Court Opinion

ID: 9847590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:02:40.228958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:21.357760
License: Public Domain

Justice Exum
dissenting.
I do not agree with the Court’s conclusion that by reason of the adoption of the two children by the second spouse of their natural mother their previous relationship to their mother is changed and they become lineal descendants of their mother by her second marriage. Of this marriage there are no lineal descendants. The statute on dissents, N.C.G.S. § 30-3(b), reduces the intestate’s share of the dissenting second surviving spouse if, among other things, the testator has no lineal descendants of the marriage to the second spouse. There being no question in the case about other conditions of this statute having been met, the surviving spouse’s share should be reduced in accordance with the statute’s terms.
I would hold, for purposes of determining Daniel Edwards’ dissenting share, that the children of testator whom he adopted remained testator’s lineal descendants from her first marriage. This seems to me the most principled result under the plain language of the pertinent statutes and the factual peculiarities of this case.
The majority errs first in its interpretation and application of the dissenting second spouse statute, N.C.G.S. § 30-3, and second in its analysis of testator’s relationship to her two children whom Edwards, petitioner herein, adopted. The majority has circumvented the plain language of the dissenting second spouse *711statute, N.C.G.S. § 30-3, and this Court’s five-part construction of that statute as enunciated in Vinson v. Chappell, 275 N.C. 234, 166 S.E. 2d 686 (1969). The statute and Vinson focus on the relationship of testator and his or her lineal descendants by the first or second marriage. What the statute deems important is the testator’s relationship to the children, not the surviving second spouse’s relationship to them. I acknowledge Richard and Lucile became Daniel Edwards’ lineal descendants when he adopted them. This, however, is not the determinative relationship for calculating his dissenting share. The majority circumvents N.C.G.S. § 30-3 by wrongly focusing on the “marriage” or “bloodline” from which Richard and Lucile are considered to have descended. We must determine whether they became testator’s lineal descendants during her second marriage.
Second, the majority errs in asserting the two children became testator’s lineal descendants by her second marriage because Edwards adopted them. It arrives at this mistaken conclusion by confusing the ramifications of simultaneous adoption by both' a husband and wife of a child who previously was a legal stranger to them, and the singular adoption by a stepparent of his or her spouse’s child(ren). These are different events which call for different results.
Adoption is a personal, singular process. Chapter 48 of our General Statutes, which deals with adoption, discusses “petitioner” in the singular and never, as the majority seems to assert, mentions adoption by a family. See, e.g., N.C.G.S. § 48-4(a), (b) (1984). Perhaps the more common perception of adoption is where a husband and wife simultaneously adopt a child who was born to others (the biological mother and father) and was related to neither adoptive parent before adoption. The majority correctly states the result under our statutes and cases in that instance: all ties with the biological father, mother and relatives are extinguished, thereby preventing, for example, biological parents and children from inheriting through or from one another. But the majority misapplies that doctrine to the case at hand, where only one adoptive parent replaces only one corresponding biological parent. Thus, the authority cited in support of the majority opinion, notably the opinion I authored in Crumpton v. Mitchell, 303 N.C. 657, 281 S.E. 2d 1 (1981), is inapposite.
*712Neither a “family” nor a “couple” adopted Virginia Edwards’ two youngest children; one man, their stepfather Daniel Edwards, did. Testator and her five children constituted a family before Edwards adopted the two youngest children of his second wife. A truer rendition of the facts would be that Richard and Lucile, the children Edwards adopted, gained a new father. They had and continue to have a biological family composed of their mother and their siblings. Their adoptive father replaced only their biological father and extinguished the adopted children’s ties only with their biological father and his bloodline.
N.C.G.S. § 48-7(d) dictates “this adoption [notwithstanding the consent of the biological parent] shall not affect the relationship of parent and child between such spouse [here, testator] and the child.” Although the majority strains to reach a different result by saying the relationship remains intact “in this limited situation,” I read “shall not affect” to mean exactly that, without limitation. The relationship between testator and her natural children remained unchanged despite the children’s acquisition of a new father and the resulting obliteration of any relationship with their biological father and his blood relatives.
In summary, the principle the majority fails to apprehend is that adoption is an act by an individual, and a new relationship results only to the extent a new parent replaces a biological or previous adoptive one. Thus, testator did not become the mother and ancestor of Richard and Lucile upon their adoption by Edwards.
Nor does my position undermine what the majority correctly perceives to be the legislature’s intent to have adopted children treated legally in all respects as natural children. Richard and Lucile will under my view of the case enjoy the same legal status and rights vis-a-vis Edwards as Edwards’ biological children. The only party whose rights are in question in this case is Edwards. My view carves out no special exception regarding the rights of adoptive children; under it Richard and Lucile’s rights would be unaffected. On the other hand the majority’s position seriously undermines the testator’s testamentary intent to the detriment of all her children, an intent which, under the circumstances here, the dissenting second spouse statute was designed to protect.
*713The Court’s argument that it promotes the policies underlying our adoption statute to consider an adoption by one of the parties to a marriage to be an adoption by the marriage has disturbing ramifications. That the General Assembly did not intend this result is clear when the second proviso of N.C.G.S. § 48-4(b) is considered:
Provided further that if the petitioner is the biological parent of the child to be adopted and the other biological parent [not the spouse of the adopting parent] of the child is living, the spouse of the petitioner may choose not to join in the petition but shall indicate agreement to the proposed adoption by affidavit which shall be incorporated into the adoption proceeding.
Suppose two children were born to the marriage of mother A and father B. B thereafter died and A married C, who subsequently became the father of an illegitimate child by a woman other than his spouse. C adopted the illegitimate child with A’s consent but not joinder. Clearly the child’s natural mother would continue to be its mother for all purposes, and her relationship to the child would be unchanged. If A and C together produced no natural children, upon A’s death, C should not be able to claim under the second surviving spouse statute that A was survived by lineal descendants of the second marriage simply because C adopted his own natural child during that marriage. The two provisos of N.C.G.S. § 48-4(b), if properly construed, militate clearly against such a result. Yet under the Court’s “adoption by marriage” approach, Cs argument would prevail.
Finally I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that testator somehow “joined in” the adoption by virtue of her consent to it and this “was tantamount to the couple’s producing their own offspring.” The majority concludes testator could not have joined in the adoption under the law as it existed when the adoption took place; therefore having done all she was legally permitted to do she should be considered as actually having joined in the adoption. I disagree. N.C.G.S. § 48-4(b), enacted in 1949, states a spouse in testator’s position “need not join in the petition,” thus implying testator, had she desired, could have joined in the 1970 adoption of the children by Edwards. Further, by stating “the spouse of the petitioner may choose not to join in the petition, but *714shall indicate agreement to the proposed adoption,” id., the legislature distinguished between joining in and consenting to an adoption and signaled its intent to be that consent is not tantamount to joining in an adoption. It is certainly, therefore, not tantamount to the biological mother and adoptive second husband father producing their own offspring.
For all of the foregoing reasons I vote to reverse the Court of Appeals.
Justices Frye and Billings join in this dissenting opinion.