Opinion ID: 75761
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Meaning of Child or Children under Waldo's will

Text: 16 In the construction of all wills, the court shall seek diligently for the intention of the testator and shall give effect to the same as far as it may be consistent with the rules of law. OCGA § 53-2-91. In the absence of an express contrary intention, it is assumed that the testator intended the law on the date of his death to control the disposition of his property under his will. Warner v. First National Bank, 242 Ga. 661, 251 S.E.2d 511, 513 (1978). Prior to 1949, [t]he disposition of the courts [wa]s to confine and limit the word `children' in its application, when it occur[red] in a will, to its natural import, excluding adopted children, except where the testator ha[d] clearly shown by other words that he intended to use the term in a more extensive sense. Comer v. Comer, 195 Ga. 79, 23 S.E.2d 420, 424 (1942). In 1949, Georgia statutorily amended its law to allow adopted children to take with the same rights as biological children. Thornton v. Anderson, 207 Ga. 714, 64 S.E.2d 186, 190 (1951). 17 The district court correctly concluded that the [u]nder the plain language of this amendment, the previous presumptions were reversed. A testator was no longer required to specifically note in his or her will that a bequest could also flow to non-blood related children; instead, if a testator desired to limit his or her bequest to only blood-relations thereby excluding adopted children, such a provision would have to be explicit. R5-218-7. However, the district court's reasoning was flawed when it concluded that legally recognized children were of the same status as adopted children. 18 If ... the will uses words which have a well-settled, definite meaning in the law, and there is nothing in the will itself to indicate that it was the intention of the testator that such words should be given any other meaning than that which the law gives them, then it is to be presumed that it was the intention of the testator that the words should be construed in that sense in which the law would ordinarily construe them. 19 Epstein v. First Nat. Bank, 260 Ga. 217, 391 S.E.2d 924, 926 (1990), (quoting MacLean v. Williams, 258, 116 Ga. 257, 42 S.E. 485 (1902)). 20 Georgia law in 1959 reveals only two possible classes of persons who could take under a grandparent's testamentary devise to his offspring's child or children, in the absence of other clear evidence of the testator's intentions: (1) natural, blood-related offspring, and (2) statutorily adopted children. The Children do not fall within either of theses classes, and there is nothing in Waldo's will or the record that contains any support for such a construction of Waldo's intent. 11 As the district court stated [h]ad Mickey simply intentionally wanted to ensure that the Contingent Legatees would not take under the will, he had many options: he could have adopted a child or otherwise begot his own child. R5-218-9. However, Mickey did neither, and, therefore, he did not leave a child or children within the meaning of Waldo's will. 21