Capato v. Commissioner Social Security

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________________
No. 10-2027
___________________
KAREN K. CAPATO, o/b/o
B.N.C., K.N.C.,
Appellant
v.
COMMISSIONER SOCIAL SECURITY
____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
District Judge: Honorable Dennis M. Cavanaugh
Case No. 2-08-cv-05405
Argued July 1, 2013
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Before: CHAGARES, VANASKIE, and BARRY Circuit Judges.
(Filed: July 24, 2013)
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OPINION
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Paul W. Hughes, Esq. [Argued]
Mayer Brown
1999 K Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
Charles A. Rothfield, Esq.
Mayer Brown
1999 K Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
Bernard A. Kuttner, Esq.
Kuttner Law Offices
24 Lackawanna Plaza
Millburn, NJ 07041
Counsel for Appellant
Helen L. Gilbert, Esq. [Argued]
United States Department of Justice
Appellate Section
Room 7261
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Christopher J. Brackett, Esq.
Social Security Administration
Office of General Counsel
701 Fifth Avenue
Suite 2900, M/S 901
Seattle, WA 98104
Rebecca H. Estelle, Esq.
Social Security Administration
Office of General Counsel - Region II
Room 3904
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10278
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Ellen E. Sovern, Esq.
Social Security Administration
Office of General Counsel - Region II
Room 3904
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10278
Michael S. Raab, Esq.
United States Department of Justice
Civil Division
Room 7237
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Counsel for Appellee
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OPINION
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CHAGARES, Circuit Judge.
In 2010, Karen Capato filed an appeal challenging the District Court’s decision
affirming the denial of social security benefits to her twin children (the “twins”)
following the death of her husband, Robert Nicholas Capato (“Nick”). We vacated the
District Court’s determination in part, but the Supreme Court reversed our decision and
remanded the case for further review. We will now affirm the District Court’s decision.
I.
The factual and procedural history of this case was recounted in detail by the
Supreme Court in its recent opinion remanding this case to our Court. See Astrue v.
Capato ex rel. B.N.C., 132 S. Ct. 2021, 2025-27 (2012). The Supreme Court instructed
that “the law Congress enacted calls for resolution of Karen Capato’s application for [the
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twins’] insurance benefits by reference to state intestacy law.”1 Id. at 2034. Thus, we
will address two questions. First, we must determine which state’s law to apply. Second,
we must decide whether that state’s intestacy law would allow the twins to receive
benefits.
II.2
A.
To determine which state’s law applies, we ask where Nick was domiciled at the
time of his death. The Government argues that the administrative law judge (“ALJ”) and
District Court were correct to conclude that Nick was domiciled in Florida, where he
lived for about three years immediately preceding his death. Capato argues that Nick was
domiciled in Washington, the state where he was born and lived the majority of his life.
Our decision turns on whether the ALJ’s decision was “supported by substantial
evidence.” Hartranft v. Apfel, 181 F.3d 358, 360 (3d Cir. 1999).
“[D]omicile is established by an objective physical presence in the state or
territory coupled with a subjective intention to remain there indefinitely.” Washington v.
Hovensa LLC, 652 F.3d 340, 344 (3d Cir. 2011). Intent to remain must be analyzed at
the time of arrival in a new place: if a person is shown to have doubts about remaining in
a new location after his arrival, those doubts are not relevant unless they indicate there
1
Under the law, a person is entitled to benefits if he or she is a “child” as defined by 42
U.S.C. § 416(e). See 42 U.S.C. § 402(d)(1).
2
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and the District Court was granted
jurisdiction by 42 U.S.C. 405(g).
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was never an original intent to stay. Gallagher v. Philadelphia Transp. Co., 185 F.2d 543,
546 (3d Cir. 1950).
There was sufficient evidence for the ALJ to conclude Nick was domiciled in
Florida. Nick’s business interests in Florida and the fact that his will was written under
Florida law provide some indication of his intent, and his actual residence in Florida was
prima facie evidence that Florida was his domicile. See Krasnov v. Dinan, 465 F.2d
1298, 1300 (3d Cir. 1972). And while all the testimony concerning the Capatos’ intent to
move to New Jersey was credited, the ALJ was free to decide that that evidence did not
establish that Nick had a definite plan to leave Florida at the time he arrived from
Colorado.
B.
Because Nick was domiciled in Florida at the time of his death, we must “apply
such law as would be applied in determining the devolution of intestate personal property
by the courts of” Florida. 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(2)(A). Under Florida intestacy law, “[a]
child conceived from the eggs or sperm of a person or persons who died before the
transfer of their eggs, sperm, or preembryos to a woman’s body shall not be eligible for a
claim against the decedent’s estate unless the child has been provided for by the
decedent’s will.” Fla. Stat. Ann. § 742.17(4). Capato’s arguments to the contrary
notwithstanding, § 742.17(4) clearly prevents recovery for the twins.
III.
For these reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s conclusion that the twins are
not entitled to benefits under the Social Security Act.
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VANASKIE, Circuit Judge, concurring.
The results we reach in this case – that there is substantial evidence supporting the
determination that Nick Capato was domiciled in Florida at the time of his passing, and
that, as a consequence of this determination, the children of Nick and Karen Capato
conceived after his passing are not entitled to Social Security survivor’s benefits – are
correct legally, and so I must concur. But the denial of survivor’s benefits to Nick and
Karen Capato’s twins strikes me as grossly unfair.
