Court Opinion

ID: 9618233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:09:15.28196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:26.441464
License: Public Domain

HINES, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because the opinion of the majority is premised upon an ill-supported finding of testamentary intent based upon the faulty and perilous legal conclusion that the term “lawful,” when used to describe blood descendants named in a will, necessarily precludes biological children born out of wedlock.
As the majority sets forth, in this case the would-be biological child of the testator, Regina Gordon Todd, is attempting to obtain a child’s portion of the estate of the late John E. Buffington. Buffing-ton’s legitimate daughters, Beth Buffington Hood and Ginger Buffington Folger, petitioned the probate court to exclude Todd, as a matter of law, from any inheritance under their father’s will. And, construing the facts in a light most favorable to the non-movant Todd, as it was obligated to do, the probate court quite rightly refused to grant Hood and Folger the summary judgment they sought. The evidence, viewed in the appropriate legal posture, demonstrated that Buffington was aware of Todd, believed her to be his biological daughter, and apparently had a good relationship with her; Buffington went so far as to name Todd as the beneficiary of two life insurance policies. Buffington even acknowledged Todd as his daughter in sworn testimony in an unrelated legal proceeding. Thus, there is substantial evidence to support Todd’s familial claim and to find, at a minimum, the existence of a genuine issue of material fact regarding her being Buffington’s daughter. Although the majority acknowledges this, it inexplicably proceeds to find that the unresolved issue of paternity is of no moment to the possibility of Todd’s inheriting as one of Buffington’s children. It does this by a mixture of factfinding in the guise of discerning testamentary intent and then reaching the legally dubious conclusion that the “plain terms of the will,” without question, reflect Buffington’s aim to exclude Todd.
The majority notes that Todd is not specifically named in the will, nor was a trust expressly created for her under the will, and thereby concludes by “negative implication” that Todd was purposefully bypassed as a beneficiary. However, any implication to that *169adverse effect should control only if there is “such a strong probability that an intention to the contrary can not he supposed.” Pylant v. Burns, 153 Ga. 529, 533 (112 SE 455) (1922). That is not the situation in this case. In fact, the general bequests and devises under the will do not specifically name the legitimate daughters either. And, while a testator’s decision to designate beneficiaries by name, as a general matter, indicates the intent that the beneficiaries take under the will as individuals, there may exist other language in the will which demonstrates a controlling intention that the beneficiaries take as a class. Whitlock v. Lawson, 260 Ga. 520, 521 (397 SE2d 433) (1990). Indeed,
[m]ere designation by name does not ... in all cases show that the persons were dealt with as individuals, and not as a class[;] the intention of the grantor or testator must be gathered from the whole instrument; and if there are other words used which show that he had the persons named in mind as a class, this intention will he allowed to control. Where persons are designated by name, and language is also used which indicates that the maker of the instrument had them in mind not as individuals but as members of a class, it must be determined which idea was uppermost or controlling in his mind.
Id. So, key in this case is the designation “children,” which is defined as “lawful blood descendants.” (Emphasis supplied.) The majority then leaps to the conclusion that by using the term “lawful,” Buffington meant for only Hood and Folger to share in his estate, and to exclude Todd, clearly as his “unlawful” issue. However, our precedent does not require this Court to interpret the ambiguous language “lawful blood descendants” to mean exclusively in-wedlock children. That is why the majority relies upon cases from foreign jurisdictions to reach its pivotal ruling that the term “lawful” equates to “legitimate,” for the purpose of disinheriting Todd. Such ruling not only works a possible injustice in this case, but has an effect significantly more far-reaching; by so holding, this Court not only crafts a term of legal art that will control the construction of untold wills and the distribution of estates, perhaps contrary to the intentions of the testators, but takes a giant step backwards in the development of the law in regard to the rights of biological children born without the benefit of marriage. Simply, it is unwise for this Court to hold, as a matter of law, that a child horn outside of marriage is to be deemed “unlawful” for the purposes of inheritance under a will which contains the above definition of “children.” Even the foreign authority cited by the majority questions the wisdom of *170doing so. For example, in Carey v. Jaynes, 265 SW3d 801 (Ky. App. 2008), the Kentucky court construed the phrase “lawful blood descendants” to exclude an illegitimate child because Kentucky law had traditionally held the word “lawful” in that context to mean “legitimate or born of a lawful marriage.” However, in so doing, the Kentucky court acknowledged the obvious conflict between such holding and the “evolution in constitutional law and statutory changes with respect to recognizing the rights of illegitimate descendants.” Id. at 804. This Court should not be quick to follow the example of issuing a holding so at odds with the evolving law regarding the rights of children born out of wedlock. The current probate code permits a child born out of wedlock to inherit from his or her father if the child presents “other clear and convincing evidence that the child is the child of the father.” OCGA § 53-2-3 (2) (A) (v). Even though it appears that this case does not present a question of intestacy, the laws governing the construction of wills cannot be made in a vacuum, but rather with the full recognition of the laws of intestacy which, of necessity, are examined and modified by the General Assembly in order to keep pace with societal needs and realities.
Decided May 17, 2010.
Caldwell & Watson, Wade H. Watson III, Laura K. Bonander, Hulsey, Oliver & Mahar, Samuel L. Oliver, Thomas D. Calkins, for appellant.
Cook, Noell, Tolley, Bates & Michael, J. Vincent Cook, Jay W. Cook, Robert C. Irwin III, for appellee.
Simply, this Court should not usurp either the broad province of the General Assembly in expressing the public policy of this State or the narrow role of the factfinder in this case. Unfortunately, the opinion of the majority does both.
I am authorized to state that Justice Thompson joins in this dissent.