Court Opinion

ID: 9722886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:54:15.800494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:44.382901
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting in part). If the majority opinion had been based solely upon the ground that the claimant *627Cosby had failed to prove a contract by the deceased to adopt him, I would not dissent therefrom.
Such a disposition of the case would have made it unnecessary for the court at this time to either adopt or reject the rule adopted by most other jurisdictions which have passed upon the question of specifically enforcing a contract to adopt made by a deceased person in so far as the same affects the intestate property of the deceased as distinguished from the status of the claimant. The majority rule is set forth in 2 C. J. S., Adoption of Children, p. 400, sec. 27, and quoted in the majority opinion. It holds that a contract of one person to adopt the child of another as his own, and acted upon by both parties during the obligor’s life, may be enforced after the latter’s death so as to entitle the child to take the same share in the property of the deceased not disposed of by will as the child would have received if legally adopted. Courts following this majority rule do not hold that the child takes such property as an heir, but rather as a claimant who has an enforceable contract. Such a contract is construed as having been made for the benefit of the child and the child is entitled to enforce it as a third-party beneficiary.
This majority rule is so in accord with humane considerations and the tendency of the law to more and more protect the interests of children that I can perceive of no justifiable reason why this court should summarily reject it. This tendency of expanding the rights of adopted children is manifested in our recent decisions of Estate of Holcombe (1951), 259 Wis. 642, 49 N. W. (2d) 914, and Estate of Nelson (1954), ante, p. 617, 64 N. W. (2d) 406, in contrast to the less favorable attitude expressed in Estate of Bradley (1925 ), 185 Wis. 393, 201 N. W. 973, and Estate of Matzke (1947), 250 Wis. 204, 26 N. W. (2d) 659.
The opinion of the court herein fails to discuss the issue of whether the majority rule is or is not salutary from the *628standpoint of what result is more desirable as being in accord with accepted principles of natural justice as evidenced by the trend of judicial decisions and legislative enactment in this field, but rather bases the rejection of the majority rule solely on the narrow ground that we are bound to do so by prior decisions of this court. In order to establish such past precedent the opinion points to no clear declaration to that effect, in any prior decision of this court, because there apparently is none. Instead resort is had to the printed briefs and case (not the opinion) in St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum v. Central Wis. T. Co. (1926), 189 Wis. 483, 206 N. W. 921, to establish that the court did reject the majority rule when it denied the respondent’s motion for rehearing without opinion.
When precedent is as obscurely hidden as this one was, who will be harmed by this court rejecting it on a later occasion by choosing to follow the rule adopted by almost every court which has considered the problem and one that is in keeping with the humane trend in the development of the law in this field ? The argument advanced against overruling a past decision of the court, which decision does not accord with generally accepted principles of equity and justice, is that it is often better that the law be certain than a just result be always reached in each case. This latter is especially true in those situations where the past precedent has laid down a rule of property, upon which the legal profession has relied in advising clients in the making of contracts, conveying lands or interests therein, or disposing of property by will.
In contrast to a precedent establishing a rule of property, we have one dealing with the available remedy for breach of a particular type of contract which is rather rarely made. The only persons who could complain by changing the rule are those who have breached a contract to adopt some child. *629It seems ridiculous that the legal representative of some deceased person of such class, who has knowingly breached a contract to adopt, made by him, should be permitted to claim that the decedent breached such contract on reliance of a prior rule of this court that no relief could be had against him for so doing, and it would, therefore, be inequitable to the interests of such decedent to now change the rule and grant an enforceable remedy to the child harmed by such breach of contract.
Even if the past precedent in this case constituted an opinion of this court which had in clear language rejected the majority rule, I would have no hesitancy in expressly overruling the same. The proper rule as to when past precedents in the form of decisions of this court should or should not be overruled was well stated by Mr. Chief Justice Rosen-berry in his dissenting opinion in Thomas v. Industrial Comm. (1943), 243 Wis. 231, 242, 10 N. W. (2d) 206, as follows:
“I do not question the general rule that a decision of this court considerately made should not be overruled except for strong and compelling reason. On the other hand, when the court is convinced that a prior decision is erroneous, in my opinion it should not hesitate to admit its error and correct it at the first opportunity except in cases where the decision has become a rule of property.”