The manifest unfairness of this case is the unfortunate consequence of legislation
that was enacted generations before scientific and technological advances made it
possible for couples like the Capatos to provide for a family even in the tragic
circumstance of a death-sentence diagnosis of the wage earner. In 1939, when Congress
first enacted legislation to provide for survivor benefits to the children of a wage earner,
Congress was compelled to address the issue of who in fact was a child of the deceased
wage earner for children born outside of wedlock when paternity and parentage status
was not ascertainable with certainty. This concern for providing survivor benefits to
children conceived and born outside a traditional marriage remained the focus of
congressional attention in the 1960s, when section 216(h) of the Social Security Act, 42
U.S.C. § 416(h), was last amended by “extending benefits to the children of unwed
parents.” Schafer v. Astrue, 641 F.3d 49, 67 (4th Cir. 2011) (Davis, J., dissenting). As
explained in McMillian ex rel. McMillian v. Heckler, 759 F.2d 1147 (4th Cir. 1985):
Until 1965, § 416(h)(2) provided the sole means by which illegitimates
could establish entitlement to benefits as dependent children, with §
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(h)(2)(A) the primary vehicle. Under that provision, an illegitimate
claimant could establish entitlement to benefits by proving his entitlement
to inherit from the insured wage earner as a “child” under the intestate
succession law of the state of the insured’s domicile. In 1965, § (h)(3)(C)
was added specifically to provide other means by which entitlement might
be established.
Under the state inheritance law provisions of § 416(h)(2)(A), a claimant
born in wedlock who sought to establish entitlement to benefits as the
illegitimate child of another than his mother’s husband was and is perforce
confronted with any presumption of in-wedlock parentage integral to the
state’s inheritance law. That element of state law is necessarily included in
the general congressional incorporation of state inheritance law into §
416(h)(2)(A).
But when § 416(h)(3)(C) was added in 1965 to provide supplementary and
alternative means of proving entitlement by illegitimates, it did not
expressly or by implication incorporate any element of state law respecting
parentage, inheritance rights or any other matter of possible relevance to
dependent child status. So far as the text of § 416(h)(3)(C) is concerned, all
questions of its interpretation and application are referable solely to federal
law.
Id. at 1152 (citations omitted).
Thus, the combination of sections 416(h)(2) and (h)(3)(C) assure that any child of
a deceased wage earner born outside a traditional marriage while the wage earner is
living has an opportunity, under a nationwide system, to receive benefits that are
intended to “replace the support that the child would have received from [the deceased
parent] had the [parent] not died.” Jones ex rel. Jones v. Chater, 101 F.3d 509, 514 (7th
Cir. 1996). Such children are entitled to survivor benefits either if they qualify as heirs
of the deceased parent under the intestate laws of the state where the parent was
domiciled at the time of his or her death, see 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(2)(A), or, if not so
qualified, by satisfying one of several nationally-applicable criteria. See id. §
416(h)(3)(C).
2
 Children conceived after the death of a parent, a consequence of scientific
advances “not within the imagination, much less contemplation, of Congress when the
relevant [legislative provisions] came to be,” Capato ex rel. B.N.C. v. Comm’r of Social
Security, 631 F.3d 626, 627 (3d Cir. 2011), rev’d, 132 S. Ct. 2021 (2012), however, are
relegated to the intestacy laws of the several states. Unlike “out-of-wedlock” children
born before the death of the deceased wage earner, “after-conceived” children have no
alternative way to establish entitlement to survivor benefits. This means that some after-
conceived children will receive survivor benefits because their parents were domiciled in
states that recognize after-conceived children as heirs of their parents under their intestate
laws, while others will be denied benefits solely because the intestate laws of the state
where the wage earner passed away did not recognize his or her after-conceived children
as heirs. And so we have a nationwide benefits program in which some after-conceived
children of wage earners are treated as the children of their biological parents, while other
after-conceived children are not regarded as the children of their biological parents. This
strikes me as manifestly unfair.
Nick Capato was a fully-insured individual in a nationwide system that provides
benefits to the children of fully-insured individuals. His offspring, whether conceived
before or after his passing, should be entitled to the same treatment for survivor benefits
that every other child born in the United States receives. There is no dispute that Nick
Capato desired to provide for a family notwithstanding being stricken by a fatal disease.
As it turned out, he was living in the wrong state when he died to assure that his after-
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conceived children would receive the benefits of a national program into which he paid
his fair share.
Where, as here, the record is clear as to the relationship between the claimant and
the wage earner, eligibility for benefits in a nationwide program should not turn on the
vagaries of the laws enacted by state legislators to address the completely separate matter
of intestacy rights. Only Congress has the authority to remedy this situation. In 1965,
Congress took action to remedy the inequity of relegating entitlement to survivor benefits
to state intestacy laws by providing alternative means to qualify for such benefits. I write
separately in this case to urge that Congress take appropriate action now to correct the
injustice resulting from application of legislative provisions that could not have
contemplated this “new world” in which a father or mother may provide for a family
even after his or her death. Until Congress does so, courts will be constrained to sustain
manifestly unfair results that deny survivor benefits based solely upon the domicile of the
wage earner.
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