Court Opinion

ID: 9542285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:32:41.169284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:27.849828
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Dissenting.
The testator in this case established in her will a testamentary trust. She provided that certain income under the trust should go to the “issue" of her brother and sisters and that the corpus should go to the “children” of her brother and sisters. The testator’s brother married and had a son; later, the brother divorced the son’s mother. The mother remarried *143and her new husband adopted the son. Is the son one of the “issue” of the testator’s brother (the son’s natural father) for purposes of distributing the trust income? Is the son one of the “children” of the testator’s brother for purposes of distributing the trust corpus?
Deciding these two questions is a straightforward process. In seeking the testator’s intent, we look to the ordinary meaning of the words “issue” and “children” unless the will or the circumstances under which it was made disclose a different intention by the testator. (Prob. Code, former §§ 105, 106; Estate of Russell (1968) 69 Cal.2d 200, 210 [70 Cal.Rptr. 561, 444 P.2d 353].) In this case, there is nothing in the will or the circumstances surrounding it that shows the testator intended the terms “issue” and “children” to carry any meaning other than their ordinary ones. The ordinary meanings of the terms “issue” and “children” include the biological relationship between a child and its natural parents—at least when, as here, the child is bom in wedlock and lives with its natural parents for a significant period of time— even if the parents later divorce and the child is then adopted by the new spouse of one of the parents. Therefore, the son in this case is entitled to share in the trust the testator established.
The majority concludes to the contrary that the son was not one of the “issue” or “children” of the testator’s brother, his natural father with whom he lived for his first four years. The majority reaches its conclusion by first creating a legal presumption that in the case of adopted children the meanings of the terms “issue” and “children” as used in a will should be determined not by the ordinary meanings of the terms but by applying the intestate succession statutes. In the majority’s view, the son is the issue of his natural father only if he could inherit from his natural father’s family (including the testator) under the intestate succession statutes. Because at the time of the testator’s death the son could not have so inherited, the majority concludes that the son is not one of the “issue” or “children” of his natural father.
The majority’s approach ignores the mies of will construction established by the Legislature as well as the previous decisions of this court. At the times relevant to this case, the Legislature had provided that California courts were to use the intestate succession statutes to identify the beneficiaries of a class gift only if the testator had used one of the following terms: “heirs,” “relations,” “nearest relations,” “representatives,” “legal representatives,” “personal representatives,” “family,” “nearest (or next) of kin.” (Prob. Code, former § 108.) Because “issue” is not one of the terms listed, this court has held that a testator using that term to define a class does not incorporate by reference the class of takers under the intestate succession *144statutes. (Estate of Pierce (1948) 32 Cal.2d 265, 269-270 [196 P.2d 1].) Rather, when a testator designates a class of beneficiaries by using a term other than those listed in former section 108, we should apply the ordinary meaning of that term, absent evidence of a different intent by the testator. (Prob. Code, former § 105; Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210.)
I
Helen Lathrop made a will one month before her death in 1972 in which she left the residue of her estate to a testamentary trust. Being childless, she left the income of the trust to her five sisters and her brother, Earl Mitchell, subject to this condition: “Provided, however, that if any of them shall be deceased during any part of the term of this trust, leaving issue then living, said issue shall take the share of income to which the deceased of them would have been entitled if then living . . .” (italics added). Upon the death of the last sibling the trust is to terminate and its corpus is to be distributed “to the children then living of my brothers and sisters” (italics added).
Earl Mitchell, the testator’s brother, was the father of Jon Newman. According to the parties, Newman was bom in 1936 during the marriage of Mitchell and Newman’s mother. According to the tmstee’s verified petition, which the parties do not dispute, Newman lived with his natural parents from his birth until the age of four. Thereafter, Mitchell and Newman’s mother divorced, and the latter remarried. Newman was adopted by his stepfather in 1942.
Mitchell, Newman’s natural father, died in 1993. After Mitchell’s death, Newman settled a lawsuit brought against him by a minor in the State of Washington by assigning a 25 percent share of the trust income to the minor. The latter sought to attach Newman’s share of the tmst income by filing a petition in the San Francisco Superior Court, which granted the order. Thereafter, trustee Wells Fargo Bank petitioned for instmctions pursuant to section 17200 of the Probate Code as to whether Newman was entitled to share in the trust’s income as Mitchell’s “issue” and whether Newman was entitled to share in the tmst’s corpus as one of Mitchell’s “children.” Other beneficiaries, who had not previously participated, appeared in the superior court proceeding opposing the minor’s claim that Newman was a beneficiary under the tmst. Newman also appeared in the proceeding.
