Rithie Parker v. Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

For fifteen years, Rithie Parker has been trying to establish her entitlement to widow’s benefits under the Social Security Act. She had married George Parker in 1970, but two years before his death in 1975 he had obtained a decree of divorce in a state court in Indiana, where the couple lived. He obtained the decree by fraud. In support of the petition for divorce he had submitted an affidavit in which he swore that his wife had left the state and that her whereabouts were unknown; in fact, as he well knew, she was living in the marital residence in Indiana. He did not,…