Court Opinion

ID: 9668782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:26:05.863761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:48.108442
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion herein because I feel that the rule stated in Copeland v. State Bank & Trust Co., 300 Ky. 432, 188 S.W.2d 1017, 1023, is more in accord with the intent and purposes of our statutes concerning adoption and descent and distribution. The rule as stated therein is:
“ * * * when provision is made in a will for the child of some person other than the testator, an adopted child is not included, unless there is language in the will or circumstances surrounding the testator which make it clear that the adopted child was intended to be included; and the fact that the adoption was subsequent to the testator’s death raises a grave presumption against an intention to include such adopted child. Generally the terms ‘heirs’ and ‘issue’, as well as ‘children’ and words of similar import in a will, refer to natural or blood relationships and do not include an adopted child in the absence of circumstances clearly showing that the testator so intended; and we perceive no reason for assuming that Harry Baylor Hanger contemplated that a child adopted by one of his own heirs at law should take upon the death of the adoptive parent.”
The rule as stated was the law of this state for a long time until overruled in Major v. Kammer, Ky., 258 S.W.2d 506. The effect of the Copeland rule is that one adopted is not permitted to inherit or take from the estate of one not a party to the adoption proceeding. The right of inheritance is not a necessary incident to the relationship of adoption. 2 C.J.S., Adoption of Children, § 63 a, p. 452. Adoption effects a change of status between the parties to the adoption proceeding. The testatrix in the instant case was not a party to any adoption proceeding and the final disposition of her estate to one out of her blood line should not be permitted. Nothing could have been further from her intent than the result obtained therein by the perverted use of the adoption proceeding.
The majority opinion is wrong, in that it is against public policy to permit a wife to be adopted by her husband especially for the purpose of taking advantage of the *601estate of a dead person. The general conception of adoption statutes is that they are for the purpose of creating a parent and child relationship, with certain healthy and beneficial results obtained thereby. By amendment, our adoption statute has been engrafted so that it is not restricted to children. The construction of the statutes in the majority opinion is such as is condemned in 1 Am.Jur., Adoption of Children, Section 63, page 664, as follows:
“But it does not follow that an adoption statute should be liberally construed to divert from its natural course the descent of property left by those who are not parties to the adoption proceeding. Consanguinity is so fundamental in statutes of descents and distributions that it may only be ignored by construction when courts are forced so to do either by the terms of express statute or by inexorable implication. To prescribe a course of descent which will take property of deceased persons out of the current of their blood, the legislature must use explicit and unmistakable language.”
To the same effect is 2 C.J.S., Adoption of Children, 63 d, p. 45S. See also § 57 a, p. 449.
The approval of the proceeding in this case sanctions the unsavory actions of the parties which, if not wrapped in the privilege of the adoption statute, would border on constructive fraud. It also creates the confusing problem of whether a wife who has been adopted may claim as widow or child, or both, in her husband’s estate. It is no "answer to say that the remedy is legislative. The remedy is to overrule Major v. Kammer and return to the rule of the Copeland case.
CAMMACK and STEWART, JJ., join in this dissent.