The superior court, in deciding the tmstee’s petition, concluded that the term “issue” should be defined by reference to the law of intestate succession as it existed at the time the testator executed her will (Prob. Code, former § 257). Applying that law, the superior court ruled that Newman, *145having been adopted by his stepfather, was not the issue of his biological father, Mitchell, because Newman would not have inherited from Mitchell had Mitchell died intestate. The Court of Appeal disagreed, and held that the term “issue” should be defined by reference to the law of intestate succession in effect at Mitchell’s death when the interest of his “issue” vested. The Court of Appeal remanded the case to the superior court to apply that law. The interested beneficiaries petitioned this court for review.
II
Testators often identify the recipients of their bounty by describing a class of persons in general terms rather than by individually identifying its members. In this case, Lathrop’s testamentary trust identifies the “issue” of her brother and sisters as a class of income beneficiaries and identifies the “children” of brother and sisters as the class of beneficiaries of the trust corpus. The task here is to ascertain whether Newman is a member of either or both classes, that is, whether Newman is the “issue” or one of the “children” of Mitchell, Newman’s natural father and the husband of Newman’s mother at the time of Newman’s birth.
As the majority notes, the goal of this inquiry is to give effect to the intent the testator expressed in the words of the will. (Prob. Code, § 21102, former § 101.) To discern the testator’s intent, a court looks to the words of the will and the circumstances in which it was made. (Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210; see also Prob. Code, former § 105.) The words of the will are to be understood in their ordinary sense, unless the will itself or its surrounding circumstances disclose that the testator intended another meaning. (Prob. Code, former § 106; Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210-211.)
The majority asserts that the terms “issue" and “children” are inherently ambiguous whenever a child has been adopted into or out of a family and “the will is not specific with regard to the rights of the adopted child.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 134.) It takes the position, however, that these asserted ambiguities should be resolved not by examining the circumstances surrounding the will to decide which meaning the evidence best supports but by applying a legal presumption that the testator intended that the meanings of those terms be determined by applying the laws of intestate succession. It then focuses on the question of whether to apply the intestate succession laws as they existed at the time of Mitchell’s death or those laws as they existed at the time of the making of the will and the testator’s death. The majority chooses the latter approach and concludes that Newman is not the issue of his biological father, Mitchell, because Newman would not have *146inherited through Mitchell under the intestate succession provisions for adopted children set forth in Probate Code former section 257 (hereafter also referred to as former section 257), the intestate succession law in effect at the time the will was drafted and at the time of the testator’s death.
I disagree. In my view, the proper place to begin is by examining the ordinary meanings of the terms “issue” and “children” as they are used in the will. Our statutes as they existed at the time Lathrop’s will was drafted and at her death require us to give the terms “issue” and “children” their “ordinary and grammatical sense, unless a clear intention to use them in another sense can be collected, and that other can be ascertained.” (Prob. Code, former § 106; see also Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210-212.) (This provision continues in substance today as Probate Code section 21122.)
The ordinary and grammatical sense of the term “issue” encompasses the biological, blood relationship of parent and offspring. (Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 271 [ordinary meaning of “lawful issue” is “offspring of parentage”]; Webster’s Third New Intemat. Diet. (1961) p. 1201 [defining “issue” as “offspring, progeny . . . : one or more persons descended from a common ancestor”].) Adoption by a stepparent cannot alter or sever this blood relationship.
This court’s conclusion in In re Darling (1916) 173 Cal. 221 [159 P. 606] supports this understanding of “issue.” In that case, A died intestate, A’s son B predeceased A, and B’s son (A’s grandson) C had been adopted out of the family. The intestate succession statute at the time provided that, under the circumstances attending A’s death, A’s property would go to the “issue” of B. The question in Darling was whether, with respect to his grandfather A, C remained B’s “issue” notwithstanding his adoption. This court, applying an ordinary understanding of the term “issue,” said yes. (Id. at p. 226.) Similarly, here Newman, with respect to Lathrop his aunt, remained Mitchell’s issue notwithstanding his adoption by his stepfather after his parents’ divorce.
