Opinion ID: 2385632
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Decisions of the Supreme Court

Text: Discussion of the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court in Labine , and cases coming after it, is difficult because the members of that court are sharply divided, usually five to four. There are many separate opinions of the justices. The conflicting considerations are (1) on the side of the child, the equal protection clause and invidious discrimination; and (2) on the side of the state, its legitimate purpose in the orderly disposition and settlement of estates, the integrity of the family unit, and encouraging legitimate family relationships. Of these, the just and orderly disposition of property at death was regarded as most persuasive. The difficulty of proof of paternity was a major problem, but it was not regarded as insurmountable. The facts of the three Supreme Court cases appeared to play a major role in the decisions. Each dealt with relationships between an alleged father and his child. None dealt with grandparents. In Labine , an illegitimate child in Louisiana made a claim against his father's estate. The father left no will. The father and the mother of the child, who did not marry, had appeared before a state agency of Louisiana. The father formally acknowledged that the child was his. That, under Louisiana law, did not entitle the child to inherit from the father. A statute provided that [i]llegitimate children, though duly acknowledged, cannot claim the rights of the legitimate child. The exception was that if the father, who acknowledged the child, left no wife or other kin, then the child would inherit instead of there being an escheat to the State. The statutes of Louisiana provided for forced heirship among legitimate members of a family. Laws also required support among members of the family. Illegitimate children could be adopted, but there was no adoption in Labine . The opinion in Labine by Mr. Justice Black upheld the Louisiana law. The emphasis was on the state legislature's power to make rules to establish, protect, and strengthen family life as well as to regulate the disposition of property .... While the court indicated that it did not necessarily agree with the statutory scheme, it found nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment which would invalidate the statutes. Mr. Justice Black wrote, [a]bsent a specific constitutional guarantee, it is for the legislature, not life-tenured judges of this Court, to select from among possible laws. Mr. Justice Harlan concurred: With all respect to my dissenting Brethren, I deem little short of frivolous the contention that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits enforcement of marital obligations .... Mr. Justice Brennan, for himself and Justices Douglas, White, and Marshall, strongly dissented. Emphasis was placed on the [official] public acknowledgment of the child, and that it was the prejudice of bygone centuries which punished the hapeless and innocent illegitimate children. Taking exception to the reference to actions of life-tenured judges, who had therefore been courageous in the filed of equal protection, the dissent found no reasonable basis for the invidious discrimination against illegitimates. The Supreme Court had the matter again in 1977 in Trimble . As in Labine , there had been formal state action in Illinois which determined the child was the daughter of the father. A court had entered a paternity order which required the father to pay support for the illegitimate daughter. The Illinois statute authorized inheritance if the parents married and [not or ] the father acknowledged that the child was his. The Illinois Supreme Court had upheld its statute on two grounds. The first basis was the promotion of legitimate family relationships. Mr. Justice Powell opened the court's opinion by saying that, [a]lthough the [Supreme] court noted that this justification [for the statute] had been accepted in Labine , the opinion [of Mr. Justice Black] contains only the most perfunctory analysis. The second basis for the holding of the Illinois court was orderly establishment of a method of transmitting property on death when there is not a will. The Supreme Court recognized such a genuine state interest, but felt that there must be alternate methods for legitimating the child without jeopardizing the orderly settlement of estates. The only method offered by Illinois was marriage and acknowledgment. The barrier was insurmountable. In this, the court found the statute to be flawed. The holding was that there was no rational basis for the statute, it constituted invidious discrimination between illegitimate and legitimate children, and it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Justice Rehnquist, for himself, the Chief Justice and Justices Stewart and Blackmun, strongly dissented on the basis of Labine and what the dissent considered the true intent of the Fourteenth Amendment to be: The Equal Protection Clause is itself a classic paradox, and makes sense only in the context of a recently fought Civil War. The court's opinion had expressed difficulty in its judicial task in deciding Trimble . Mr. Justice Rehnquist wrote that the `difficulty' of the `judicial task' is ... a self-imposed one, stemming not from the Equal Protection Clause but from the Court's insistence on reading so much into it. In 1978, the Supreme Court again considered the subject in Lalli v. Lalli, 439 U.S. 259, 99 S.Ct. 518, 58 L.Ed.2d 503. Indicating the division among the justices, there are five opinions in Lalli . The plurality opinion is by Mr. Justice Powell for himself, the Chief Justice, and Mr. Justice Stewart. There are separate concurring opinions by Justices Stewart, Rehnquist and Blackmun. The dissent is by Mr. Justice Brennan for himself and Justices White, Marshall and Stevens. In Lalli , a claim was made for an illegitimate son. There was no will, no marriage between the alleged parents, and no adoption. The father had executed an instrument which gave his formal consent to the marriage of Robert Lalli who is my son who is under the age of 21 years .... The New York statute under attack required, in the absence of a marriage, formal proof of paternity. Legitimate children were not subject to the same requirement. The statute provided: An illegitimate child is the legitimate child of his father so that he and his issue inherit from his father if a court of competent jurisdiction has, during the lifetime of the father, made an order of filiation declaring paternity in a proceeding instituted during the pregnancy of the mother or within two years from the birth of the child. The Court of Appeals of New York had upheld the statute. The case was in the Supreme Court while it was considering Trimble . The Supreme Court returned the case to the New York court for further consideration in the light of Trimble . The New York court again upheld the statute, and the case returned to the Supreme Court. This time, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. First, the Supreme Court held that the consent to marry, formally executed by the father, and which referred to the child as my son, did not constitute a formal acknowledgment of the child. This is explained in footnote 11 of the plurality opinion. Second, the opinion found reasonable alternatives to legitimatize a child. It distinguished the Trimble case because Illinois required both formal recognition of the child and marriage. The Lalli opinion, while scholarly, is detailed and may not be briefly summarized here. As we understand it, the legitimate state interest is the just and orderly disposition of property at death. A major consideration was a balancing between (1) reasonable alternatives for legitimation which were not unduly burdensome, (2) the disruptive effect of later challenges against estates. The difficulty of securing evidence of paternity was a major consideration. The court found reasonable the institution of suit during the lifetime of the father. [4] The court found it unnecessary to pass on the two year statute of limitations. Mr. Justice Blackmun, in concurring, stated that he would overrule Trimble . He wrote that, I therefore must regard Trimble as a derelict, explainable only because of the overtones of appealing facts .... He regarded the court as returning to Labine . While Mr. Justice Stewart, in concurring, did not agree that Trimble was a derelict, he found significant differences between the New York and Illinois statutes. He agreed with Mr. Justice Powell's convincing opinion.