holding that the question of a legal interpretation “arises only incidentally, necessitating an answer by the court in the course of construing the [relevant] statute to determine whether payments is indeed owing to plaintiff”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the question of a legal interpretation “arises only incidentally, necessitating an answer by the court in the course of construing the [relevant] statute to determine whether payments is indeed owing to plaintiff”
- explaining that the court must “read the relevant statute and award whatever payment it grants, omitting from our interpretation of its effect any constitutionally void provision contained in it”
- illegitimate child suing to recover deceased civil servant’s benefits claimed statutory requirement that such a child must live with the annuitant was unconstitutional
- "Our authority to issue a declaratory judgment is limited.... We are authorized to do so only where 'it is tied and subordinate to a monetary award.' "
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Annuity Transfers, Ltd. v. United States, 86 Fed. Cl. 173 (2009)
Gentry is distinguishable from the instant case on its facts.
The opinion
Nichols, Judge,
concurring:
I join in the decision and in Judge Bennett’s opinion. Much as I would like to avoid deciding on constitutional grounds, I cannot read the statute as allowing the illegitimate child to qualify for survivor benefits if he did not live with the civil service annuitant. And this is the administrative construction, which is always entitled to respect. The Supreme Court in Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628 (1974), did not reconstruct the statute then before it in such a fashion, but took it as it read.
The heart of the matter is this: our society normally imposes different responsibilities on the parents of an illegitimate child, if they do not live together. The mother provides the home and rears the child. The father, if he admits his paternity or it is established by judicial proceedings, must furnish financial support. I have never heard of a bastardy *25 complaint against a mother. Now, if both parents enact these roles, the mother can pass on survivorship benefits to the child, if a former civil servant, but the father cannot. This is a crude form of sexual discrimination against the male, like many statutory provisions of other kinds. My analysis is supported by Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973); and Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971). The child is a victim of the discrimination and has standing to complain. In Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495 (1976), the illegitimate child could have qualified for survivorship 'benefits by either having lived with of having received support from the father, and thus the Social Security legislation there involved did not discriminate against him in the same manner.