Title: MacCallum v. Seymour's Administrator

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

MacCallum v. Seymour's Administrator  (95-233); 165 Vt 452; 686 A.2d 935

[Opinion Filed 13-Sep-1996]



       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                 No. 95-233


Gail McCallum                                     Supreme Court

                                                  On Appeal from
    v.                                            Franklin Superior Court

Philip Seymour's Administrator,                   March Term, 1996
Janet Seymour


Ronald F. Kilburn, J.

       Sandra E. Levine of Cheney, Brock, Saudek & Mullett, P.C., Montpelier,
  for plaintiff-appellant

       Kenneth Appel, St. Albans, for defendant-appellee

       Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, William H. Rice, Assistant
  Attorney General, and Albert H. Coons, Jr., Montpelier, for intervenor
  State of Vermont


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



       DOOLEY, J.   In this case, we are required to decide whether 15 V.S.A.
  § 448, which denies an adopted person's right of inheritance from
  collateral kin, is constitutional.  We conclude that the statute violates
  the common benefits provision of the Vermont Constitution, Chapter I,
  Article 7, and reverse the summary judgment granted by the Franklin
  Superior Court.

       The parties are sisters.  Plaintiff Gail McCallum is the daughter of
  Anita Murphy Seymour and the adopted daughter of Richard Seymour, who
  married plaintiff's mother after the death of plaintiff's father. 
  Plaintiff was adopted in 1952, when she was seven years old, one year after
  her mother's remarriage.  During that same year, defendant Janet Seymour
  was born of Richard and Anita Seymour, and the sisters grew up together as
  part of the Seymour family.

       Richard Seymour died in 1980.  In 1994, his brother, Philip Seymour,
  died intestate leaving no children, spouse or parents.  Both parties sought
  to share in the Philip Seymour estate as "legal representatives of [the]
  deceased brother" of the decedent.  The Franklin Probate

 

  Court, and thereafter the Franklin Superior Court, concluded that plaintiff
  could not share in the estate because of the provisions of 15 V.S.A. § 448:

     Upon the issuance of a final adoption decree the same rights,
     duties and obligations, and the same right of inheritance shall exist
     between the parties as though the person adopted had been the
     legitimate child of the person or persons making the adoption . .
     . .  The same right of inheritance shall exist between the person
     adopted and his issue on the one hand and natural or adopted
     children of the person or persons making the adoption and their
     issue on the other hand as though the person adopted had been the
     legitimate child of the person or persons making the adoption.
     However, THERE SHALL BE NO RIGHT OF INHERITANCE BETWEEN THE PERSON
     ADOPTED AND HIS ISSUE ON THE ONE HAND AND PREDECESSORS IN LINE OF
     DESCENT AND COLLATERAL KIN OF THE PERSON OR PERSONS MAKING THE
     ADOPTION ON THE OTHER HAND.
              
  (Emphasis added.)  Plaintiff does not challenge this construction of the
  statute.  Thus, the only question before us is whether the emphasized
  language of § 448 is constitutional, when applied to a person who was
  adopted as a child.

       Before we look at the legal standards that govern this challenge, it
  is helpful to look further at the statutory scheme and at the changing
  nature of adoption within Vermont and the United States as a whole.  Much
  of the history of the statutory scheme is set out in our recent decision in
  In re Raymond Estate, 161 Vt. 544,