DocketNumber: No. 2,767
Citation Numbers: 23 Ind. App. 432
Judges: Comstock, Wiley
Filed Date: 6/30/1899
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/24/2022
The questions submitted to the court in this case involve the construction of the statute of this
“(2) I will, give, and bequeath to my two sons, Thomas J. Miles and John A. Miles, in trust, all my personal estate, including money on hand and due me from every source, the same to be safely and prudently used and invested so as to yield an income; and from said personal estate and the income therefrom I desire and direct that my wife, Elizabeth Miles, and my two invalid daughters, to wit, Emily Miles and Jane Miles, shall be provided with a comfortable maintenance and support in sickness and in health, and a comfortable and suitable home so long as they or any of them shall live; and in the event that for any cause my sons above named fail to execute this clause of my will, I direct that the Hendricks Circuit Court shall appoint some competent and suitable person who shall fully execute this trust, and shall give bond for the faithful performance of his-duties in relation thereto. In the performance of the duties imposed by this provision of my will, I hereby authorize my said sons, Thomas J. Miles and John Miles, or whomsoever may act in their stead as aforesaid, to dispose of my salable personal property at such time and in such manner as will in their judgment best subserve the purpose hereinbefore specified, but such executors shall make a complete inventory of said personal estate, as required by law, to be filed with the clerk of the Hendricks Circuit Court, and shall report to said court at least once in every two years a true and complete account of all money received and paid out by them; and said executors shalLbe allowed fair and reasonable compensation for their services, to be allowed and approved by said court. .
“(11) It is my will, and I hereby expressly declare if to
“(12) ■ I hereby will and direct that all of the surplus of my estate, after the execution of the several items and clauses of this will above mentioned, shall be distributed among my several children, Martha, Thomas J., John A., and Samuel "W. Miles, so as to make them equal in the distribution thereof, and in the event of the death of any one of the last above named the shares due such as may be deceased shall go to the children of such deceased person, if there be.children; and if there be no children, then such share shall go to the survivors.”
The testator survived his wife. All of the children named in the clauses above quoted survived the maker of the will, but the two invalid daughters are now dead. The daughter Martha, who is named in item twelve of the will, is also dead. The testator’s three sons, Thomas J., John A. and Samuel W. are living, and have v'ives and children living. Martha was, when the will was made, and when she died, a married woman, the wife of one Columbus Walker, but never bore any children. During the lifetime of John Miles, the maker of the will, she, with the knowdedge of the testator, adopted the appellant, the adoption having been duly and regularly made under and by virtue of the statutes of this State, concerning the adoption of heirs. The appellant, as such adopted daughter, claims that she is in’ law the child of and is entitled to the share of her adopted mother, under item
The will designates a class, children, as beneficiaries. The question presented, therefore, is whether under the statute appellant is a child of Martha, the daughter of the testator. Can she be identified as a beneficiary named in the will? It is conceded that she cannot take by inheritance from the decedent. Adoption has been defined to be “the act by which a person appoints as his he'ir the child of another. Abney v. DeLoach, 84 Ala. 393, 4 South. 557. The object of adoption is' to place as nearly as possible the child adopted in the place of a natural one; to give it the position in the family as the child both of the husband and wife, conferring on it rights and privileges of a child. Among other consequences, thd effect of adoption is to cast succession upon the adopted in case of the intestacy of the adopting father. Adoption was unknown to the common law. It was regulated by law in Greece and Rome. In Rome'the system was in vogue before the time of Justinian. He reduced the system, which prior to his time was encumbered with formal ceremonies, to a code which simplified the proceeding, and from which modem legislation upon the subject has derived its chief features, adapting them to our wants. It was introduced as a part of the civil lawr in this country from France and Spain respectively to Louisiana and Texas. For‘the reason that it is purely statutory' and in derogation of the common law, it has frequently been said that it is to be strictly construed. This .expression occurs in the reported oases in which the jurisdiction of the officer or tribunal or the regularity of the proceedings' of adoption have been called in question. The statute is not to be so strictly construed as to
In Martin v. Aetna Ins. Co., 73 Me. 25, it was held that ■an adopted child falls within the terms “children” when there is no other person that answers that description.
In 5 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, p. 1098, it is stated that the words “child” or “children” usually include an adopted child,’citing Power v. Hafley, 85 Ky. 671, 4 S. W. 683; Stanley v. Chandler, 53 Vt. 624; Keegan v. Geraghty, 101 Ill. 40.
