In re Estate of Ford

• Decision Date: 15 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. S105508.,S105508.
• Citation: 8 Cal.Rptr.3d 541,82 P.3d 747,32 Cal.4th 160
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: ESTATE OF Arthur Patrick FORD, Deceased. Terrold Bean, Petitioner and Appellant, v. John J. Ford III et al., Objectors and Respondents.

8 Cal.Rptr.3d 541

82 P.3d 747

32 Cal.4th 160

ESTATE OF Arthur Patrick FORD, Deceased.

Terrold Bean, Petitioner and Appellant, v. John J. Ford III et al., Objectors and Respondents.

No. S105508.

Supreme Court of California.

January 15, 2004.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing February 4, 2004.

Patrick Sullivan, Oakland, for Petitioner and Appellant.

Thomas J. Williams, San Francisco, for Objectors and Respondents.

WERDEGAR, J.

Terrold Bean claims the right to inherit the intestate estate of Arthur Patrick Ford as Ford's equitably adopted son. The superior court denied the claim, and the Court of Appeal affirmed the denial, for lack of clear and convincing evidence that Ford intended to adopt Bean. After reviewing California case law on equitable adoption, we conclude that no equitable adoption is shown unless the parties' conduct and statements clearly and convincingly demonstrate an intent to adopt. We will therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Born in 1953, Bean was declared a ward of the court and placed in the home of Ford and his wife, Kathleen Ford, as a foster child in 1955. Bean never knew his natural father, whose identity is uncertain, and he was declared free of his mother's control in 1958, at the age of four. Bean lived continuously with Mr. and Mrs. Ford and their natural daughter, Mary Catherine, for about 18 years, until Mrs. Ford's death in 1973, then with Ford and Mary Catherine for another two years, until 1975.

During part of the time Bean lived with the Fords, they cared for other foster children and received a county stipend for doing so. Although the Fords stopped taking in foster children after Mrs. Ford became ill with cancer, they retained custody of Bean. The last two other foster children left the home around the time of Mrs. Ford's death, but Bean, who at 18 years of age could have left, stayed with Ford and Mary Catherine.

Bean knew the Fords were not his natural parents, but as a child he called them "Mommy" and "Daddy," and later "Mom" and "Dad." Joan Malpassi, Mary Catherine's friend since childhood and later administrator of Ford's estate, testified that Bean's relationship with Mary Catherine was "as two siblings" and that the Fords treated Bean "more like Mary rather than a foster son, like a real son was my observation." Mary Catherine later listed Bean as her brother on a life insurance application.

Bean remained involved with Ford and Mary Catherine even after leaving the Ford home and marrying. Ford loaned Bean money to help furnish his new household and later forgave the unpaid part of the debt when Bean's marriage was dissolved. Bean visited Ford and Mary Catherine several times per year both during his marriage and after his divorce. When Ford suffered a disabling stroke in 1989, Mary Catherine conferred with Bean and Malpassi over Ford's care; Ford was placed in a board and care facility where Bean continued to visit him regularly until his death in 2000.

Mary Catherine died in 1999. Bean and Malpassi arranged her funeral. Bean petitioned for Malpassi to be appointed Ford's conservator, and with Malpassi's agreement Bean obtained a power of attorney to take care of Ford's affairs pending establishment of the conservatorship. Bean also administered Mary Catherine's estate, which was distributed to the Ford conservatorship. When a decision was needed as to whether Ford should receive medical life support, Malpassi consulted with Bean in deciding he should. When Ford died, Bean and Malpassi arranged the funeral.

The Fords never petitioned to adopt Bean. Mrs. Ford told Barbara Carter, a family friend, that "they wanted to adopt Terry," but she was "under the impression that she could not put in for adoption while he was in the home." She worried that if Bean was removed during the adoption process he might be put in "a foster home that wasn't safe."

Ford's nearest relatives at the time of his death were the two children of his predeceased brother, nephew John J. Ford III and niece Veronica Newbeck. Neither had had any contact with Ford for about 15 years before his death, and neither attended his funeral. John J. Ford III filed a petition to determine entitlement to distribution (Prob.Code, § 11700), listing both himself and Newbeck as heirs. Bean filed a statement of interest claiming entitlement to Ford's entire estate under Probate Code sections 6454 (foster child heirship) and 6455 (equitable adoption) as well as sections 6402, subdivision (a) and 6450.

