Estate of Pakarinen, In re

• Decision Date: 19 June 1970
• Docket Number: No. 41833,41833
• Citation: 287 Minn. 330,178 N.W.2d 714
• Parties: In re ESTATE of Peter PAKARINEN, Decedent. Dorothy Jeannette HIETALA, Appellant, v. The Heir of Peter PAKARINEN, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 714

178 N.W.2d 714

287 Minn. 330

In re ESTATE of Peter PAKARINEN, Decedent.

Dorothy Jeannette HIETALA, Appellant, v. The Heir of Peter PAKARINEN, Respondent.

No. 41833.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 19, 1970.

Syllabus by the Court

The requirement in Minn.St. 525.172 that an illegitimate child, in order to inherit from his putative father, produce an attested written declaration of paternity made by the decedent is not unconstitutional as a violation of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and of Minn.Const. art. 1, § 2, and art. 4, §§ 33 and 34.

Greenberg & Greenberg, Eveleth, Maslon, Kaplan, Edelman, Borman, Brand & McNulty, and Richard A. Shors, and Fred R. Jacobberger, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Jack J. Litman, Edward W. Peterson, Duluth, for respondent.

Heard before KNUTSON, C.J., and ROGOSHESKE, SHERAN, FRANK T. GALLAGHER, and THEODORE B. KNUDSON, JJ.

OPINION

ROGOSHESKE, Justice.

Appeal from an order of the district court dismissing an appeal from the probate court.

The sole issue presented is whether Minn.St. 525.172, which prescribes the standard of proof necessary for an illegitimate child to inherit from his putative father who dies intestate, makes an unreasonable classification between legitimate children and illegitimate children in violation of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and of Minn. Const. art. 1, § 2, and art. 4, §§ 33 and 34. We hold that it does not.

Peter Pakarinen, appellant's putative father, died intestate on August 10, 1966, leaving no spouse or legitimate children surviving him. Appellant, Dorothy Jeannette Halfors Hietals, was born March 17, 1937, to Lorraine Johnson, nee Halfors. Her birth certificate named the decedent, Peter Pakarinen, as the father. On October 23, 1937, the decedent, upon his plea of guilty in a paternity proceeding, was adjudged by the district court to be the father of the female child born to Lorraine Halfors on March 17, 1937. As additional proof of parentage in these proceedings, appellant offered a letter decedent had written her which contained the salutation 'My Dear Daughter' and was signed 'Daddy,' the testimony of appellant's mother, Lorraine Johnson, that decedent was appellant's father, and appellant's testimony that decedent had admitted this fact to her. Based on this undisputed and unchallenged evidence, appellant claimed that she was the illegitimate daughter of decedent and that, as such, under one of the statutory provisions governing intestate succession, ¹ she, as decedent's sole surviving child, is entitled to inherit his entire estate. Based upon appellant's admission, the district court found that decedent did not formally acknowledge appellant to be his child as required by § 525.172, affirmed the probate court's order decreeing decedent's estate to his sister as his sole heir at law, and dismissed appellant's appeal.

Section 525.172 provides:

'An illegitimate child shall inherit from his mother the same as if born in lawful wedlock, And also from the person who in writing and before a conpetent attesting witness shall have declared himself to be his father, provided such writing or an authenticated copy thereof shall be produced in the proceeding in which it is asserted; but such child shall not inherit from the kindred of either parent by right of representation.' (Italics supplied.)

It has long been established that § 525.172 absolutely precludes inheritance by an illegitimate child from a putative father in all cases where the father dies intestate without making the attested written declaration of paternity required by the statute, ² and that an adjudication of paternity designed to fix liability for support of the child does not confer any right of inheritance and is not the equivalent of the required statutory proof. ³ It is clear, therefore, that if the standard of proof required by § 525.172 is constitutionally permissible, appellant is not entitled to inherit decedent's estate.

