Widow vs. widow for NFL pension

A Delaware County woman should get the NFL pension of former Eagles running back Tom Sullivan because he never divorced her before marrying again, a federal judge has ruled.

Barbara Sullivan of Summerville, S.C., who has two daughters from her 16-year marriage to Sullivan, is no longer entitled to the $2,700-a-month spousal benefit, the judge said. He found that marriage void under South Carolina's bigamy law.

The NFL must now send the pension payments to Lavona Hill of Folcroft. Her 1979 marriage to Sullivan, who died at age 52 in 2002 after a car crash in Florida, was never dissolved when they went their separate ways in 1983.

"In our society, if marriage is going to mean anything, you have to have a beginning point and an end point," said Hill's lawyer, David B. Sherman. "You can't have a bigamy relationship."

The Delaware County Daily Times first reported Thursday on the ruling, which was released this month.

Sullivan was married three times, U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller concluded. He was divorced when he wed Hill, but Hill didn't know about his first marriage. Barbara Sullivan, whom he married in 1986, didn't know about the second.

"When they first told me that he had been married before, I went berserk," Barbara Sullivan, 57, told the Associated Press. "I don't believe there was a marriage."

In his seven-year NFL career, Sullivan rushed for 3,142 yards and scored 17 touchdowns. He played for the Eagles from 1972 to 1977 and ranks ninth on the team's all-time rushing list, just ahead of Donovan McNabb. Sullivan suffered a career-ending knee injury the next season playing for the Cleveland Browns.

He was making $65,000 that last season, and later earned far less as a machinist and Kmart security specialist, Barbara Sullivan said.

Hill, in testimony at an October bench trial in Philadelphia, said Sullivan had drug and alcohol problems that were factors in their split. But Barbara Sullivan said that was not the case when she met her future husband at work in 1981.

Despite her doubts about Hill's claim, she said that she could not afford to appeal the ruling. and that Hill had turned down an offer to split the benefits, she said.

Hill did not return several messages left Thursday at her apartment.

According to her lawyer, Hill received no support from Sullivan and had no contact with him after the mid-1980s.

Hill's son learned of the former player's death from news reports, prompting Hill to seek Social Security benefits. That office suggested she inquire about a league pension, which she did in late 2006. The NFL pension plan ultimately asked the court to determine the proper beneficiary.