Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 23 November 1966
• Docket Number: No. 15844.,15844.
• Parties: METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, v. Bessie THOMPSON, Appellee, v. Edward THOMPSON, a Minor, by Helen Mae Thompson, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

368 F.2d 791 (1966)

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.

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...