Likewise, the ordinary and grammatical sense of the term “children” encompasses the biological, blood relationship of parent and offspring. (Webster’s Third New Intemat. Dict., supra, p. 388 [defining “child” as “a son or a daughter: a male or female descendant in the first degree: the immediate progeny of human parents”].) Again, this relationship is not severed when a stepparent later adopts the child. Therefore, in this case Newman remains Mitchell’s child within the ordinary meaning of the term.
Next, I consider whether Lathrop’s will uses the terms “issue” and “children” in a related sense, for a relationship established by the will between *147different terms that it uses can shed light on the meaning of those terms. Like the majority, I conclude that the meanings of the terms “issue” and “children” are interrelated in this case because of the way Lathrop used them in the will. In addition to distributing the trust income to the “issue” of her siblings, Lathrop’s will provides that upon the death of her last-surviving sibling the trust corpus is to be distributed “to the children then living of my brothers and sisters” (italics added). I conclude, as does the majority, that in the context of the will as a whole Lathrop intended by her use of the term “children” to distribute the corpus to the first generation of the “issue” of her siblings. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 135.) There is nothing that suggests to the contrary that she intended for any of the first generation of her siblings’ “issue” to share in the trust income but not also to share in the corpus as one of the “children,” or that she intended for any of her siblings’ “children” to share in the corpus but not to share in the income as an “issue.”
Thus, the meanings given to those two words as used in the will should be congruent and harmonious with each other. The ordinary meanings that I have discussed above of the terms “issue” and “children” are congruent because, under those meanings, the term “children,” designating the first generation of progeny, composes the first generation of “issue.” This accords with the will’s use of those two terms, for it too uses the term “children” to designate the first generation of “issue.”
There is no evidence in the will of a “clear intention” (Prob. Code, former § 106) by Lathrop to use the term “issue” in any but its ordinary sense; the majority so concedes. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 135 [“it seems clear that she used the term ‘issue’ in its commonly understood meaning”].) Nor is there any evidence in the will of a “clear intention” by Lathrop to use the term “children” in any but its ordinary sense.
Finally, I consider the circumstances under which the will was drafted to see whether these circumstances show that Lathrop intended the terms “issue” and “children,” contrary to their ordinary meaning, to exclude Newman, the biological and legitimate son of Lathrop’s brother Mitchell. (See Prob. Code, former § 106; Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210-212.) The circumstances under which the will was drafted are these: Mitchell and Newman’s mother were married at the time of Newman’s birth. Newman lived with Mitchell for four years before his parents divorced, his mother remarried, and he was adopted by his stepfather. A testator in Lathrop’s position would ordinarily be aware of the birth of the first child bom to her brother and his wife, for such occasions are joyous and celebrated events in our society. There are no facts suggesting that Lathrop did not know of Newman’s birth and existence. Likewise, the ordinary testator *148in Lathrop’s position would continue to think of her brother’s son as his child and issue even after her brother and his wife were divorced. It would be most unusual for such a testator to describe her brother as childless or without issue simply because he had divorced the mother of his child. Nor would such a testator have said her brother was childless, or denied that Newman was her brother’s child, once her brother’s ex-wife remarried and the new husband adopted her brother’s child. The typical testator in Lathrop’s position would have continued to think of Newman as her brother’s child and issue; nothing suggests that Lathrop did not. Accordingly, the circumstances surrounding the making of the will do not show any intention, much less a “clear intention,” by Lathrop to reject the ordinary meanings of the terms “issue” and “children” in favor of some other sense. (See Prob. Code, former § 106; Estate of Russell, supra, 69 Cal.2d 200, 210-212.)
For the reasons set forth above, I conclude that Newman is Mitchell’s “issue” under the will and is entitled to a share of the trust’s income. I also conclude that Newman is entitled to share in the corpus when it is distributed as one of the “children” of Lathrop’s siblings.
III
The majority concludes to the contrary that Newman is not one of the “issue” or “children” of his natural father Mitchell because under former section 257 and the other laws of intestate succession Newman could not have inherited through Mitchell from Lathrop and other relatives of Mitchell after his adoption by his stepfather. The majority’s approach is wrong, for it ignores the statutory conditions that the Legislature has established for using the intestate succession laws to determine a class of beneficiaries under a will, as I discuss below.
