United States District Court, D. Colorado
DAVID L. PERKINS, Plaintiff,
v.
NANCY A. BERRYHILL, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant.
ORDER AFFIRMING THE DENIAL OF BENEFITS
CHRISTINE M. ARGUELLO UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This
matter is before the Court on review of the Social Security
Commissioner's decision denying Plaintiff David L.
Perkins's application for widower's benefits under
Title II of the Social Security Act. Jurisdiction is proper
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).
Plaintiff
argues that the administrative law judge's
(“ALJ”) conclusion that Plaintiff failed to
establish a common law marriage to a decedent who died as a
fully insured individual under the Social Security Act was
erroneous. (Doc. # 13.) Because the ALJ's analysis was
supported by substantial evidence and because the ALJ used
the correct legal standards, the Court rejects
Plaintiff's arguments and affirms the decision of the
Commissioner.
I.
BACKGROUND
A.
PLAINTIFF'S APPLICATION AND INITIAL DENIALS
Plaintiff
filed an application for widower's benefits of the
deceased wage earner, Carolyn J. Seawell, on February 27,
2014. (Doc. # 9 at 39-40.)[1] Plaintiff stated in his application
that he and Ms. Seawell were married on May 1, 1979, in
Colorado, and remained married until Ms. Seawell's death
on August 29, 1992, also in Colorado. (Id. at 40.)
The
Social Security Administration initially denied
Plaintiff's claim on March 9, 2014, stating that
“[t]he facts . . . d[id] not show” that Plaintiff
and Ms. Seawell were married under the laws of the state
where Ms. Seawell lived when she died. (Id. at 46-
47.) Plaintiff, represented by counsel Larry Daves,
see (id. at 49-50), requested
reconsideration of the agency's determination on March
17, 2014, and explained that he had a common law marriage
with Ms. Seawell until her death. (Id. at 50-51.)
Upon reconsideration, the Administration again determined
that Plaintiff was “not entitled as the common law
spouse of Carol Seawell” to widower's benefits.
(Id. at 57-59.)
Plaintiff
requested a hearing before an ALJ on May 7, 2014.
(Id. at 63-66.) ALJ Earl W. Shaffer conducted the
hearing on April 27, 2016, in Pueblo, Colorado. (Doc. # 9-1
at 189-226.) Plaintiff and Betsy Rich, Ms. Seawell's
sister, testified, and Plaintiff's counsel was present.
(Id.)
B.
THE EVIDENCE BEFORE THE ALJ
Plaintiff
explained to the ALJ-and still maintains-that his first
marriage, to Roberta Price, “broke up in 1977, ”
and in 1978, he and Ms. Seawell began a romantic
relationship. (Doc. # 9-1 at 182.) In late 1978, they moved
into the house Ms. Seawell had been living in. (Id.)
Plaintiff stated:
Shortly after my divorce with Roberta Price was finalized in
1979, [Ms. Seawell] and I had a discussion in which we
mutually agreed that from that point on, we would live
together and present ourselves as husband and wife and all
that that entails. W e both understood that we were
commencing on a common law marriage.
(Id.); see also (id. at 199-202,
208-09.) Plaintiff and Ms. Seawell lived for the entirety of
their relationship in the “Libre Community, ” a
360-acre collective community founded in 1968 “as a not
for profit Colorado corporation for the . . . purpose of
building and developing a [sic] artistic community.”
(Id. at 194.) He explained that the residents of the
Libre Community “were there to build a whole new world
from scrap basically, . . .we were counter culturist, . . .
or hippies would be another way to look at it. . . . [W]e
didn't have resources. We . . . basically took a vow of
poverty.” (Id. at 213.) Plaintiff also
testified that between 1980 and 1986, he helped raise Ms.
Seawell's son, Bo Seawell, in their residence in the
Libre Community; that Bo had been born in California to Ms.
