A recent Mississippi Supreme Court involved two adopted children were set to inherit from their non-biological grandmother’s will. Another beneficiary sought to have their adoption set aside so they could not benefit from the grandmother’s estate. The court held that only the biological parents of the adopted children had the right to object to the adoption.
William Gartrell, III and Diane Weiss were married, each having two children from a previous marriage. In 1984, William adopted Diane’s two daughters, Jodey and Lisa. The girls were 18 and 15 at the time of the adoption. Their natural father, George Weiss, did not contest the adoption.
In 2002, William passed away leaving his two biological children Will and Cindy, as well as his adopted children Jodey and Lisa, as his heirs. In 2003, William’s mother Dorothy Gartrell passed away. She died leaving a will that left everything she had to her children William and Kay. The terms of the will specified that each child get half of her estate. And since William predeceased his mother his half would be inherited by his children, per stirpes. (Per stirpes is a legal term referring to how assets will be distributed in the event that a beneficiary predeceases the person who made the will. It also identifies the class who is eligible to inherit in place of the dead beneficiary. In this case, William’s “heirs at law” were specified to receive his share.)
When Dorothy passed away, her daughter Kay, the executrix of the will, petitioned the court to determine William’s “heirs at law.” The court found that William’s legal heirs were his two biological children, Will and Cindy, and his two adopted children, Jodey and Lisa. The court based their findings on Mississippi Code Section 93-17-13 (Rev. 2004), stated that by adopting Jodey and Lisa they were entitled to inherit in the same way as “brothers and sisters of the full blood by the laws of descent and distribution of the State of Mississippi.”
Kay did not agree with the findings of the court and brought a petition to contest the 1984 adoption of Jodey and Lisa. She argued that the court that granted the adoption did not have proper jurisdiction over the adoption or the biological father. The lower court found that the adoption lacked jurisdiction and invalidated it.
Jodey, Lisa, and their other Diane appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Mississippi arguing that Kay lacked standing to object to the adoption. Standing requires that the party have a personal stake in the issue in question. While it could be argued that Kay has a personal stake in the adoption, as it relates to the will, she does not have a stake in the adoption itself.
In Mississippi, both natural parents must be notified of the adoption and only a natural parent has a statutory right to object to an adoption. Cases in which natural grandparents objected to an adoption have held that even grandparents lack standing to object.
The court noted one exception in which an heir of an estate was allowed to attack an adoption of an adult male, In re Estate of Reid. This case is distinguished from Gartrell in part because the adoption in Reid had been obtained by fraud. The legal tool of adoption was abused as a way to secure an inheritance through fraud and undue influence. Once the adoption was issued, the adopted adult became the sole beneficiary of the estate. Evidence of fraud and undue influence will be allowed by the court to show lack of intent on the part of the creator of the will.
There was no issue of fraud or undue influence in this case. The adoption was based on blending a family and was not used as a device to ensure inheritance. Therefore, the court found no similarity between the current case and that of Reid. The Supreme Court of Mississippi held that only a natural parent may contest the adoption of a child and that Kay Gartrell lacked proper standing to contest the adoption of Jodey and Lisa.
Gartrell v. Gartrell, 2008-IA-00676-SCT (Dec. 17, 2009)
In re Estate of Reid, 825 So. 2d 1 (Miss. 2002)
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