The laws of intestate succession identify the heirs who take the property of a decedent who dies without a will. Decedents who die with a will— testators—have also used these laws in drafting their wills to designate a class of beneficiaries. One noted commentator has explained a testator’s typical purpose in using the intestate succession statutes to define a class of beneficiaries: “[T]he average testator . . . usually does so after he has exhausted his specific desires as to the beneficiaries of his bounty and he has in effect said, ‘Now let the law take its course.’ ” (5 Casner, American Law of Property (1952) Class Gifts, § 22.57, p. 415.)
For centuries, testators have given property to the class of persons who, in the absence of a will, would inherit from the testator or from someone else under the laws of intestate succession. A testator can do so by expressly *149referring to the intestate succession laws; testators have also used various shorthand terms such as “heirs” to implicitly designate the class of persons taking under the intestate succession laws. (See, e.g., James v. Richardson (1678 K.B.) 83 Eng.Rep. 172, 533, 89 Eng.Rep. 353 [will made in 1657 devising property to “heirs males of the body . . . now living”]; Davies v. Lowndes (1838 Ex.) 132 Eng.Rep. 872, 875 [will made by testator who died in 1772 leaving property to “right and lawful heir at law”]; In re Whitcomb (1890) 86 Cal. 265, 271 [24 P. 1028] [will providing that “ ‘said remainder shall go to my heirs at law’ ”].)
Our Legislature has recognized that testators often wish to incorporate by reference the intestate succession laws to designate a class of persons to receive property under a testamentary scheme. To accommodate this desire and to bring certainty to the process of determining whether a testator has implicitly incorporated by reference the intestate succession statutes to designate a class of beneficiaries, the Legislature long ago established a bright-line rule as to which terms were sufficient for that purpose.
When our Civil Code was first enacted in 1872, the Legislature included former section 1334 as one of the rules for the interpretation of wills. Under that section, “[a] testamentary disposition to ‘heirs,’ ‘relations,’ ‘nearest relations,’ ‘representatives,’ ‘legal representatives,’ or ‘personal representatives,’ or ‘family,’ ‘issue,’ ‘descendants,’ ‘nearest’ or ‘next of kin’ of any person, without other words of qualification, . . . vests the property in those who would be entitled to succeed to the property of such person, according to the provisions of the Title on Succession, in this Code.” (Civ. Code, former § 1334, italics added.) Thus, under former section 1334, use of the term “issue” in a will to designate a class of beneficiaries under a will did incorporate by reference the laws of intestate succession.
In 1931, however, 41 years before Lathrop’s will was drafted, the Legislature enacted a new Probate Code. Among other changes, the Legislature revised former section 1334 of the Civil Code and recodified it as section 108 of the Probate Code (hereafter former section 108). In its 1931 revision and recodification of former section 108, the Legislature omitted “issue” from the list of terms that, under our rules of construction, incorporate by reference the laws of intestate succession. “A testamentary disposition to ‘heirs,’ ‘relations,’ ‘nearest relations,’ ‘representatives,’ ‘legal representatives,’ ‘personal representatives,’ ‘family,’ ‘nearest (or next) of kin’ of any person, without other words of qualification, . . . vests the property in those who would be entitled to succeed to the property of such person, according to the provisions of division II of this code [i.e., the intestate succession statutes].” (Former § 108.) Former section 108 was in effect at the time *150Lathrop’s will was drafted and at the time of her death. Since those events, it has been recodified twice; it continues in substance as Probate Code section 21114 and continues to omit “issue” from the list of terms that incorporate by reference the laws of intestate succession.
Nearly 50 years ago, this court recognized that the Legislature’s deliberate omission of “issue” from the terms listed in former section 108 meant that a testator’s use of the term “issue” to designate a class of beneficiaries no longer incorporated by reference the intestate succession laws. As Justice Roger Traynor explained: “Before its amendment in 1931 this section [i.e., former section 108] also included the term ‘issue.’ This amendment clearly indicates that the statute of succession was not to control the interpretation of the term ‘issue’ as used in a will.” (Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 269-270, italics added.)
