## Facts

- Mrs. B was married to Mr. B, the insured wage earner under the Social Security Act, and the couple lived together in Georgia.
- While Mr. B was serving overseas in the military, Mrs. B conceived and gave birth to a son, A.L.B., fathered by another man.
- Despite the lack of biological relationship, Mr. B continued his marriage to Mrs. B, kept the family together, and supported A.L.B.
- Mr. B publicly treated A.L.B. as his son and agreed to provide for him.
- After Mr. B died, Mrs. B applied for surviving child’s insurance benefits on A.L.B.’s behalf using Mr. B’s earnings record.
- The Secretary of Health and Human Services denied the claim, concluding that A.L.B. was neither Mr. B’s “child” nor his “stepchild.”
- The denial rested on the Secretary’s reading of the then-existing SSA “stepchild” regulation as requiring that the insured marry the child’s parent only after the child’s birth—an interpretation that would bar benefits where the marriage came first and the child was born later.
- The district court affirmed the Secretary’s denial, and Mrs. B appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the Social Security Act and the applicable SSA regulation, a child born after the insured married the child’s natural parent can qualify as the insured’s “stepchild” for child’s insurance benefits.
2. Whether the Secretary’s interpretation of the stepchild regulation—imposing a birth-before-marriage requirement—was a permissible construction consistent with the Act.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment upholding the denial of benefits.
- The court held that A.L.B. qualified as Mr. B’s “stepchild” within the meaning of the Social Security Act and the controlling regulation.
- The court rejected the Secretary’s categorical timing rule that excluded children born after the insured’s marriage to the child’s natural parent.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with recognizing A.L.B.’s eligibility for benefits as the insured’s stepchild.

## Legal Principles

- The Social Security Act is a remedial statute and should be construed broadly to provide coverage where the statutory and regulatory terms fairly allow it.
- Stepchild eligibility for child’s insurance benefits turns on the family relationship created by the insured’s marriage to the child’s natural (or adopting) parent, not on genetic relationship.
- An agency’s interpretation of its regulations may receive substantial weight, but a court need not accept an interpretation that is unsupported by the regulatory text or that creates arbitrary distinctions inconsistent with the Act’s purpose.
- A regulation should not be read to add a strict temporal condition (such as requiring the marriage to occur only after the child’s birth) unless that condition is clearly stated.
- A later regulatory revision that states a timing condition more plainly may inform the court’s reading of an earlier, less explicit regulation, without being applied retroactively.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that the Secretary wrongly denied Social Security surviving child’s benefits by treating a child born after the insured’s marriage to the child’s mother as categorically outside the “stepchild” definition; because the marital relationship and household support relationship fit the stepchild category under the governing regulation, the court reversed and remanded for proceedings consistent with awarding benefits.


B.B. v. Schweiker, 643 F.2d 1069 (1981)