In Clifton v. Goodbun, L. R. 6 Eq. 277, the word “children,” in the will of a bachelor was held to mean illegitimate children, as he could have no other.
In Vidal v. Commagere, 13 La. Ann. 516, the court held, under a statute which allowed a married couple to adopt an orphan child, that when adopted the child became to all intents and purposes the child of the adopting couple. The court said: “We conclude, therefore, that, as by the common acceptation of the word adoption, the relationship of parent and child with all the consequences of that relationship is understood, as such was the legal meaning of the word under the former laws of Louisiana, and as such is its acceptation among civilians and those conversant with the sources of our laws, we cannot say that the legislature used the word in a more restrained sense; in a sense not understood in common parlance, not given in any dictionary, and not known in any system of laws. As by the former laws of Louisiana, the person adopted bore the relation of child to the person adopting, and inherited his estate, 'So we think the legislature, by the solemn expression of its will, intended
In Estate of Wardell, 57 Cal. 484, in construing the wore1 “children” in the statute of descent, the .court says, it “must relate to status, not to origin — to the capacity to inherit * * * its meaning includes all children upon whom has been conferred by law the capacity of inheritance.” In this case, a woman’s will was set aside because it made no provision for an illegitimate daughter, the statute providing that “When any testator omits to provide in his will for any of his children, or for the issue of any deceased child, unless it appears that such omission was intentional, such child, or the issue of such child, must have the same share in the estate of the testator as if he had died intestate.”
In Power v. Hafley, supra, the court, in discussing numerous cases upon the subject of adoption, said: “When the statute authorizes a full and complete adoption, the child adopted thereunder acquires all of tjie legal rights and capacities, including that of inheritance, of a natural child, and is under the same duties.”
The Supreme Court of this State has construed the statute in the following and other cases: Barnes v. Allen, 25 Ind. 222; Markover v. Krauss, 132 Ind. 294, 17 L. R. A. 806; Humphries v. Davis, 100 Ind. 274, 50 Am. Rep. 788; Krug v. Davis, 87 Ind. 590; Davis v. Krug, 95 Ind. 1; Humphries v. Davis, 100 Ind. 369; Paul v. Davis, 100 Ind. 422; Isenhour v. Isenhour, 52 Ind. 328; Keith v. Ault, 144 Ind. 626; Patterson v. Browning, 146 Ind. 160.
In Markover v. Krauss, supra, the court said: “ {He who is either adopted or arrogated is assimilated in many points to a son born in lawful matrimony.’ * * * Adoptive children, so long as they are held in ádoption, are in the position of children born to us. * * * The adopted child, while held in the bonds of adoption, was still in the position of a natural child, or a child born to the adopting father. Not, as is said in Humphries v. Davis, supra,
In Barnes v. Allen, supra, the court said: “Under §3 of the 'act regulating the adoption of heirs’ supra, they were the heirs of the adopting father, in the degree of children.”
In Krug v. Davis, supra, the court said: “The obvious purpose of the statute before us was to authorize the incorporation of the children of other persons into families desirous of assuming control over them, and in that way to sanction the formation of new and artificial family relations between
- “It is clear to us that the leading and controlling purpose of the framers of the statute under examination was to place an adopted child as nearly as possible in the place of a natural one; to give it a position in the family as the child both of the husband and wife. In a matter which so nearly concerns the interests of the wife and so deeply affects the welfare of the child, it is eminently proper that the husband and wife should unite in making the child their own. * * *
■ “The purpose which the statute we are examining was intended to accomplish was to enable parents to adopt as their own the children of others, and to secure for the adopted child the parental affection of both a father and a mother. As the adopted child of both the husband and wife, it would stand much more nearly in the place of a natural child than if it was made the child of only one of them by adoption, and this was where the legislature meant it should stand.
In Humphries v. Davis, 100 Ind. 274, the court said: “If, as the civil law so fully provided, a child of the adoptive son stood in the relation of grandchild to the adoptive ■ father, then the son himself must stand as the child of that father.”
Erom the case of Paul v. Davis, 100 Ind. 422, we quote the following: “The adoptive child does become the stirps or stock of inheritance, but to whom does it sustain this relation as to property acquired by inheritance from the adoptive parents? Doubtless, this relation exists between such a child and its children; they are of the original stock of descent, for they bear the relation of 'grandchildren to the adoptive parents. The legal relation does not end with the death of the adoptive child, and so the line of descent goes back, in default of wife or children, to the source from which the property came. * * *.
