Court Opinion

ID: 9623065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:27:12.856727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:22.697878
License: Public Domain

DOOLIN, Justice,
dissenting.
The Ginochio decision upon which the majority relies is not by any standard entitled to universal persuasion among jurisdictions. By relying on this California appellate court decision and thus avoiding an equal protection argument, the majority carefully ignores the line of cases handed down by the United States Supreme Court wherein that Court has held an illegitimate child may not be denied a cause of action for wrongful death of his mother because he is illegitimate,1 has struck down a workmen’s compensation statute which gave legitimate children a prior claim to recovery over illegitimates,2 invalidated a Texas law which denied to illegitimate children the right to paternal support while granting it to all legitimate children,3 refused to accept a state supported welfare program that discriminated against illegitimate children,4 held that refusal to allow an unwed father to show his fitness to have custody of his child is a denial of equal protection,5 and held that provision of Social Security Act under which only certain illegitimates are allowed disability benefits was discriminatory.6
Although the constitutional issue is not expressly defined in appellant’s briefs, the anathema of illegitimacy is of such critical character because of the rising number of out of wedlock births,7 that public interest and welfare requires us to consider whether the interpretation placed on the pertinent Oklahoma Statutes by the majority violates the equal protection requirements of the United States Constitution.8
Apparently the majority feels that 84 O. S.1971 § 213 applies only to legitimate children unless the father of an illegitimate has complied with the directive of 84 O.S. 1971 § 215, or the illegitimate seeks to take from his mother. § 215 does not make a child legitimate. It provides one method of proving paternity. I do not believe it is meant to be the exclusive manner.9 A ju*390dicial determination that a child is the child of a particular man should be a judicial determination for all purposes. It is illogical a child could be a child for one purpose but not for another. There appears to be little doubt that appellant is, as a matter of fact, the natural child of deceased. As a matter of law he is the child of deceased by virtue of the judicial determination. Where, as here, paternity is established, legitimacy should be irrelevant. The reason for requiring acknowledgment by the father would no longer exist, or be necessary.
§ 215, allows every child to be an heir of his mother, and provides a method of assuring that the child is really the child of his father before granting him the status of heir.10 It must be read as the Legislature’s method of preventing fraud, while rectifying the common law prohibition against inheritance by all illegitimates.
The intent of the Legislature was not to prevent an illegitimate child from inheriting, but to provide a method of proof of parenthood to allow him to inherit while preventing fraudulent claims. The cardinal rule' of statutory construction is to give effect to legislative intention.11
If 84 O.S.1971 § 213 read in conjunction with § 215 is deemed to include all illegitimate children whose parenthood has been proved, then it does not violate the equal protection requirement.12 Legislation must be read in the spirit of the Constitution.13
Unlike Oklahoma, all states have not provided for inheritance by illegitimates. In Labine v. Vincent, 401 U.S. 532, 91 S.Ct. 1017, 28 L.Ed.2d 288 (1971), by a-5-4 decision with a strong dissent, a Louisiana Statute which prohibited inheritance by an illegitimate child from either the mother or the father was upheld becáuse the Court felt such discrimination had a rational basis in view of state’s interest in promoting family life and directing the disposition of property left within the state.
This is not the policy endorsed by our Legislature. Although our statutes, unlike Louisiana’s, do not subscribe to this type of total discrimination, the majority would hold our statutes permit all children to inherit from their mother, but only legitimate children and illegitimate children whose father has acknowledged them in writing to inherit from their father. This interpretation is unreasonably and invidiously discriminatory, even under Labine.
In Ginochio, cited by the majority as good authority, the will of deceased father affirmatively showed he intended to disinherit his illegitimate child. Such is not the case here. If deceased had intended to disinherit his child he had ample opportunity to include such provision in his will. He did not choose to do so. Appellant is a pretermitted heir.
There is a consistent thread running through the cited United States Supreme Court decisions. Discrimination must have a reasonable basis. The majority’s unwarranted interpretation of- our statutes has none. Our statutory scheme under §§213 & 215 does not deny the appellant the right to inherit as an heir. Because there is no real doubt as to his paternity there is no *391reasonable basis on which to exclude him. I therefore dissent.
I am authorized to state that HODGES, V. C. J., IRWIN and LAVENDER, JJ., concur in the views herein expressed.

. Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436 (1968); Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441 (1968).

. Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 31 L.Ed.2d 768 (1972).

. Gomez v. Perez, 409 U.S. 535, 93 S.Ct. 872, 35 U.Ed.2d 56 (1973).

. New Jersey Welfare Rights Organization v. Cahill, 411 U.S. 619, 93 S.Ct. 1700, 36 L.Ed.2d 543 (1973).

. Stanley v. Illinois; 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972).

. Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, 94 S.Ct. 2496, 41 U.Ed.2d 363 (1974); But cf. Mathews v. Luoas, 427 U.S. 495, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651 (1976). Read together these two decisions comprise a portrait of obfuscation on this critical issue of exactly where the illegitimate child stands in relation to his otherwise statutory and constitutional rights.

. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1975- (96th edition) Washington, D.O., 1975 advises us that in 1973 the percentage of illegitimate live births in the United States had risen to 13⅞.

. Simons v. Brashears Transfer & Storage, 344 P.2d 1107 (Okl.1959).

. If a father pleads guilty to a paternity charge or otherwise publicly acknowledges a child, the child becomes legitimate by *390virtue of 10 O.S.1971, § 55, and thus is entitled to inherit from his father. See in the matter of the Estate of LaSarge, 526 P.2d 930 (Okl.1974). Although we disagree with majority’s holding that appellant was not deemed to be legitimate because of the judicial determination of paternity and his subsequent actions, this is not the real basis of this dissent.

. We deal not with that portion of 84 O.S. 1971 § 215 that states: “but he does not represent his father or mother by inheriting any part of the estate of his or her kindred, either lineal or collateral etc.”; nor do we deal with the inheritance from a decedent to ,the lawful issue of a deceased child.

. Chapman v. Koenig, 205 Okl. 402, 238 P.2d 357 (1951).

. See Green v. Woodard, 40 Ohio App.2d 101, 318 N.E.2d 397 (Ohio 1974); Equal Protection — Descent and Distribution — Il-legitimates, 44 Cinn.L.Rev. 415 (1975); Illegitimacy and Equal Protection, 49 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 479 (1974).

. Thomas v. Reid, 142 Okl. 38, 285 P. 92 (1930).