| Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Insurance Co.
(No. 79-381)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ White ] | Concurrence
[ Stevens ] |
| HTML version
PDF version | HTML version
PDF version | HTML version
PDF version |
Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Insurance Co.
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF MISSOURI
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.
Nothing has happened since the decision in Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199, to persuade me that this kind of gender-based classification can simultaneously disfavor the male class and the female class.
To illustrate my difficulty with the analysis in Part II of the Court's opinion, it should be noted that there are three relevant kinds of marriages: (1) those in which the husband is dependent on the wife; (2) those in which the wife is dependent on the husband; and (3) those in which neither spouse is dependent on the other.
Under the Missouri statute, in either of the first two situations, if the dependent spouse survives, a death benefit will be paid regardless of whether the survivor is male or female; conversely, if the working spouse survives, no death benefit will be paid. The only difference in the two situations is that the surviving male, unlike the surviving female, must undergo the inconvenience of proving dependency. That surely is not a discrimination against females.
In the third situation, if one spouse dies, benefits are payable to a surviving female, but not to a surviving male. In my view, that is a rather blatant discrimination against males. While both spouses remain alive, the prospect of receiving a potential death benefit upon the husband's demise reduces the wife's need for insurance on his life, whereas the prospect of not receiving a death benefit upon the wife's demise increase the husband's need for insurance on her life. That difference again places the husband at a disadvantage. [*] [p155]
No matter how the statute is viewed, the class against which it discriminates is the male class. I therefore cannot join Part II of the Court's opinion. I do, however, agree that Missouri has failed to justify the disparate treatment of persons who have as strong a claim to equal treatment as do similarly situated surviving spouses, see Califano v. Goldfarb, supra, at 223 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment), and that its statute violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For that reason I concur in the Court's judgment.
* There is no claim that the wage earner's take-home pay is affected by the Missouri statute. Whether the wage earner is single or married, and, if married, whether the other spouse is male or female, dependent or independent, the wage earner's pay is the same.