“In the earlier case of Barnes v. Allen, 25 Ind. 222, it is clearly implied that the relation between the adoptive parent and the adoptive child is that of parent and' child, with the reciprocal right of inheritance.”
The case of Markover v. Krauss, 132 Ind. 294, has been cited and approved, in Keith v. Ault, 144 Ind. 626, and in Patterson v. Browning, 146 Ind. 160. In the former, at page 628, the court says: “It is not questioned that by the statute for the adoption of heirs, already cited, the appellant was ‘entitled to receive all the rights and interest in the estate’ of her adoptive father that she would have received .if she had been his natural child. As a matter of fact, her rights as the child of James H. Lemmon were fully recognized in the partition of his real estate, a child’s full part
In Patterson v. Browning, 146 Ind. 160, there was a controversy between natural children and an adopted child, James 0. Inwood adopted one Bessie Miff el as his child, her name being changed at the time to Bessie Inwood. At the time of the adoption he had four natural children. He died seized in fee simple of certain real estate, leaving as his heirs the four natural children, the adopted child, and a childless second wife. The wife took under the statute the one-third of his real estate. She afterwards married one Browning, who adopted the said Bessie Inwood, and her name was changed to Bessie Browning. The widow died, and the natural children of Inwood claimed the one-third of their father’s estate which the widow had taken descended to them to the exclusion of the adopted daughter. The court said: “Upon this state of facts the appellants ■ claim that the real estate in controversy descended to them as the forced heirs of said widow to the exclusion of all others, and especially to the exclusion of the appellee.” The court reached the conclusion that the adopted child was entitled to inherit as a natural child.
Counsel for appellee insist that while the statute of this State fixes the status of the adoptive parent and the adopted child to be that of parent and child under adjudicated cases of our courts, that it by no means follows that they occupy the same relation to each other as to descent of property as a natural parent and child. The following distinctions are pointed out in the status of the adopted and natural child. The parent of a natural child who dies without issue in this State inherits the property of such child regardless of the source from which it was acquired. The adoptive parent only inherits such property as5 has come to the adopted child
The case of Davis v. Fogle, supra, cited by appellees, involved the construction of §2730 Burns 1894, providing that “if after the making of a will, the testator shall have born to him legitimate issue, who shall survive him, * * * the will will be deemed revoked.” The court decided that an adopted child was not -a child born to the parent adopting it. The will in question did not provide that in case of the death of any of the children named, the share of the deceased should go to his “legitimate issue,” provided he had legitimate issue born to- him who should survive him. Appellees strongly rely upon the case of the New York Life Ins. Co. v. Viele, 22 App. Div. 80, 47 N. Y. Supp. 841. The facts in that case showed that the testatrix, Mary. Griffin, removed from America to Saxony, in the year 1855. She executed a will August 6, 1878, in which, after making several speci
Tke testatrix died at Dresden, Saxony, March 9, 1888, where she had resided for many years. ETer daughter Emily was married to Major Lengnick, a citizen of Saxony. Mrs. Lengnick had had two children, both of whom died in 1872. She continued to reside at Dresden, until her death in 1893, having had no children except the two who had died in 1872. At the time of the making of the will, Mrs. Lengnick was about forty years old, and living with her husband at Dresden, but was in poor health. In the year 1873, one year after the death of her two natural children, and about five years before the execution of the will in question, Mrs. Lengnick and her husband adopted, Tinder the laws of the Kingdom of Saxony, a niece of the husband, Olga Eelicate Lengnick, who it is conceded was legally adopted under the provision of the Saxony law, and without any limitation in the contract of adoption against her right to inherit. And she insisted as the adopted daughter of Mrs. Lengnick she was the lawful issue of Mrs. Lengnick, and as such was entitled to the trust estate that was created by the third clause of the will. The court held that it was clear that the testatrix did not intend that this share of her estate, given to her daughter Emily for life, should, upon her death, go to
It must be further remembered that the meaning of a last will is to be ascertained first from its language, when free from ambiguity. The testator knew of the adoption of the appellant nearly eighteen months prior to his death. It is the theory of appellees that he believed that no children would be born to Martha. Had he designed to exclude her from the participation in his estate, the time and opportunity were ample to have made that purpose known. The will-bears evidence of the skill and learning possessed by the attorney drafting it, inconsistent with the theory that apt words were omitted from lack of either. The testator died with the knowledge that appellant, in law, though not in fact, was the child of Martha, and that a portion of the residuum of his .estate would go to the children of Martha upon her death. He must be presumed in using the word “children” with no other designation to have so used that word in view of the statute and its interpretation by the Supreme Court.