In re Estate of Ford
| Decision Date | 31 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-PR-463,17-PR-463 |
| Citation | 200 A.3d 1207 |
| Parties | IN RE ESTATE OF Rosa NORTH FORD; Raymond North-Bey, Appellant. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Kate Heinzelman, Washington, for appellant.
Joyce A. Williams for intervenor.
Before Blackburne-Rigsby, Chief Judge, Easterly, Associate Judge, and Washington, Senior Judge.
In this case, we consider whether an individual who is neither the biological nor legally adopted child of a decedent may equitably claim to be the decedent's "child" and "heir" under the District's intestacy statutes such that he has standing as an "interested person" to probate the decedent's estate. We hold that an individual may claim equitable status as a decedent's child, but only in the strictly limited circumstance where he proves by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent took him in as a minor and, from that time on, objectively and subjectively stood in the shoes of his parent. We endorse a fact-specific, equitable inquiry specific to probate matters.
Rosa North Ford died intestate in 1998. Her estate was not probated at that time. Ms. North Ford had no biological offspring,2 but she raised several children in her home, among them: Ms. Dorothy Lenoir (née North), the eldest, Mr. Michael S. North, and Mr. Raymond North-Bey, about five and ten years Ms. Lenoir's junior, respectively. Mr. North is Mr. North-Bey's biological brother; they came to live with Ms. North Ford in the mid 1950s when Mr. North was five and Mr. North-Bey was only a few months old. Ms. North Ford obtained a Social Security card for Mr. North-Bey bearing the surname "North"3 (not his birth surname) and she enrolled him in school. According to Mr. North-Bey's counsel, "[h]e lived his life believing and understanding himself to be the adopted child of Rosa North," and Ms. North Ford held herself out as his mother. In 2006, Mr. North-Bey returned to live in the house he had grown up in, thinking that he had inherited the property.
In 2016, Ms. Lenoir, then age seventy-one and in declining health, filed a petition to probate Ms. North Ford's estate, in which she identified herself, Mr. North, and Mr. North-Bey as Ms. North Ford's "adopted" children, "heirs at law," and thus "interested persons" under D.C. Code § 20-101 (2012 Repl.) with standing to initiate probate proceedings. Ms. Lenoir's particular interest was to ensure that Ms. North Ford's home in northeast Washington, the estate's only asset, was not sold.4 Ms. Lenoir acknowledged that Mr. North-Bey, then age sixty, had been living in the property "during the past several years" and that he was the current occupant.
Ms. Lenoir subsequently withdrew from the litigation of the probate matter after informing the court that she had reason to believe that Ms. North Ford had not legally adopted her—or Mr. North or Mr. North-Bey. In response, Mr. North-Bey filed a motion asking the court to appoint a personal representative for Ms. North Ford's estate to protect the estate's sole asset, the house where Ms. North Ford had raised him and where he was living. Mr. North-Bey also asked the court to recognize "his right to inherit as an adopted child of Rosa North Ford" and thus his status as "an Interested Person pursuant to D.C. Code § 20-101(d)(1)." After his effort to locate records of his adoption in D.C. Superior Court proved unsuccessful, Mr. North-Bey filed a supplemental motion asking the court to recognize his right "to inherit as an adopted or equitably-adopted child" of Ms. North Ford.
Mr. North-Bey did not concede that he was not legally adopted by Ms. North Ford and, at a second status hearing, he questioned whether the Superior Court's records from the 1950s were "entirely reliable." But even if the Superior Court's lack of records were deemed to prove that he was not legally adopted by Ms. North Ford, Mr. North-Bey argued that the court should recognize his status as an heir by virtue of the doctrine of equitable adoption. Mr. North-Bey acknowledged that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals had never addressed this doctrine, but explained that it was recognized in the intestacy context in "a majority of jurisdictions," including Maryland. Mr. North-Bey further acknowledged that, if the trial court recognized the doctrine of equitable adoption, its application to his case would trigger a "fact-based inquiry that requires an evidentiary hearing." He asked the court to give him "adequate time to complete his investigation and to prepare for an evidentiary hearing regarding his claim of equitable adoption."
