themselves as husband and wife even during the short period of their estrangement.

In this situation there existed sufficient basis for a valid common law marriage. But the Veterans Administration, finding as a matter of law that Tennessee does not recognize common law marriages, ruled that plaintiff and the insured never became husband and wife and that she, therefore, is not his legal widow. Her claim for insurance benefits was rejected, and she was informed of the reason for the rejection. The Board of Veterans Appeals likewise rejected her claim on the same ground, namely, that she was not the legal widow of the veteran. The solicitor for Veterans Administration, on the showing heretofore set out, ruled that their purported marriage at Rossville, Georgia was bigamous, that Tennessee does not recognize common law marriages, and that the marriage never ripened into a common law marriage. In addition to denying plaintiff the benefits of the veteran's insurance, the action of the Veterans Administration in effect pronounces that the two small children here concerned had a father who died a bigamist, that they themselves are bastards, and that their mother is an adulteress. As will appear hereinafter, by pressing its inquiry only a little farther the Veterans Administration could, without difficulty, have reached the opposite decision.

The public policy of Tennessee and, this Court believes, the public policy of the civilized world, is to sustain marriages, not to upset them. For over a hundred years the public policy of Tennessee has denied to third parties the privilege of inquiring into the validity of the marriages of her citizens. Even those who come within the circle of permissible interest are narrowly restricted in the manner and range of their inquiries. Over and over have the courts of this State declared that those who must inquire, shall not deal carelessly with other people's lives, particularly the lives of innocent children. That Tennessee does not recognize common law marriages is a statement often used, but loosely, and with little support. Over a century ago it was stated by the State's Supreme Court that compliance with statutory preliminaries, as well as the ceremonials of marriage, is mandatory, yet it must be apparent that wherever statutory requirements are as numerous and complicated as they have come to be in some of our states in recent times, perfect compliance with them may be regarded as the exception rather than the rule. If compliance is mandatory in every particular, and if inquiry into the validity of marriages is to be indulged on any and every pretext, there is a wide-open field for the introduction of social chaos. Tennessee has taken a strong stand against unnecessary inquiry. We have only to examine a few cases in order to see how difficult it is in this State to overthrow a marriage on any pretext.

The somewhat anomalous position taken by Tennessee courts on the subject of common law marriages is traceable to the old case of Bashaw v. State, 1829, 9 Tenn. 177. That case was a prosecution for bigamy, the judgment of guilty being reversed by the Supreme Court. Twenty-two years after voluntary dissolution of a common law union, Bashaw had entered into a formal marriage with another woman. The opinion of the court declared that a marriage, to be valid, must be according to the marriage laws, and that "the common law is wholly superseded on the same subject by them." The dissenting opinion of Justice Peck contained the following: "The form pursued should not be critically examined to defeat the marriage, but would (should?) be taken liberally, to support it. The tender and most endearing ties of our nature demand it should be so. If the common law is not repealed by the act, then there is no question the (first) marriage is good to every intent. Vows were publicly made, witnesses were called, and acts in after-life had proved, until after the birth of children, that both were sincere. All this evidence must stand together; it all speaks the assent of the will and consummation of the nuptials. The rights of the innocent offspring speak in such a case; and their rights, as well as the rights of offended society, must be heard."

In subsequent cases the Supreme Court of Tennessee, paradoxically, has adopted both of the views expressed in the Bashaw case. That court later declared that observance of statutory requirements is mandatory and wholly supersedes common law marriage. Smith v. North Memphis Savings Bank, 1905, 115 Tenn. 12, 89 S.W. 392. Yet where there is a subsisting marriage, whether the result of common law or ceremonial union, the policy is to sustain it, as against the assertion of an undissolved prior marriage. Cole v. Parton, 1937, 172 Tenn. 8, 108 S. W.2d 884; Hale v. State, 1942, 179 Tenn. 201, 164 S.W.2d 822; Perry v. Sun Coal Co., 1945, 183 Tenn. 141, 191 S.W.2d 181. Within five years from the decision in Bashaw v. State, the same court began a series of restrictions upon the majority opinion of the Bashaw case. In Ewell v. State, 1834, 14 Tenn. 364, 27 Am.Dec. 480, where defendant was charged with incestuous intercourse with his niece, it was held that proof of formal marriage of the girl's parents was not necessary to a conviction, proof by reputation being sufficient. From this has originated the rule that a defendant may not attack a common law marriage in order to escape the consequences of a crime. McReynolds v. State, 1867, 45 Tenn. 18; Hale v. State, 1942, 179 Tenn. 201, 164 S.W.2d 822. There is also the rule that a party to a common law marriage may not attack it as a means of promoting self-interest. Johnson v. Johnson, 1860, 41 Tenn. 626; Smith v. North Memphis Savings Bank, 1905, 115 Tenn. 12, 89 S.W. 392. Nor may a marriage, whether of common law or statutory form, be attacked by third parties in self-interest. McKinney v. Clarke, 1852, 32 Tenn. 321, 58 Am.Dec. 59; Rogers v. Park's Lessees, 1844, 23 Tenn. 480; Bohlen-Huse Coal & Ice Co. v. McDaniel, 1923, 148 Tenn. 628, 257 S.W. 848; Brewer v. Griggs, 1929, 10 Tenn.App....