Flemming v. Nestor
Flemming v. Nestor, 404 U.S. 78, 92 S. Ct. 254 (1971), is a Supreme Court decision ruling that there is no contractual right to money paid into Social Security because it is not property.[1]
The government argued that:
Social security must be viewed as a welfare instrument to which legal concepts of 'insurance,' 'property,' 'vested rights,' 'annuities,' etc., can be applied only at the risk of a serious distortion of language.[2][3][4]
Ruling
In Flemming v. Nestor, the Court held that the old-age benefits of an alien, deported for cause under the Immigration and Nationality Act, could be lawfully terminated without violating the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. There the Supreme Court rationalized that the non-contractual interest of an employee covered by the Social Security Act cannot be analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, where the right to benefits is based on a contractual duty to pay premiums, and further, that to hold otherwise would render the law too inflexible to permit necessary adjustment to ever-changing conditions. There were three dissenting opinions, by Justices Black, Douglas and Brennan each, who insisted that the alien had a property right in his old-age benefits and to deprive him of them was a violation of due process. But the Court majority rejected that contractual view of Social Security.
Property
In the opinion of the court, the ruling stated that:
To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of "accrued property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands.
As well as:
It is apparent that the noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.
Justice Hugo Black stated in his dissent that:
I cannot believe that any private insurance company in America would be permitted to repudiate its matured contracts with its policyholders who have regularly paid all their premiums in reliance upon the good faith of the company.[5]
Legacy
A decade later a district court held that Nestor was no longer good law, and the Supreme Court then reversed. See Belcher v. Richardson, 317 F. Supp. 1294, 1297-98 (S.D. W. Va. 1970), rev'd, 404 U.S. 78, 92 S. Ct. 254 (1971).
References
- ↑ Is There a Right to Social Security?
- ↑ Congressional Record
- ↑ President's Proposals for Revision in the Social Security System: Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 5710, Parts 1-4, 1967
- ↑ Appellant's Brief, p. 68
- ↑ United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, Volume 363
