chuckswoman
Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA
Man and woman married in a new age kind of ceremony at home with friends and extended family members present. After a big party for all. The woman was diagnosed with leukemia but it was not aggressive. She was working well with her doctors and her body was cooperating.
After a year or so they learned that there was a legal problem with the person of the cloth who performed their marriage ceremony. Bottom line: their marriage was not legally binding. So they went to their local courthouse somewhere in the vast regions of Los Angeles, and got married again by whoever does that for people who get married in the courthouse.
In that timeframe, the leukemia starting kicking ass. They'd get a little bit of good news and then bad. She died two days (48 hours) short of what would have been nine months AFTER their second marriage ceremony, the one that took place in the local courthouse.
He applied for survivor benefits soon after her death. He was denied on the basis that the legally binding marriage (done in the courthouse) was not the minimum 9 month duration to qualify.
-----------
Sometime in recent years, while researching an entirely separate matter, I came upon an article that addressed exclusions to this 9 month rule. One I remember as and paraphrase as, "if the death occurred while you were a soldier fighting in a battle in a declared war" (the 9 month rule would be excluded). The relevant exception IN MY MEMORY WHICH IS NOT RELIABLE ON THIS had to do with sudden accidental death being excluded and death from disease (I can't remember how it was worded and I don't enough about medical to word it right but this would be the catagory and I believe it would apply IF IT EXISTED IN A REALM OTHER THAN MY MIND and it goes something like
If the person who died of the disease had NOT been given a medical prognosis of 9 months or less - or 6 months or less - or something that would apply
BECAUSE THE SURVIVOR (widower) LOVED ONE who married the deceased twice with no divorces in between tells me there was no countdown when they married either time. In her last year, when the second marriage occurred, she was in and out of the hospital, often IN, but she was volunteering and being volunteered as a test subject for a number of different programs some of which meds or regimens may have extended her life and some that didn't work for her ,,,, but the male insists there was no expiration date on her life at all. When they married, it was an unknown but no thought it would be less than a year. He feels he still has a strong relationship with her physicians (its been 5 years now) who would witness to the fact...
I've posted too again I'm afraid! If I start editing again it'll never get done and I'd like to unburden myself of this issue.
Please understand I'm doing the best I can and hopefully you can read between the lines and maybe even help me better understand how to present the problem.
To rephrase the question, I think might be this:
Regarding the 9-month rule (the minimum amount of time the deceased and survivor were married before the death occurred) ..... are there any specific exceptions to this rule making the survivor spouse ELIGIBLE for survivor benefits? If yes, since our local social security office never mentioned this but rather told the man "too bad" how would you recommend he proceed in order to activate a claim with social security?
General info I forgot to include that may be relevant:
* The male survivor spouse receives SSI.
* The SSI was awarded AFTER the wife's death.
* The wife was the one with the money in the family, thus, her survivor
benefits were assumed to have some value
Thank you for your expert response(s) and to the non-professional posters that like to make ugly over something I failed to describe very well:
please don't contaminate this thread to pat yourself on the back by harrassing or attempting to denigerate me
Peace!
*
Man and woman married in a new age kind of ceremony at home with friends and extended family members present. After a big party for all. The woman was diagnosed with leukemia but it was not aggressive. She was working well with her doctors and her body was cooperating.
After a year or so they learned that there was a legal problem with the person of the cloth who performed their marriage ceremony. Bottom line: their marriage was not legally binding. So they went to their local courthouse somewhere in the vast regions of Los Angeles, and got married again by whoever does that for people who get married in the courthouse.
In that timeframe, the leukemia starting kicking ass. They'd get a little bit of good news and then bad. She died two days (48 hours) short of what would have been nine months AFTER their second marriage ceremony, the one that took place in the local courthouse.
He applied for survivor benefits soon after her death. He was denied on the basis that the legally binding marriage (done in the courthouse) was not the minimum 9 month duration to qualify.
-----------
Sometime in recent years, while researching an entirely separate matter, I came upon an article that addressed exclusions to this 9 month rule. One I remember as and paraphrase as, "if the death occurred while you were a soldier fighting in a battle in a declared war" (the 9 month rule would be excluded). The relevant exception IN MY MEMORY WHICH IS NOT RELIABLE ON THIS had to do with sudden accidental death being excluded and death from disease (I can't remember how it was worded and I don't enough about medical to word it right but this would be the catagory and I believe it would apply IF IT EXISTED IN A REALM OTHER THAN MY MIND and it goes something like
If the person who died of the disease had NOT been given a medical prognosis of 9 months or less - or 6 months or less - or something that would apply
BECAUSE THE SURVIVOR (widower) LOVED ONE who married the deceased twice with no divorces in between tells me there was no countdown when they married either time. In her last year, when the second marriage occurred, she was in and out of the hospital, often IN, but she was volunteering and being volunteered as a test subject for a number of different programs some of which meds or regimens may have extended her life and some that didn't work for her ,,,, but the male insists there was no expiration date on her life at all. When they married, it was an unknown but no thought it would be less than a year. He feels he still has a strong relationship with her physicians (its been 5 years now) who would witness to the fact...
I've posted too again I'm afraid! If I start editing again it'll never get done and I'd like to unburden myself of this issue.
Please understand I'm doing the best I can and hopefully you can read between the lines and maybe even help me better understand how to present the problem.
To rephrase the question, I think might be this:
Regarding the 9-month rule (the minimum amount of time the deceased and survivor were married before the death occurred) ..... are there any specific exceptions to this rule making the survivor spouse ELIGIBLE for survivor benefits? If yes, since our local social security office never mentioned this but rather told the man "too bad" how would you recommend he proceed in order to activate a claim with social security?
General info I forgot to include that may be relevant:
* The male survivor spouse receives SSI.
* The SSI was awarded AFTER the wife's death.
* The wife was the one with the money in the family, thus, her survivor
benefits were assumed to have some value
Thank you for your expert response(s) and to the non-professional posters that like to make ugly over something I failed to describe very well:
please don't contaminate this thread to pat yourself on the back by harrassing or attempting to denigerate me
Peace!
*