John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare v. Dorothy W. Oldham, Individually and as Next Friend of Pamela M. Oldham

TUTTLE, Chief Judge:

This appeal from a judgment directing payment of mother’s insurance benefits to one of two competing “widows” of the wage earner criticizes not only the correctness of the trial court’s decision of “Who was the widow?”, but also criticizes the ordering of payment to the one without considering the claim of the other. The Secretary urges that at least the trial court should have remanded the case to the Secretary for a hearing at which both parties could be heard.

Undisputed are the following facts:

Rodman P. Oldham died in September, 1960, a fully insured wage earner. At the…