Brassiell v. Brassiell
| Decision Date | 28 May 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 40178,40178 |
| Citation | 228 Miss. 243,87 So.2d 699 |
| Parties | John D. BRASSIELL et al. v. Cennie BRASSIELL. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Granville Jones, Meridian, G. L. Martin, Jackson, for appellants.
Russell Wright, Meridian, for appellee.
What is sought to be done in this proceeding is unknown to the legal jurisprudence of Mississippi. This is an interlocutory appeal from the action of the trial court in overruling a demurrer to the bill of complaint of the appellee, Cennie Brassiell. She alleges that when she was eight years of age, she and her brother Monroe Brassiell, Jr., who was fifteen or sixteen years of age, and her other brother, Willie Brassiell, who was eleven or twelve years of age, were in the care and custody of L. K. Ramsey and his wife Mamie Ramsey, who were then alleged to have stood in loco parentis to the said children; that Luther E. Brassiell and his wife, Mollie Brassiell, went to see the said Ramseys and told them that they, the said Luther E. Brassiell and his wife were childless; that they desired to take said children and adopt and raise them, as their own children, and make them their heirs; and that if the said Ramseys would turn said children over to them, the said Luther E. Brassiell and his said wife, it would be advantageous to the children to be so adopted.
It appears from the bill of complaint that at the time of the death of the said Luther E. Brassiell, who died intestate on the 7th day of January 1954, he owned the W 1/2 of SE 1/4 and S 1/2 of SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4, Section 15, and the E 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Section 22, Township 7, Range 17 East in Lauderdale County, and that he also owned about fourteen lots in the City of Meridian. The bill of complaint alleges that the chancery court of said county, being a court of equity, should regard that as done which ought to have been done, and that the complainant in the suit, Cennie Brassiell, is entitled to specifically enforce the alleged oral agreement between the said Luther E. Brassiell and his wife Mollie Brassiell, and the said L. K. Ramsey and his wife Mamie Ramsey, which has been fully performed between said L. K. Ramsey and his wife Mamie Ramsey and your complainant, and that the complainant is entitled to receive all of the property, both real and personal, which the said Luther E. Brassiell owned at the time of his death, as though she were his sole and only heir, and that the court should decree specific performance of the agreement of Luther E. Brassiell and his wife, to adopt the said complainant as their own child and to make her their heir.
Section 468, Code of 1942, provides, among other things, that:
It further appears that Luther E. Brassiell and his wife Mollie Brassiell left no child or children surviving them, nor any descendants of a child or children; that they had left surviving them the appellants. John D. Brassiell, a brother of the whole blood, Ada Brassiell Pack, a sister of the whole blood, and Tommie Sears, the sole surviving child and heir-at-law of another sister of Luther E. Brassiell of the whole blood.
Section 1269, Code of 1942, prescribes the method for the legal adoption of a child--a right not known to the common law. This statute provides for the filing of a petition in the chancery court by those proposing to adopt a child, and provides that the petitioner shall state in the petition what gifts, grants, bequests or benefits he proposes to make or confer, if any, upon the person sought to be adopted; that the court shall hear the evidence and if satisfied that the allegations of the petition are true, and that the interests and welfare of the person sought to be adopted will be promoted by the adoption, may decree that such person be adopted by the petitioner, and that such person so adopted shall be entitled to all of the benefits proposed by the petitioner to be granted and conferred. In other words, the proceeding of the adoption of a child is purely statutory, and the method provided for by this statute, which was in force at the time of the alleged oral agreement, was the exclusive method whereby a child could be adopted with the right of inheritance from the adoptive parent or parents.
It further appears from the bill of complaint in the instant case that the said Monroe Brassiell, Jr., never did go to live with Luther E. Brassiell and wife, Mollie Brassiell, but chose to go to and live with one of his relatives; that the said Willie Brassiell went to live with Luther E. Brassiell and wife but only remained with them for a period of about one year; and that the complainant Cennie Brassiell went to live with Luther E. Brassiell and wife, where she remained and made her home until both of them died, the said Mollie Brassiell having predeceased her husband, Luther E. Brassiell.
No proceedings for the adoption of the complainant were ever instituted by the said Luther E. Brassiell and wife, nor was there ever any attempt on the part of the complainant during their lifetime to enforce the specific performance of their alleged oral agreement to adopt the complainant and make her their heir, if such an agreement could have been enforced.
At the time of the bringing of the present suit L. K. Ramsey and wife and Luther E. Brassiell and wife were dead. The latter reared and educated the complainant, Cennie Brassiell, and gave her a college education, and she was engaged in the work of teaching school after the completion of her college education, which work she ceased to perform after the death of Mollie Brassiell, in order to administer to the needs of Luther E. Brassiell in his last illness and until the time of his death. But this is not a suit on a quantum meruit to...
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Gartrell v. Gartrell
...have been purely statutory in nature. Matter of Adoption of A Minor, 558 So.2d 854, 856 (Miss.1990) (citing Brassiell v. Brassiell, 228 Miss. 243, 250, 87 So.2d 699, 700 (1956)). "[O]nly a natural parent has a statutory right to object to the adoption of a child." In re Estate of Reid, 825 ......
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Adoption of a Minor, Matter of
...The first is by a decree of adoption. Proceedings for adoption were unknown at common law, are purely statutory. Brassiell v. Brassiell, 228 Miss. 243, 87 So.2d 699 (1956); Mayfield v. Braund, 217 Miss. 514, 64 So.2d 713 (1953), sugg. err. o'ruled 217 Miss. 514, 65 So.2d 235 (1953). Statute......
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Ainsworth v. Natural Father, 53167
...Mayfield v. Braund, 217 Miss. 514, 64 So.2d 713, suggestion of error overruled, 217 Miss. 514, 65 So.2d 235 (1953); Brassiell v. Brassiell, 228 Miss. 243, 87 So.2d 699 (1956). In consequence we must look to the statute on the subject, Mississippi Code Annotated sections 93-17-3, et seq. Sec......
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Ladd v. Estate of Kellenberger
...made many years prior to the death of a property owner, the courts should not lend sanction to such a doctrine. Brassiell v. Brassiell, 228 Miss. 243, 87 So.2d 699, 702 (1956). By affirming the trial court's order dismissing plaintiffs' action for failure to state a claim for relief, we fin......