Without further court proceedings, the trial court issued an order denying Mr. North-Bey's motion for a personal representative. The court explained that, under District law, only an interested person may file a petition with the court to open an estate. Mr. North-Bey's only claim to be an interested person was his putative statusas an heir, but the court determined he was neither Ms. North Ford's biological nor her "formally adopt[ed]" child. The court further ruled that "[t]his jurisdiction does not recognize equitable adoption[ ]." The court acknowledged that the Court of Appeals "has not addressed this issue[ ]," but reasoned that adoption is a "statutory construct" in the District and that "neither the Congress nor the Council has signaled by way of amendment [of the adoption statute] that anything other than a final decree of adoption can create rights that a natural born child would have."5 Ultimately the court determined it "should not depart from [the] current status of the law in this jurisdiction," and it did "not view the common law evolution for which Mr. North-Bey advocates to be within its province."
"[W]ithout the benefit of equitable adoption," the trial court determined that Mr. North-Bey could not show that he was an heir to Ms. North Ford's estate and was "without standing to petition the Court to open the estate for probate." The court thus denied Mr. North-Bey's motion for the appointment of a personal representative and dismissed the probate case.
After Mr. North-Bey timely appealed the trial court's decision and order, Ms. North Ford's collateral heirs, see supra note 2, filed a petition to probate her estate. See In re Rosa North Ford , No. 2017 ADM 001134 (D.C. Super. Ct. filed Sept. 19, 2017). The court appointed a personal representative, Mr. Joseph C. Lomax Jr., for the estate. The second probate case has been stayed pending this appeal, in which Mr. Lomax has intervened.
Whether Mr. North-Bey has standing as an interested person to litigate a probate case, and the embedded question of whether the District of Columbia recognizes the doctrine of equitable adoption such that Mr. North-Bey could be deemed Ms. North Ford's child and heir under the intestacy statute, are questions of law that we review de novo. Randolph v. ING Life Ins. & Annuity Co. , 973 A.2d 702, 705 (D.C. 2009) ; Lewis v. Washington Hosp. Ctr. , 77 A.3d 378, 379–80 (D.C. 2013) ().
Under the D.C. Code, only certain individuals or entities may initiate probate proceedings "to resolve a question or controversy" in the administration of an estate: "interested person[s], the beneficiary of a trust, or the Register [of Wills]."6 D.C. Code § 20-107 (a) (2012 Repl.). An "interested person" is defined to include, inter alia , "an heir," D.C. Code § 20-101 (d)(1)(D), which in turn is defined as a person entitled "pursuant to Chapter 3 of Title 19" to the property of "an intestate decedent."7 D.C. Code § 20-101 (c). Chapter 3 of Title 19 sets forth a "course of descents" whereby the law presumes, in the absence of a will, to whom a decedent would have chosen to distribute her property. In the distribution hierarchy, "children" are at the top, second only to the decedent's spouse. See D.C. Code §§ 19-301, 302, 306. But the probate statutes do not expressly define who may claim status as the decedent's "child."
By arguing that this court should grant him equitable relief, Mr. North-Bey implicitly concedes that the term "children" in the probate statutes does not apply to him if he was not legally adopted.8 Although we agree with this concession, we pause to explain our reasoning. "[I]t is axiomatic that the words of a statute should be construed according to their ordinary sense and with the meaning commonly attributed to them." Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia , 470 A.2d 751, 753 (D.C. 1983) (en banc) (quotation marks omitted). In common parlance, the term "child" plainly encompasses an individual's genetic offspring. See, e.g. , Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary (3d ed. 2002) ("[A] male or female descendant in the first degree: the immediate progeny of human parents"). In addition, as explained below, for over half a century the D.C. Code has recognized that an equal parent-child relationship is formed by legal adoption. We conclude that this enduring understanding that a "child" is either the genetic offspring or the legally-adopted progeny of the parent controls in the probate context.
In 1963, Congress passed the "Judiciary and Judicial Procedure" Act. Pub. L. No. 88-241, 77 Stat. 478.9 The Act accepted as foundational "the relationship of natural parent and natural child," i.e. the bond between parent and genetic offspring. D.C. Code § 16-312 (a) ; see also § 16-302 (); § 16-304 (c) (); § 16-304 (b)(1), (2)(C), (D) (...
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