Case Name: In the Matter of the Estate of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased. Bonnie Gustin et al., as Executors of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased, Petitioners; Evelyn Beckman, Respondent, and Connie Morral et al., Appellants
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 2005-10-27
Citations: 6 N.Y.3d 36
Docket Number: 
Parties: In the Matter of the Estate of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased. Bonnie Gustin et al., as Executors of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased, Petitioners; Evelyn Beckman, Respondent, and Connie Morral et al., Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 6
Pages: 36–48

Head Matter:
[ 843 NE2d 140, 809 NYS2d 500]
In the Matter of the Estate of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased. Bonnie Gustin et al., as Executors of Mildred B. Murphy, Deceased, Petitioners; Evelyn Beckman, Respondent, and Connie Morral et al., Appellants.
Argued September 15, 2005;
decided October 27, 2005
POINTS OF COUNSEL
Devorsetz Stinziano Gilberti Heintz & Smith, P.C., Syracuse {Kevin G. Roe of counsel), and Welch & Zink, Corning, for appellants.
The testatrix’s dispositions to her adopted-out child by name were dispositions to her issue and are subject to the anti-lapse provisions of the EPTL; adopted-out children are considered “strangers” to their natural families under the Domestic Relations Law only for the limited purpose of construing a testamentary disposition to a class. (Matter of Robert Paul P, 63 NY2d 233; Matter of Best, 66 NY2d 151; Matter of Seaman, 78 NY2d 451; Matter of Landers, 100 Misc 635.)
Kenneth F. Joyce, Bath, William B. Joint and Sayles & Evans, Elmira (Clover M. Drinkwater of counsel), for respondent.
The anti-lapse statute does not cause a testatrix’s bequest to her adopted-out son, identified in the will by name but not by relationship, to pass to his issue where the child was adopted by strangers and the testatrix did not expressly include his issue. (Matter of Best, 66 NY2d 151; Matter of Fabbri, 2 NY2d 236; Matter of Sawyer, 4 AD3d 800; Matter of Seaman, 78 NY2d 451.)

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
Rosenblatt, J.
In her will, the testator (birth mother) bequeathed real and personal property to her adopted-out son. Because she outlived him, we must decide whether the bequests lapsed or pass to his issue under New York's anti-lapse statute (EPTL 3-3.3).
In 1924, the testator, Mildred B. Murphy, gave birth to a son, Arthur. Arthur went to live with Jim E. and Mae Manning and was known throughout his childhood as Clair Willard Manning. The Mannings officially adopted him in 1944, when he was 19. Mildred had no other children. Clair and his birth mother reestablished their relationship some time after World War II.
In 1998, Mildred executed the will that is the subject of this suit. In the will, Mildred left her Keuka Lake cottage to Clair, along with $8,000 and half of the residuary estate. In addition to her bequests to Clair, she willed cash gifts to two of Clair's children. The will also provided that the remaining half of the residuary estate go to her sister-in-law, Evelyn Beckman. Clair died on March 4, 2001, survived by four children. Mildred died 11 months later, on February 14, 2002.
After the will was admitted to probate, the executors brought this construction proceeding to determine the fate of the bequests to Clair. Beckman asserts that the bequests lapsed and should become part of the residuary estate. She argues that Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2) mandates that adopted-out children be treated as strangers for the purpose of construing the will of a birth relative and that the bequests were not saved by EPTL 3-3.3. The Surrogate agreed, ruling that the gifts to Clair lapsed in their entirety and passed to Beckman with the whole of the residuary estate. The Appellate Division affirmed the decree. We granted leave and now reverse.
The appeal before us involves the interplay of EPTL 3-3.3 and Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2). EPTL 3-3.3, the anti-lapse statute, provides that when a bequest is made to the issue or siblings of the testator, and the beneficiary predeceases the testator, the gift does not lapse but vests in the beneficiary's surviving issue. The anti-lapse statute was designed "to abrogate . . . the common-law rule that a devise or legacy to [a predeceased child] lapsed and to substitute the children of the deceased child for the primary object of the testator's bounty" (Pimel v Betjemann, 183 NY 194, 199 [1905]). The harshness of that common-law rule, more often than not, defeated the testator's intention (id. at 200). We must determine whether the testator's adopted-out child, expressly named in her will, qualifies as her issue within the meaning of EPTL 3-3.3. In simplest terms, the issue is "issue."
