In Re Cote's Estate .

• Decision Date: 12 August 1949
• Citation: In Re Cote's Estate ., 144 Me. 297, 68 A.2d 18 (Me. 1949)
• Parties: In re COTE'S ESTATE (two cases).
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

68 A.2d 18

In re COTE'S ESTATE (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Aug. 12, 1949.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Penobscot County.

Proceeding in the matter of the estate of Rae Cecile Cote, and proceeding in the matter of the estate of Juliette Mary Cote. To review a decree of the Supreme Court of Probate, dismissing appeals from two probate court decrees dismissing petitions to reverse and annul decrees of adoption wherein Rae Cecile Cote and Juliette Mary Cote were adopted, Joseph Elzear Cote and another bring exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

Stanley F. Needham, Old Town, for appellants.

C. J. O'Leary, Bangor, for appellees.

Before MURCHIE, C. J., and THAXTER, FELLOWS, MERRILL, and NULTY, JJ.

MURCHIE, Chief Justice.

Two Bills of Exceptions, in identical allegations of error, bring forward a single decree entered in the Supreme Court of Probate in these cases, dismissing appeals from two Probate Court decrees which dismissed petitions to reverse and annul decrees of adoption wherein Rae Cecile Cote and Juliette Mary Cote were adopted by Irving H. Cann and Anna E. Cann, and the surname ‘Cann’ was substituted for that of ‘Cote’. The adoption decrees are both dated October 28, 1947, and were entered on petitions dated October 27, 1947. The children were born out of wedlock to one Genevieve M. Cote on March 20, 1940 and March 20, 1939, respectively. She signed both petitions to indicate her consent to the adoptions, as R.S.1944, Chap. 145, Sec. 36 requires. The decrees record that the Judge of Probate entering them was ‘satisfied’, to use the statutory word, in each case, with reference to each and all of the requirements declared in R.S.1944, Chap. 145, Sec. 37.

The decrees here under consideration are not the adoption decrees but decrees entered on petitions to annul them. The petitions are dated November 28, 1947. The grounds asserted as a basis for the annulment each seeks are that one of the petitioners, somewhat inartistically alleged to be the ‘father’ of the children, had been providing for their support for six years at the time the adoption petitions were filed, and that the consents of the mother were obtained under duress. The appeals and reasons of appeal reassert those grounds, in somewhat amplified form, and add allegations that the mother had abandoned the children prior to signing the petitions, and that the adoptive parents, knowing said ‘father’ would not consent to the adoptions, ‘wilfully and deceitfully’ acted without either notice to or consent by him. The sole allegation of error in either Bill of Exceptions is that the finding in the Supreme Court of Probate, that the appellants had: ‘failed to sustain their burden of proving that the consent of the mother was not freely and voluntarily given’, was not justified. The issue presented, as has...