Conceding that the prevention of fraudulent claims against an estate is a legitimate purpose and that the state may constitutionally require an illegitimate to prove that he is in fact the child of the father from whom he seeks to inherit, appellant argues that the standard of proof chosen by the state violates her constitutional right to equal protection of the law because, in contrast to the proof of paternity required of a legitimate child, it denies her any independent means of proof, however worthy, and makes her right to inherit wholly dependent upon the acts or omissions of her father, thus arbitrarily and irrationally discriminating between legitimate and illegitimate children.

Appellant's constitutional challenge raising a question of first impression is provoked by, and essentially based upon, two recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court, Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436, and Glona v. American Guarantee & Lia. Ins. Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441. In the Levy case, the Supreme Court held that it was an unconstitutional violation of equal protection to deny illegitimate children the right to recover damages for the wrongful death of their mother, upon whom they were dependent. Contemporaneously, in Glona the court held that it was a denial of equal protection of the laws to withhold relief to the mother for the wrongful death of her child merely because the child was born out of wedlock. The court, indicating that the underlying rationale of these decisions is that the classification between legitimate and illegitimate children bears no reasonable relation to the purpose of a state statute authorizing recovery for death by wrongful act, said in the Levy case (391 U.S. 71, 88 S.Ct. 1511, 20 L.Ed.2d 439):

'* * * When the child's claim of damage for loss of his mother is in issue, why, in terms of 'equal protection,' should the tortfeasors go free merely because the child is illegitimate? Why should the illegitimate child be denied rights merely because of his birth out of wedlock?'

The court also said (391 U.S. 71, 88 S.Ct. 1511, 20 L.Ed.2d 439):

'While a State has broad power when it comes to making classifications * * *, it may not draw a line which constitutes an invidious discrimination against a particular class. * * * Though the test has been variously stated, the end result is whether the line drawn is a rational one. * * *

'Legitimacy or illegitimacy of birth has no relation to the nature of the wrong allegedly inflicted on the mother. * * *

'We conclude that it is invidious to discriminate against (illegitimate children) when no action, conduct, or demeanor of theirs is possibly relevant to the harm that was done the mother.'

It must be acknowledged that these decisions establish that discrimination based solely upon illegitimacy is no longer constitutionally permissible. This result may well have been foreshadowed by the numerous instances where commentators and courts, including this one, have decried the legislative failure to enact statutes mitigating the harshness of the common-law rule which regarded a child born out of wedlock as 'the child of nobody' or 'the child of the people' in his social and economic relationships and 'barbarically handicapped and burdened children of illegitimate parents for sins in the commission of which they had no part.' In re Estate of Karger, 253 Minn. 542, 548, 93 N.W.2d 137, 142; Jung v. St. Paul Fire Dept. Relief Assn., 223 Minn. 402, 27 N.W.2d 151. As expected, the rationale of the United States Supreme Court decisions has already become the subject of considerable comment and has been successfully applied to strike down invidious discrimination against illegitimates in situations other than those relating to recovery for death by wrongful act. For example, in R--- v. R--- (Mo.), 431 S.W.2d 152, and Storm v. None, 57 Misc.2d 342, 291 N.Y.S.2d 515 it was held that illegitimate children have equal rights with legitimate children to support from their fathers, and that to withhold support from a child, either by statute as in the Missouri case or by a parental agreement as in the New York case, simply because he was born out of wedlock is an unconstitutional denial of 'equal protection.' ⁴ While we unhesitatingly agree that such distinctions made solely on the basis of legitimacy are a denial of equal protection, neither Levy, Glona, nor these decisions can be considered controlling authority for the proposition that it is constitutionally impermissible to require an illegitimate attempting to inherit from his putative father to produce virtually unassailable proof that the decedent is in fact his father for the distinct purpose of determining his rights of inheritance. The underlying purpose of laws relating to inheritance is quite different from the purpose intended to be served by laws creating a cause of action for death by wrongful act or laws determining liability for child support. Child-support laws have little concern with...