In 1986, the Legislature revised subdivision (b) of EPTL 3-3.3, along with Domestic Relations Law § 117, defining "issue"—for the purpose of triggering the anti-lapse provision—to "include adopted children and their issue to the extent they would be included in a disposition to 'issue' " under EPTL 2-1.3 and Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2). Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2) (a) provides:
"Except as hereinafter stated, after the making of an order of adoption, adopted children and their issue thereafter are strangers to any birth relatives for the purpose of the interpretation or construction of a disposition in any instrument, whether executed before or after the order of adoption, which does not express a contrary intention or does not expressly include the individual by name or by some classification not based on a parent-child or family relationship." (Emphasis added.)
The Manning children contend that by naming their father— the adopted-out child—as a beneficiary under her will, Mildred altered his status from "stranger" to "issue" for the purposes of the anti-lapse statute with respect to that gift. Because much of Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2) (a) would lose meaning if we were to rule otherwise, we agree with this contention and reverse the Appellate Division order.
Until 1985, when we decided Matter of Best (66 NY2d 151 [1985]), it was not clear that adoption had any effect on the rights of adopted-out children to take under the testamentary instruments of their birth relatives, though the Legislature had limited the rights of such children in intestacy. In Best, we held that an adopted-out child will not take in a class gift from a birth relative unless that child is "specifically named in a biological ancestor's will, or the gift is expressly made to issue including those adopted out of the family" (id. at 156).
The Legislature has amended section 117 several times since. In 1986, it adopted a modified version of the Best rule (L 1986, ch 408, § 1). Among the modifications, it allowed children adopted by certain other relatives within the birth family to take through class gifts under both lines. The Law Revision Commission had recommended that, where these intrafamily adoption rules did not apply, adopted-out children should be excluded from membership in "a class of persons based upon natural relationship . . . unless the will or instrument expresses a contrary intention." The Legislature employed this language and expanded upon it by providing that such children are strangers to a birth relative's will if it "does not express a contrary intention or does not include the individual by name." (L 1986, ch 408, § 1.) The 1987 revision added a parallel provision to section 117 (1) for intrafamily adoption in intestacy situations, although, of course, without provision for the contrary intention of the decedent (L 1987, ch 499).
We based our decision in Best on three major policy considerations. We emphasized the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of adoption records, preserving the stability of real property titles and assimilating the adopted child into the adoptive family (66 NY2d at 155-156). These concerns are no less substantial today than they were 20 years ago, but we note that none of them is implicated in this case. We rely here on statutory construction.
Beckman argues, and the dissent agrees, that the language of section 117 supports her position. Because section 117 specifically states that "adopted children and their issue" are strangers to the will unless one of the conditions is met, the "individual" to be included by name (her argument goes) is any person claiming a right under the will as issue. Beckman contends that, because Clair (although named) had died, his children may not take because they are not individually named.
This argument would be plausible only if we read section 117 in isolation, devoid of its relationship to EPTL 3-3.3. Indeed, as the Manning children argue, if we were to read the section as Beckman and the dissent advocate, the testator's expressed contrary intention or naming of the adopted-out child would have no practical or legal effect other than to allow the named individual to take the bequest. The named adopted-out child would then be in the same position as any other named nonrelative in any will. Surely the Legislature did not enact section 117 (2) (a) merely to state the obvious: that someone named in a will may inherit.
Moreover, the provisions in section 117 (1) and section 117 (2) are parallel insofar as possible, considering the inevitable differences between intestate distribution and probate of a will. This was a primary consideration in the 1987 revision, which added provisions for intestacy similar to those promulgated the year before for testamentary instruments (Matter of Seaman, 78 NY2d 451, 459 [1991]). In Matter of Seaman we held, concerning the treatment of intrafamily adoptions in section 117 (1):
"The issue's right to inherit from the natural family was severed, however, in 1963 when the Legislature severed the adopted child's right to so inherit. From this, it follows that when the Legislature restored the right of the adopted-out child to inherit from the natural family under the circumstances specified in Domestic Relations Law § 117 (1) (e), it also restored the right of the adopted-out child's issue to do so" (id. at 456 [citations omitted]).