Thus, a competent practitioner drafting Lathrop’s will in 1972 would have known that under our statutes of construction the word “issue” did not incorporate by reference the laws of intestate succession, and that if Lathrop wished to designate the class of those who would take from her siblings under the laws of intestate succession she would have to use one of the words specified in former section 108, such as “heirs,” or else set forth an express description of the class as consisting of those taking under the intestate succession laws. “When statutes like section 108 are not applicable, the rules of intestate succession apply only if the testator expresses an intention in the will to adopt such rules.” (Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 270.) Here, Lathrop expressed no such intention in her will; therefore, the laws of intestate succession do not govern the interpretation of the term “issue” in this case.
In reaching its contrary conclusion that the meaning of “issue” as used by Lathrop should be determined by looking to the laws of intestate succession, the majority ignores former section 108, the statute I discussed in detail above. Instead, the majority begins its analysis by citing a principle of will construction that, whatever its general validity, has no application here. The majority states as follows: “A testator is presumed to be aware of the public policy reflected in the statutory definitions of the terms used in a will at the time the will is executed and to intend that those definitions be followed in construction of the will unless a contrary intent is expressed in the will. This presumption is strongest when an attorney has drafted the will because ‘[w]here an instrument has been drawn by one skilled in the law, the presence of legal and technical terms is an indication that the legal term of art has been used, and therefore is to be accepted, in accordance with its legal definition. [Citations.]’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 136.)
*151This principle is irrelevant here because there is no applicable statutory definition of the term “issue” and it is not a legal term of art. Former section 257, the intestate succession statute addressing adopted children on which the majority relies, nowhere uses the term “issue” and does not purport to define it, much less define it to exclude adopted-out children.1 Former section 257 establishes who are takers of the decedent’s property when there is no will, not who are “issue” when that term is used in a will. In addition, as I explained earlier, former section 108 was expressly revised to delete “issue" from the list of terms it defined as incorporating the laws of intestate succession, showing the Legislature’s intent that “issue” not be defined by reference to the intestate succession statutes. (Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 269-270.)
Nor is “issue” a legal term of art that at the time Lathrop made her will and at the time of her death had a settled technical legal meaning excluding adopted-out children. This court similarly noted in Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 270, that our cases and statutes “do not purport to prescribe a standard meaning for the term[] . . . ‘lawful issue’ as used in wills or other private instruments, and are therefore not controlling in the interpretation of wills or other private instruments.” (See also 5 Casner, American Law of Property, supra, Class Gifts, § 22.2 at p. 246 [“The words ‘heirs,’ ‘heirs of the body,’ ‘next of kin’ and the like are fundamentally different from the words ‘children,’ ‘grandchildren,’ ‘issue,’ etc., in that they are technical words that have no meaning today independently of a statute on the intestate succession of property.”].)
The majority rests its conclusion that “issue” should be defined with reference to the intestate succession provisions of former section 257 on a decision of this court, Estate of Heard (1957) 49 Cal.2d 514 [319 P.2d 637]. In Heard, a testator’s testamentary trust named as beneficiaries her son or the latter’s “lawful issue.” (Estate of Heard, supra, 49 Cal.2d 514, 516.) The son adopted a child and then died; the question in Heard was whether the meaning of “lawful issue” included both natural and adopted children. (Id. at p. 517.) This court concluded that the growing social acceptance of adoption, under which adoptive and natural children were viewed as equals in every respect and which was reflected in the adoption laws and a whole range of *152other statutes, had enlarged the ordinary understanding of “lawful issue” to encompass not only biological parent-child relationships but also adoptive parent-child relationships. (See id. at p. 518 [referring to the “ ‘fundamental social concept that the relationship of parent and child, with all the personal and property rights incident to it may be established, independently of blood ties, by operation of [adoption] law’ ”].)
Contrary to the impression created by the majority, the Heard court did not determine the meaning of “lawful issue” by asking, as the majority does here, whether the adopted child could have inherited from the testator under the law of intestate succession set forth in former section 257 had the testator died intestate. Rather, the Heard court noted that under the intestate succession laws as they existed at all relevant times (the time the will was executed, the time of the testator’s death, and the time of the death of the testator’s son), the adopted child in question could not have inherited from the testator had she died intestate. (Estate of Heard, supra, 49 Cal.2d 514, 522.) This was because, prior to the 1955 amendment of section 257, an adopted child could inherit from an adoptive parent but not from the intestate relative of an adoptive parent. (Estate of Calhoun (1955) 44 Cal.2d 378, 384 [282 P.2d 880].)