Seawell and Brent Seawell; and that Ms. Seawell believed that
she had previously been in a common law marriage with Mr.
Brent Seawell. (Id. at 206, 211-12.)
Ms.
Rich, Ms. Seawell's sister and a resident of the Libre
Community, also testified. (Id. at 221-25.) She
explained to the ALJ that she and others in the Libre
Community annually receive property tax assessments in their
names from Huerfano County, Colorado, and that they then pay
those taxes. (Id. at 221-22, 225.) Upon
Plaintiff's counsel's questioning, Ms. Rich testified
that she believed that Ms. Seawell was married to and lived
with Plaintiff. (Id. at 223-24.) She also stated
that Ms. Seawall “wasn't always” in her right
mind when she was ill at the end of her life and had no
explanation for why Ms. Seawall did not address her marriage
to Plaintiff on her application for Social Security
disability insurance benefits. (Id. at 224.)
Plaintiff
provided documents in support of his contention that he and
Ms. Seawell had a common law marriage. The ALJ accurately
summarized this documentary evidence:
To support his allegations, the claimant provided copies of
vehicle purchase agreements and vehicle registration,
titling, and insurance records that he and the claimant
purchased, owned, and/or renewed together [(Doc. # 9-1 at
126-38)]. He also provided copies of annual tax receipts of
property tracts in the "communal" community, Libre,
in which they lived. These tracts each were titled
individually in the decedent's name, the claimant's
name, and that of an individual named "Meyer,"
which the claimant stated he also paid [(id. at
145-79)]. Additionally, he provided a copy of a bank
signature card in the name of the decedent, with the
claimant's name seemingly added in later, given that it
was typewritten in [(Doc. # 9 at 28)]. He also provided a
copy of the decedent's death certificate and a copy of
the claimant's obituary, each of which lists the claimant
as the husband of the decedent [(id. at 29-30)]. He
provided a Power of Attorney form, in which the decedent gave
the claimant full authority to act on her behalf on all
personal, financial, and legal affairs [(Doc. # 9-1 at
106-07)]. He provided copies of motel receipts, indicating
the decedent used the claimant's surname [(id.
at 141-44)]. The claimant also provided statements from
various members of the communal community where the decedent
and the claimant lived, including statements from the
claimant's sister [(Doc. # 9 at 80-81)], son
[(id. at 82- 83)], and former significant
other/husband/father of son [(id. at 76-77)], each
of whom indicated that the claimant and the decedent lived as
husband and wife.
(Doc. # 9 at 19 (internal citations replaced with citations
to the Administrative Record).)
Finally,
the ALJ also had before him evidence that Ms. Seawall had
applied for Social Security disability insurance benefits on
June 23, 1992, approximately two months before she passed
away.[2] (Id. at 24-27.) On that
application in 1992, Ms. Seawall listed Mr. Brent Seawell as
her spouse and indicated that they were married in 1965 by
clergy or a public official in California. (Id. at
25.) She stated that she was currently married to Mr. Brent
Seawell at the time of her application, that her marriage to
Mr. Brent Seawell had not ended, and that she did not have
any other marriages. (Id.)
C.
THE ALJ'S UNFAVORABLE DECISION
The ALJ
issued an adverse decision on June 9, 2016, concluding that
Plaintiff failed to meet the eligibility requirements for
widower's benefits because Plaintiff had not put forward
evidence sufficient to prove that he and Ms. Seawell had a
common law marriage prior to her death. (Id. at
13-23.) The ALJ specifically found that there was scarce
evidence that Ms. Seawall “mutally and openly assume[d]
a marital relationship” and that Ms. Seawall's
failure to make any “mention of the [Plaintiff] being
her spouse or common law husband” in her application
for Social Security disability insurance benefits was
“[m]ost compelling.” (Id. at 21.) He
rejected Plaintiff's documentary evidence as establishing
only “[t]he fact that the decedent and the claimant
lived in a communal environment, ” ...