Court Opinion

ID: 9586695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:07.041425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.942676
License: Public Domain

Bell, Judge,
concurring specially. • While the case of Macon, Dublin &c. R. Co. v. Porter, 195 Ga. 40 (22 S. E. 2d 818) leaves in doubt the decision‘as to whether'a child legally adopted by both an adopting mother and father would1 be entitled to recover for the homicide of the natural father-under Code § 105-1302, this doubt in' my opinion has- been clearly resolved in the later case of Sears v. Minchew, 212 Ga. 417 (93 S. E. 2d 746), by Chief'Justice Duckworth, who in considering the 1949 amend*757ment to the adoption law (Ga. L. 1949, p. 1157), construed the amendment as not being intended to take-from the adopted child any rights it already had. In this case Chief Justice Duck-worth said: “The language of-the Georgia statute, which must be .studied for an answer to the other question- as to - whether an adopted child is divested of his right to inherit from its natural parents, is: ‘the' parents of the child shall' be divested of all legal rights of obligations from them to the child or' from the child to them . . -.’ The language' is plain and unambiguous whether or not it expresses1 the legislative intent at the time this legislation was passed. The subject -of the sentence is the word ‘parents,’ and it refers 'to the divesting of their legal rights 'or obligations to the child of from 'the child. It does not refer to the rights of the child to- divest it of anything whatsoever, and the adoption statute' being in derogation of the common law, such would be necessary to take fr'om the child any rights of inheritance under the laws of descent' and distribution [citing cases].
■“It is insisted that the 1949 amendment -to the adoption law repealed -by implication the right of the child to inherit from its natural parents; since the adoption statute as amended fully replaced the natural parent or parents with the adopting parents, and by such laws the adopted child is deemed to- be ‘a natural child of petitioner or petitioners’ for adoption-. This amendment clarified the rights of the child adopted, but it certainly did not intend to take from that child any rights it already had. Nor does the adoption statute fully replace the natural relationship- with a new set of parents with 'all the-rights and benefits of- the natural parents, since'the statute clearly points out that the petitioner or petitioners may nevef inherit from the child. The argument 'is also'made that'the result is that the adopted child'would have two--sets of-parents.' Certainly a child would have under this law, natural parents, which he must have to come into this world, and adopted parents, who-have been given certain -legal rights, although-the natural parents would no longer be held legally íésponsible for the child’s care and welfare-; but the law cannot abrogate the actual birth and blood relationship between them. ' ' ■
*758“As stated in the Lefkoff case [189 Ga. 554, 6 S. E. 2d 687, 133 A. L. R. 738] statutes are not understood to effect a change in the common law beyond that which is clearly indicated by express terms or by necessary implication. There was no express intent to amend the statute of descent and distribution here, and there is certainly no implied amendment taking from children their rights to inherit from the blood.”
While this opinion specifically was in reference to the right of a child to inherit from its natural parents under the common-law rights of descent and distribution as codified in the Georgia law, the case clearly enunciated the principle applicable here that the adoption of the amendment of 1949 did not intend to take away from the adoptive child any rights it already had.
Obviously, when this adopted child was born, it possessed the rights granted to it as a child by Code § 105-1302. Applying Chief Justice Duckworth’s opinion as to this right, the amendment of 1949 did not take this right away from him. Accordingly, the child was authorized to recover for the wrongful death of its father under Code § 105-1302. By the same analogy the conclusive presumption authorized for the child under Code § 114-414 became available to the child at its birth and would not be taken away from him by the amendment of 1949 to the adoption statutes.
Accordingly, as Judge Nichols points out in the majority opinion, since Code § 114-103 prohibits a child or children from bringing an action for common-law negligence against the employer, which right the child or children would otherwise have, it would have the right to be awarded compensation under the Workmen’s, Compensation Act where the natural father was admittedly killed as.a result of a compensable accident.