Court Opinion

ID: 9865195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:26:56.491237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:51.914070
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Butler
specially concurring.
I concur in the result. With that part of the opinion, however, that holds, or seems to hold, that in adoption proceedings a court has power to decree that the adopting parent shall not disinherit the adopted child, I do not agree. The statute (C. L., § 5514) expressly states what decree or order shall be entered: “When the foregoing provisions are complied with, if the court is satisfied of the ability of the petitioner to bring up and educate the child properly, having reference to the degree and condition of the child’s parents, and the fitness and propriety of such adoption, it shall make an order, setting forth the facts, and declaring that from that date such child, to all legal intents and purposes, is the child of the petitioner, and that its name is thereby changed.”
The status created by adoption, and the rights, duties and obligations of the adopting parent and the adopted child are clearly defined by statute (C. L., § 5515): “The natural parents shall, by such order, be divested of all legal rights and obligations in respect to the child, and the child be free from all legal obligations of obedience *40and maintenance.in respect to them; snch child shall be to all intents and purposes the child and legal heir of the person so adopting him or her, entitled to all the rights and privileges, and subject to all the obligations of a child of such person begotten in lawful wedlock; but upon the decease of such person and the subsequent decease of such adopted child without issue, the property of such adopting parent shall descend to his or her next of kin, and not to the next of kin of such adopted child.”
If the court is satisfied that the circumstances justify the adoption, it makes the decree prescribed by section 5514, supra, and thereupon the results described in section 5515, supra, follow as a matter of course. The court is without power to change or modify or in anywise to alter those statutory results; to deprive either the adopting parent or the adopted child of any right or privilege conferred by statute, or to impose upon either of them burdens or obligations in addition to or other than those imposed by statute. If the court is not satisfied that the circumstances justify the adoption, it denies the application. There is no middle course.
There is nothing to prevent an agreement by the natural parent and the adopting parent, binding the latter not to disinherit the adopted child. A majority of my associates believe that such an agreement may be spelled out of the record before us. While it requires a decidedly liberal construction to arrive at such conclusion, I am not disposed, on this point, to disagree with my associates.
Me. Chief Justice Denison concurs in this specially concurring opinion.