As a result, we concluded that it was unnecessary for the Legislature to refer expressly to the adopted-out child's "issue" when enacting section 117 (1) (e). The statute implicitly restored inheritance rights to the issue of the adopted-out child when it restored them to the child (id. at 457).
The dissenting opinion reads EPTL 3-3.3's reference to section 117 (2) as a broad reference to the classes of intrafamily adoptions that preserve birth inheritance rights, rather than as a reference to section 117 (2) (a) (dissenting op at 48). That interpretation is untenable because section 117 (2) is the subdivision of section 117 that covers adopted-out children in the testacy context. A will remains a prerequisite for anti-lapse, and section 117 (2) is the only subdivision of section 117 to which the anti-lapse statute could be referring. Our dissenting colleague contends that, by allowing testators to invoke the anti-lapse statute for their adopted-out children, our reading "does not treat the issue of adopted-out children comparably under the laws of intestacy and testacy" (dissenting op at 47). The dissenter's argument, however, fails to note that section 117 (2) (a) is the very provision that marks the necessary differences be tween the two contexts. If there could be a perfect parallel, there would be no need for separate subdivisions.
The question before us is analogous to the one answered in Seaman, and it is not one of the few instances that section 117 requires us to treat differently between testacy and intestacy. To follow the legislative parallel between testamentary law and the law of intestacy as much as the necessary differences allow, we must treat the restoration of Clair's status as issue as the restoration of that status to his children as well.
We therefore conclude that, under Domestic Relations Law § 117 (2) (a), adopted children and their issue are ordinarily "strangers" to their birth relatives, and thus are excluded from class gifts. They are not "strangers" when the bequest is to a named adopted-out child—here, to Clair Manning. If "stranger" or the three "nonstranger" conditions of section 117 (2) are to have any meaning, it must mean that biological children who are not "strangers" are "issue" under the anti-lapse statute. We therefore conclude that when Mildred Murphy named her adopted-out son Clair as a beneficiary of her will, she triggered the condition in section 117 (2) that made him a nonstranger, and thus her issue, with respect to the relevant bequest. His children, therefore, are entitled to the benefit of the anti-lapse statute.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs payable out of the estate, and the matter remitted to Surrogate's Court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
. The relevant provision reads:
"Fifth. I give, devise and bequeath to CLAIR W MANNING of Wellsboro, PA the real property owned by me on Keuka Lake, located at 132 and 134 West Lake Road, consisting of a cottage, extra lot and boathouse together with all of the contents and property located therein and thereon. I further give and bequeath to Clair W Manning the sum of Eight thousand dollars ($8,000.00)."
. Adoption did not exist at common law, and New York did not authorize it by statute until 1873 (L 1873, ch 830). That first adoption statute explicitly excluded inheritance from among the rights acquired or lost through adoptive relationships. Fourteen years later, the Legislature amended the statute to allow adopted children to inherit through both birth and adoptive Unes (L 1887, ch 703). The matter stood that way through the enactment of the Domestic Relations Law and several versions of what, in 1961, became Domestic Relations Law § 117 (L 1961, ch 147). It was not until 1963 that section 117 was amended to preclude adopted-out children from inheriting through their birth relationships, except in cases of adoption by a stepparent. A further amendment in 1966 clarified section 117's scope by expressly limiting the inheritance preclusion to intestate descent and distribution. (See generally Matter of Seaman, 78 NY2d 451, 455-458 [1991]; Recommendation of Law Rev Commn to 1986 Legislature, Bill Jacket, L 1986, ch 408, at 10; French, Note, When Blood Isn't Thicker than Water: The Inheritance Rights of Adopted-Out Children in New York, 53 Brook L Rev 1007, 1011-1012 [1988].)
. Recommendation of Law Rev Commn to 1986 Legislature, at 37, Bill Jacket, L 1986, ch 408, at 46.