Case ID: tenn_28/html/0460-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Turley, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Nancy Brown vs. Francis Kerby.
    By common law an illegitimate child can inherit no estate, real or personal, from the father or mother. By the act of 1819, ch. 13 this principle is so far modified that where the mother, having no legitimate children, dies, her illegitimate children may inherit her estate, but not the estate of any relation of the mother,, either lineal or collateral.
    Nancy Brown filed her bill in the Chancery Court at Carthage against Kerby, administrator of Richard Brown, for a distributive share of his .estate. The defendant pleaded that Richard Brown died intestate, leaving many children; that complainant was the illegitimate child of Patsy Brown, the daughter of Richard; that Patsy died before her mother, leaving no legitimate children.
    
      This plea was put down for argument, and on argument the Chancellor held complainant not entitled to any portion of the estate of her grandfather, and dismissed her bill.
    The complainant appealed.
    
      C. B. Patterson, for the complainant.
    The only question to be determined in this case, is, whether complainant, the illegitimate grandchild of the intestate, Richard Brown, can recover her mother’s share of the said intestate’s estate. That she is entitled to recover, I think there can be but little doubt, when we refer to the act of 1784, chap. 22, sec. 2; which, among other things, provides that the “ lineal descendants of parents” who are dead, shall stand in the same condition and be entitled to the same property by descent, that their parents would have been, had they been living. By the term, “ lineal descendants,” the legislature surely intended such descendants as stand in a direct line from the grandfather or common ancestor. Had this plaintiff been the daughter of a son of the intestate some question as to her direct lineage might arise; but as she is the daughter of the daughter of the said intestate, no question of the kind can, by any possible construction, be raised. By the act Of 1819, chap. 13, sec. 1, illegitimates are entitled to inherit any and all property on the side of the mother. In the case of Butler vs. King, 2 Yer. 115, the Supreme Court has construed the act of 1784, chap. 22, to establish that the legislature intended in its passage, first, to destroy , primogeniture; second, to destroy the indivisibility of real estate; and third, to preserve real estate in the blood of the transmitting ancestor.
    
      
      J. G. Guild, for the defendant.
    By the common law, a bastard has np heritable blood, and is incapable of inheriting as heir, either to his putative father or mother, or to any one else, nor can he have heirs but of his own body. 2 Kent. Com. 211.
    The rigor of the common law is somewhat abated by the statutes of Tennessee. The act of 1819, chap. 13, authorizes the illegitimate child to inherit the estate, real and personal, of the mother. And if the bastard dies intestate, his mother’s children inherits his estate. But there is no statute so far changing the common law as to authorize the bastard either to inherit his putative father’s estate, or that of his grandfather through his mother. In the case under consideration the mother of the complainant departed this life before the death of the grandfather, Richard Brown; consequently the mother could not inherit any portion of Richard Brown’s estate, and the act of 1819, chap. 13, cannot operate and let in the bastard child as distributee of Richard Brown’s estate. By the acts of 1784, chap. 22, 1784, chap. 16, 1796, chap. 14, if any child of the intestate shall die in the life time of the parent, his or her lineal descendants shall be held to represent their parent, and shall be entitled to the portion of the grandfather’s or grandmother’s estate, as their father or mother would have been entitled to if living. No other can be a lineal descendant but a legitimate child, a bastard is excluded by the common law term, and they were held incapable of inheritance, for many years after these statutes of ’84 and ’96. They are partially admitted in certain specified cases, by the act of 1819, which does not admit them to inherit the estate of the grandfather. This being the law of the land, the defendant’s plea, being put down for argument, the facts therein stated being admitted before the Court, the complainant’s bill was properly dismissed.
   Turley, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

The only question presented in this case is, whether the complainant, a bastard child, can as the representative of her mother, inherit the estate, real and personal, of her grandfather.

It is very clear that she cannot. In the latin of the common law, á bastard is styled, films nullius; he therefore has no heritable blood, and could not, by the principles of the common law, inherit any estate, whether real or personal, no matter from whom descending, though it were from his mother.

The act of 1819, chap. 13, sec. 1, has, to a certain extent modified this principle. It provides that, “when any woman shall die intestate, leaving natural bom child or children, and no legitimate child or children, such natural born child or children, shall take, by the general rules of descent and distribution, the estate, real and personal, of his, her or their mother, and should either of such children die intestate without child, his or her brothers and sisters shall in like manner take his or her estate.”

This modification does not go to the extent insisted on for the complainant. It only makes the base born child, the heir and distributee of the mother, if she have no legitimate child, but extends the right no higher, and of course, such child can inherit no estate, real or personal, under its provisions, from any relative lineal or collateral of the mother, but to this extent remains subject to the disabilities of the common law. This complainant then is not the heir or distributee of her maternal grandfather, and we, therefore, affirm the decree of the Chancellor, dismissing her bill of complaint.