The Heard court nonetheless held that the intestate succession statutes were not controlling “here where we are concerned not with inheritance but rather with whether the words ‘lawful issue’ used in a will includes [sic] an adopted child.” {Estate of Heard, supra, 49 Cal.2d 514, 522.) Thus, the Heard court concluded that the adopted-in child in that case was within the meaning of the term “lawful issue” and was entitled to receive property under the will even though under former section 257 and the other intestate succession laws the child could not have inherited from the testator. (49 Cal.2d at pp. 522-523.) In this case, I similarly conclude that the intestate succession statutes do not control the meaning of “issue” and “children” as used in Lathrop’s will here, and that Newman, the biological and legitimate son of Lathrop’s brother, is within those two classes of beneficiaries even though Newman, after his adoption by his stepfather, could not inherit from Lathrop under the intestate succession laws.
There are other reasons as well why Estate of Heard, supra, 49 Cal.2d 514, does not support the majority’s conclusion. As I have noted above, the question in Heard was whether the social and legal acceptance of adoption had expanded the meaning of the term “lawful issue” to encompass adopted children as well as biological children. In this case, there is no basis for contending that the social acceptance of adoption has contracted the ordinary understanding of “issue” or “children” so that those terms no longer include *153the biological parent-child relationship existing between Newman and Mitchell. Nor, in contrast to the policy that Heard relied upon of encouraging the treatment of natural and adopted children as equals in every respect, including in the making of testamentary gifts, is there any public policy that precludes the relatives of a natural parent from leaving gifts to a child adopted out of the family in a stepparent adoption.
Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that a principal reason a testator drafts a will is to escape the intestate succession laws, not to advance them. A decedent wishing to adhere to the policies and distributional scheme of the intestate succession statutes has no need of a will, but can simply let the law take its course. Thus, in the absence of a statutory presumption on the order of former section 108, a court should not conclude that a testator has implicitly and unspokenly adopted the intestate succession statutes as the testator’s plan of distribution unless there is evidence that the testator intended to do so. (Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265, 270 [“When statutes like section 108 are not applicable, the rules of intestate succession apply only if the testator expresses an intention in the will to adopt such rules.”]; see also Prob. Code, former § 106 [requiring us to interpret terms in a will in their ordinary sense unless testator has manifested a “clear intention” to use them in another sense].) Here there is none.
With respect to the two Court of Appeal decisions that the majority relies on, those decisions have little persuasive force, for in concluding that the meaning of “issue” is determined by the intestate succession laws they each ignore completely the contrary teachings of former section 108 and this court’s decision in Estate of Pierce, supra, 32 Cal.2d 265. (Estate of Russell (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 758 [95 Cal.Rptr. 88]; Estate of Haneberg (1971) 19 Cal.App.3d 643 [96 Cal.Rptr. 807].) In addition, they misread Estate of Heard, supra, 49 Cal.2d 514, in the same manner that the majority does, and they do not address any of the flaws of that misreading that I have set forth above.
Conclusion
At the time the will of the testator in this case was drafted, testators who wished to incorporate Probate Code former section 257’s rules of succession excluding adopted-out children had a ready avenue for doing so. They had only to use one of the following statutorily designated terms to define a class of beneficiaries: heirs, relations, nearest relations, representatives, legal representatives, personal representatives, family, nearest (or next) of kin. (Former section 108.) The testator here did not do so. Nor is there any indication in the will or its surrounding circumstances that the testator *154otherwise intended to use the terms “issue” and “children” to mean something other than their ordinary meanings.
Accordingly, the ordinary meaning of the words “issue” and “children” govern. Those meanings encompass children like Newman who are bom into a marriage and who, after the marriage ends, are later adopted by a stepparent, for even after adoption such children remain the progeny of their biological parents.
For the reasons stated above, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

At the time Lathrop’s will was drafted and at the time of her death, former section 257 provided: “An adopted child shall be deemed a descendant of one who has adopted him, the same as a natural child, for all purposes of succession by, from or through the adopting parent the same as a natural parent. An adopted child does not succeed to the estate of a natural parent when the relationship between them has been severed by adoption, nor does such natural parent succeed to the estate of such adopted child, nor does such adopted child succeed to the estate of a relative of the natural parent, nor does any relative of the natural parent succeed to the estate of an adopted child.”