After trial, the superior court ruled against Bean. The doctrine of equitable adoption, the trial court found, was inapplicable because "there is no evidence that [Ford] ever told [Bean] or anyone else that he wanted to adopt him nor publicly told anyone that [Bean] was his adopted son." There was thus no clear and convincing evidence of "an intent to adopt."

Bean appealed only on the equitable adoption issue. The Court of Appeal affirmed, agreeing with the trial court that equitable adoption must be proven by clear and convincing evidence. Moreover, the reviewing court held, any error by the trial court in this respect would be harmless because the evidence did not support equitable adoption on any standard of proof "for the same reasons articulated by the trial court."

We granted Bean's petition for review.

DISCUSSION

Chapter 2 of part 2 of division 6 of the Probate Code,¹ sections 6450 to 6455, defines the parent-child relationship for purposes of intestate succession. Section 6450, subdivision (b) provides that such a relationship exists between adopting parents and the adopted child. Section 6453, subdivision (a) provides that the relationship exists between a child and a presumptive parent under the Uniform Parentage Act. Section 6454 delineates the circumstances in which a foster parent or stepparent is deemed a parent for the purpose of succession, requiring both a personal relationship beginning during the child's minority and enduring for the child's and parent's joint lifetimes, and a legal barrier but for which the foster parent or stepparent would have adopted the child. (See generally Estate of Joseph (1998) 17 Cal.4th 203, 208-212, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 619, 949 P.2d 472.) Finally, section 6455 provides in full: "Nothing in this chapter affects or limits application of the judicial doctrine of equitable adoption for the benefit of the child or the child's issue." We therefore look to decisional law, rather than statute, for guidance on the equitable adoption doctrine's proper scope and application.

I. Criteria for Equitable Adoption

In its essence, the doctrine of equitable adoption allows a person who was accepted and treated as a natural or adopted child, and as to whom adoption typically was promised or contemplated but never performed, to share in inheritance of the foster parents' property. "The parents of a child turn him over to foster parents who agree to care for him as if he were their own child. Perhaps they also agree to adopt him. They do care for him, support him, educate him, and treat him in all respects as if he were their child, but they never adopt him. Upon their death he seeks to inherit their property on the theory that he should be treated as if he had been adopted. Many courts would honor his claim, at least under some circumstances, characterizing the case as one of equitable adoption, or adoption by estoppel, or virtual adoption, or specific enforcement of a contract to adopt." (Clark, The Law of Domestic Relations in the United States (2d ed.1988) § 20.9, p. 925.) The doctrine is widely applied to allow inheritance from the adoptive parent: at least 27 jurisdictions have so applied the doctrine, while only 10 have declined to recognize it in that context. (Annot., Modern Status of Law as to Equitable Adoption or Adoption by Estoppel (1980) 97 A.L.R.3d 347, § 3.)²

A California court first recognized the doctrine, albeit in the atypical context of inheritance through the adoptive parent, in Estate of Grace (1948) 88 Cal.App.2d 956, 200 P.2d 189. A California couple had taken custody of and raised a Texas girl, Edna Grace, having recorded in Texas a statement that they "`hereby adopt'" the child, who was to be their heir and "`a member of our family, with all the rights and privileges as if born to us.'" (Id. at p. 957, 200 P.2d 189.) Although Texas adoption law at that time did not recognize inheritance from an adoptive grandparent through an adoptive parent (id. at pp. 959-960, 200 P.2d 189), the California court upheld Grace's daughter's entitlement to inherit from her adoptive grandparents as a matter of contract.³ The parents had offered to adopt Grace and make her a full member of their family, and "[t]he child, by living with them as a member of the family, accepted the offer," creating a contract concluded and performed in California. (Estate of Grace, supra, at p. 962, 200 P.2d 189.) Quoting from a treatise, the appellate court noted that "`the courts, in their effort to protect and promote the welfare of the child, have given effect to a contract to adopt, where it has been fully performed on the part of the child, although it was invalid under the laws where it was made.'" (Id. at p. 963, 200 P.2d 189.)

This court decided its only case relating to equitable adoption nine years later. (Estate of Radovich, supra, 48 Cal.2d 116, 308 P.2d 14.) The question before us was not whether the child could inherit as an equitable adoptee — a final superior court decree established that he could — but the child's status, for purposes of inheritance taxation, as either the decedent's adopted child or a stranger in blood to the decedent. (Id. at pp. 118-119, 308 P.2d 14.) The majority took the former view, but its opinion rested on the in rem character of the superior court's probate decree and did not address the contours of the equitable adoption doctrine. (Id. at pp. 119-124, 308 P.2d 14.)

Justice Schauer's...