Lankford v. Wright

• Decision Date: 05 September 1997
• Docket Number: No. 308PA96,308PA96
• Citation: 347 N.C. 115,489 S.E.2d 604
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Barbara Ann Newton LANKFORD v. Thomas H. WRIGHT and Thelma Irene White, Administrators of the Estate of Lula Newton; Thomas H. Wright, Individually; Thelma Irene White, Individually; William Paul Wright; Jay Cornelius Knight, Jr.; James Robert Coffey; and Patricia Coffey Northern Coates.

Page 604

489 S.E.2d 604

347 N.C. 115

Barbara Ann Newton LANKFORD v. Thomas H. WRIGHT and Thelma Irene White, Administrators of

the Estate of Lula Newton; Thomas H. Wright, Individually;

Thelma Irene White, Individually; William Paul Wright; Jay

Cornelius Knight, Jr.; James Robert Coffey; and Patricia

Coffey Northern Coates.

No. 308PA96.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Sept. 5, 1997.

Baucom, Claytor, Benton, Morgan, Wood & White, P.A. by James F. Wood, III; and Charles M. Welling, Charlotte, for plaintiff-appellant.

Di Santi & Watson by Anthony S. di Santi, Boone, for defendants-appellees.

FRYE, Justice.

The sole issue in this case is whether North Carolina recognizes the doctrine of equitable adoption. We hold that the doctrine should be recognized in this state, and therefore, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Plaintiff, Barbara Ann Newton Lankford, was born to Mary M. Winebarger on 15 January 1944. When plaintiff was a child, her natural mother entered into an agreement with her neighbors, Clarence and Lula Newton, whereby the Newtons agreed to adopt and raise plaintiff as their child. Shortly thereafter, plaintiff moved into the Newton residence and became known as Barbara Ann Newton, the only child of Clarence and Lula Newton.

The Newtons held plaintiff out to the public as their own child, and plaintiff was at all times known as Barbara Ann Newton. Plaintiff's school records referred to plaintiff as Barbara Ann Newton and indicated that Clarence and Lula Newton were her parents. Plaintiff's high-school diploma also referred to plaintiff as Barbara Ann Newton. After Clarence Newton died in 1960, the newspaper obituary listed Barbara Ann Newton as his surviving daughter. Later, with Lula Newton's assistance, plaintiff obtained a Social Security card issued to her under the name of Barbara Ann Newton.

After plaintiff joined the Navy, plaintiff and Lula Newton frequently wrote letters to each other. In most of the letters, plaintiff referred to Lula Newton as her mother and Lula Newton referred to plaintiff as her daughter. Lula Newton also established several bank accounts with plaintiff, where Lula Newton deposited money plaintiff sent to her while plaintiff was in the Navy. On several occasions, plaintiff took leaves of absence from work to care for Lula Newton during her illness.

In 1975, Lula Newton prepared a will. When she died in 1994, the will was not accepted for probate because some unknown person had defaced a portion of the will. The will named plaintiff as co-executrix of the estate and made specific bequests to plaintiff. Since the will could not be probated, Lula Newton died intestate.

After Lula Newton's death, plaintiff filed for declaratory judgment seeking a declaration of her rights and status as an heir of the estate of Lula Newton. Defendants, the administrators and named heirs of Lula Newton, filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court granted defendants' motion. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the order granting summary judgment, reasoning that plaintiff was not adopted according to N.C.G.S. §§ 48-1 to -38 and that North Carolina does not recognize the doctrine of equitable adoption. This Court granted plaintiff's petition for discretionary review, and we now conclude that the doctrine of equitable adoption should be recognized in North Carolina.

"It is a fundamental premise of equitable relief that equity regards as done that which in fairness and good conscience ought to be done." Thompson v. Soles, 299 N.C. 484, 489, 263 S.E.2d 599, 603 (1980). "Equity regards substance, not form," In re Will of Pendergrass, 251 N.C. 737, 743, 112 S.E.2d 562, 566 (1960), and "will not allow technicalities of procedure to defeat that which is eminently right and just," id. at 746, 112 S.E.2d at 568. These principles form the essence of the doctrine of equitable adoption, and it is the duty of this Court to protect and promote them.

