ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603120127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHE WAS BORN almost a year after her father's death, but Judith Hart will receive benefits as his heir.
It was a case of bureaucracy catching up to science. A 4 1/2-year-old girl who was conceived through artificial insemination after her father's death won Social Security survivor benefits Monday.
Social Security Commissioner Shirley Chater agreed to $700 a month for Judith Hart, averting a federal court battle against the girl's mother, Nancy Hart.
It was believed to be only the second time survivor benefits had been granted to a child conceived artificially after the father's death.
The Social Security Administration fought Hart's claim at first, saying the agency is bound by state law: in Louisiana a child conceived after the father's death is not recognized as his heir.
However, in a statement Monday, Chater said the case ``raises significant policy issues that were not contemplated when the Social Security Act was passed many years ago.''
Chater said the decision will apply only to Judith's case while changes in the law are considered.
William Rittenberg, a lawyer for Hart, said he was surprised by the agency's reversal.
An administrative law judge ruled in May that Judith was entitled to benefits, but a Social Security appeals panel overturned the decision six months later. Hart then went to federal court, but the case was still pending when the Social Security Administration reversed course.
Hart did not immediately return a call for comment.
Judith was born in 1991, nearly a year after the death of her father, Edward Hart, an aerospace engineer who developed cancer of the esophagus and had his sperm stored in case chemotherapy made him sterile.
Hart's lawyers argued that Judith was denied benefits solely because of the circumstances of her birth, and they noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that such benefits cannot be denied to illegitimate children.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB