Court Opinion

ID: 9771828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:54:46.104049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:37.611688
License: Public Domain

ALDEN A. STOCKARD, Special Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
This is a roundabout attempt by third party beneficiaries to enforce only a portion of a contract for adoption by seeking to impose a constructive trust on property. In my opinion the alleged contract for adoption between the adoptive grandmother and attorney-guardian should be declared violative of public policy. This court should not place a “seal of approval” upon a contract whereby an adoptive grandmother in effect barters away her adoptive grandchildren for a property consideration; in this case an augmentation of her residual estate.
Also, the petition fails to show good consideration for the contract to adopt which is required in order to have a valid contract. Niehaus v. Madden, 348 Mo. 770, 155 S.W.2d 141 (1941). Yet the principa] opinion would permit an equitable partial enforcement of that contract by third parties who neither acted nor failed to act to their detriment by relying on the validity of the contract.
Enforcement at law or in equity of a contract to adopt should be refused when the welfare of the children involved would not be promoted, and certainly should be refused when enforcement would be to the detriment of the children. In this case, the majority opinion would permit a constructive trust on property in favor of strangers that would otherwise belong to the adoptive children, definitely to the detriment of those children, without any provision to assure to the children the benefits, if any, of the contracted adoption.
Finally, this is an equitable action. If the plaintiffs, as third party beneficiaries of the adoption contract, have been damaged by the alleged breach of the contract to adopt, they have an action at law for breach of that contract. If it be contended that the measure of damages is the value of the property they did not receive by way of inheritance, and that some or all is real estate resulting in an inadequate legal remedy, this equitable action is still discretionary. I would decline to entertain it and would leave the plaintiffs to their remedy at law.