Akers v. Johnson's Estate

• Decision Date: 08 June 1970
• Docket Number: No. 45864,45864
• Citation: 236 So.2d 437
• Parties: Connie AKERS, Mother and Next Friend of Ruby Telia Akers and Cynthia Louise Akers, Minors v. ESTATE of Dave JOHNSON, Deceased.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 437

236 So.2d 437

Connie AKERS, Mother and Next Friend of Ruby Telia Akers and Cynthia Louise Akers, Minors v. ESTATE of Dave JOHNSON, Deceased.

No. 45864.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 8, 1970.

Teller Biedenharn, Rogers & Marcus, Landman Teller, Jr., Vicksburg, for appellant.

Dent, Ward, Martin & Terry, Ernest Lane, III, Vicksburg, for appellee.

PATTERSON, Justice.

This is an appeal by Connie L. Akers, the illegitimate mother of two minor illegitimate children. She propounded a claim in the lower court for the benefit of her two minor illegitimate children against the estate of Dave Johnson, their putative paternal grandfather. At the conclusion of the trial in the Chancery Court of Warren County, the Chancellor accepted all of the facts as alleged by the claimant as true, but found as a matter of law that the illegitimate children were not legally entitled to inherit from the grandfather to the exclusion of his surviving brothers and sisters and their descendants.

The only assignment of error on appeal is that the court erred in construing Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated section 474 (1956) so that the brothers and sisters of the decedent would inherit to the exclusion of the decedent's grandchildren.

The claim propounded is for the benefit of the illegitimate children of an illegitimate mother against the estate of Dave Johnson who was alleged to be the father of Connie L. Akers, the mother of the claiming illegitimate children. Dave Johnson died intestate on August 4, 1968, having never married, but leaving surviving him brothers and sisters or their descendants. The issue before the Court is the determination of who is entitled under the law to inherit the personal and real property of the decedent.

Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated section 474 (1956) entitled Descent Among Illegitimates is as follows:

If any man beget a child or children by a woman whom he shall afterward marry, such child or children, if acknowledged by the man, shall, in virtue of such marriage and acknowledgment, be legitimate, and capable in law to inherit and transmit inheritance as if born in wedlock. All illegitimates shall inherit from their mother, and from her other children, and from her kindred, according to the statutes of descent and distribution; and the children of illegitimates and their descendants shall inherit from the brothers and sisters of their father or mother, whether legitimate or illegitimate, and from their grandparents. But the children of illegitimates shall not inherit from any ancestor or collateral kindred if there be legitimate heirs of such ancestor or collateral kindred, in the same degree, to whom the estate would otherwise descend. And the mother of an illegitimate, her other children, and her kindred, whether they be legitimate or illegitimate, shall inherit from an illegitimate according to the statutes of descent and distribution. (Emphasis added.)

The appellant contends the provision of the statute 'children of illegitimates and their descendants shall inherit from * * * their grandparents' is controlling since the statute, in plain language, states that they are entitled to inherit unless there are 'legitimate heirs * * * in the same degree.' After due consideration we are of the opinion that this construction of the statute is erroneous since it does not correctly reflect the legislative intent. In accord with familiar rules of construction the courts give consideration to the purpose of the statute, the object to be accomplished, and the intent of the legislature in enacting it. Thornhill v. Ford, 213 Miss. 49, 56 So.2d 23 (1952). We have also held that the proper method to determine the real intent of the legislature is to study the words used by it in context. Back-Acres Country Club, Inc. v. Mississippi State Tax Comm'n, 216 So.2d 531 (Miss.1968). What then was the intent of the legislature in enacting Section 474? At common law an illegitimate's plight was indeed harsh and is perhaps best expressed in the case of Alabama & V. Railway Co. v. Williams, 78 Miss. 209, 214, 28 So. 853 (1900) wherein we stated:

* * * At the common law an illegitimate could not inherit from his own mother or any one else, and he could not transmit by inheritance, except to the heirs of his own body. He might become the propositus of a new line of descent from himself, but, until a child was born to him in wedlock, he had no kindred-no father, no mother, no sister, no brother-and nothing which he did not acquire. All kinship was denied, and no blood connection recognized, except that the courts, for the actual protection of his life as a person in the body politic, would ascertain the natural mother, and, for the...