00-3816Holman v. United States Railroad Retirement Board

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Under [Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199 (1977)], dependency requirements violate the Equal Protection Clause. But [Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728 (1984)] recognized that such a requirement may be revived if it is substantially related to a legitimate purpose and narrowly tailored to achieve that goal. Under our reasoning in Frock, sec. 231c(g)(4) is gender-neutral and rational; it generally incorporates the law as it existed in Goldfarb, and its purpose is to protect widowers’ expectations. But Heckler recognized that a provision similar to sec. 231c(g)(4) that revived a provision featuring a gender-based dependency requirement is a gender-based classification and not gender-neutral. Moreover, the Heckler Court, in concluding that such a provision was narrowly tailored, emphasized the temporary nature of the social security provision at issue. In our case, although the dependency requirement endures to this day; it is clearly running out of gas. It is difficult to imagine that there are many married couples who, like the two Hecklers, started working for a railroad some 45 years ago. Under Heckler, although sec. 231c(g)(4) is a gender- based classification, it is one narrowly tailored to the legitimate purpose of protecting the reliance interests of railroad retirees and, thus, not violative of the Fifth Amendment.”

Affirmed.

Petition for Review of a Decision of the United States Railroad Retirement Board, Evans, J.