Equitable adoption is a remedy to "protect the interest of a person who was supposed to have been adopted as a child but whose adoptive parents failed to undertake the legal steps necessary to formally accomplish the adoption." Gardner v. Hancock, 924 S.W.2d 857, 858 (Mo.Ct.App.1996). The doctrine is applied in an intestate estate to "give effect to the intent of the decedent to adopt and provide for the child." Id. It is predicated upon

principles of contract law and equitable enforcement of the agreement to adopt for the purpose of securing the benefits of adoption that would otherwise flow from the adoptive parent under the laws of intestacy had the agreement to adopt been carried out; as such it is essentially a matter of equitable relief. Being only an equitable remedy to enforce a contract right, it is not intended or applied to create the legal relationship of parent and child, with all the legal consequences of such a relationship, nor is it meant to create a legal adoption.

2 Am.Jur.2d Adoption § 53 (1994) (footnotes omitted).

Adoption did not exist at common law and is of purely statutory origin. Wilson v. Anderson, 232 N.C. 212, 215, 59 S.E.2d 836, 839 (1950). Equitable adoption, however, does not confer the incidents of formal statutory adoption; rather, it merely confers rights of inheritance upon the foster child in the event of intestacy of the foster parents. ¹ In essence, the doctrine invokes the principle that equity regards that as done which ought to be done. The doctrine is not intended to replace statutory requirements or to create the parent-child relationship; it simply recognizes the foster child's right to inherit from the person or persons who contracted to adopt the child and who honored that contract in all respects except through formal statutory procedures. As an equitable matter, where the child in question has faithfully performed the duties of a natural child to the foster parents, that child is entitled to be placed in the position in which he would have been had he been adopted. Likewise, based on principles of estoppel, those claiming under and through the deceased are estopped to assert that the child was not legally adopted or did not occupy the status of an adopted child.

Further, the scope of the doctrine is limited to facts comparable to those presented here. Thirty-eight jurisdictions have considered equitable adoption; at least twenty-seven have recognized and applied the doctrine. See, e.g., First Nat'l Bank in Fairmont v. Phillips, 176 W.Va. 395, 344 S.E.2d 201 (1985). A majority of the jurisdictions recognizing the doctrine have successfully limited its application to claims made by an equitably adopted child against the estate of the foster parent. Geramifar v. Geramifar, 113 Md.App. 495, 688 A.2d 475 (1997). By its own terms, equitable adoption applies only in limited circumstances. The elements necessary to establish the existence of an equitable adoption are:

(1) an express or implied agreement to adopt the child,

(2) reliance on that agreement (3) performance by the natural parents of the child in giving up custody,

(4) performance by the child in living in the home of the foster parents and acting as their child,

(5) partial performance by the foster parents in taking the child into their home and treating the child as their own, and

(6) the intestacy of the foster parents.

See 2 Am.Jur.2d Adoption § 54 (1994). These elements, particularly the requirement of intestacy, limit the circumstances under which the doctrine may be applied. Specifically, the doctrine acts only to recognize the inheritance rights of a child whose foster parents died intestate and failed to perform the formalities of a legal adoption, yet treated the child as their own for all intents and purposes. The doctrine is invoked for the sole benefit of the foster child in determining heirship upon the intestate death of the person or persons contracting to adopt. Whether the doctrine applies is a factual question, and each element must be proven by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence. See, e.g., First Nat'l Bank in Fairmont v. Phillips, 176 W.Va. 395, 344 S.E.2d 201.

In this case, the evidence in the record tends to show that the above elements can be satisfied by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence. The record demonstrates that the Newtons agreed to adopt plaintiff; that the Newtons and plaintiff relied on that agreement; that plaintiff's natural mother gave up custody of plaintiff to the Newtons; that plaintiff lived in the Newtons' home, cared for them in their old age, and otherwise acted as their child; that the Newtons treated plaintiff as their child by taking her into their home, giving her their last name, and raising her as their child; and that Mrs. Newton died intestate several years after Mr. Newton died. These facts fit squarely within the parameters of the doctrine of equitable adoption and are indicative of the dilemma the doctrine is intended to remedy.

We note that our decision to recognize the doctrine of equitable adoption is not precluded by prior decisions of this Court as asserted by defendants and decided by the Court of Appeals. In Ladd v. Estate of Kellenberger, 314 N.C. 477, 334 S.E.2d 751 (1985), we specifically stated that "[w]e find no occasion to address the question of whether North Carolina recognizes the doctrine of equitable adoption." Id. at 479, 334 S.E.2d at 753. Likewise, in Chambers v. Byers, 214 N.C. 373, 199 S.E. 398 (1938), our holding was limited to whether the agreement at issue was an enforceable contract to make a will. Thus, neither Ladd nor Chambers foreclosed the possibility of future recognition of equitable adoption by this Court.

The dissent points out that a minority of jurisdictions have declined to recognize the doctrine of equitable adoption. However, we again note that an overwhelming majority of states that have addressed the question have recognized and applied the doctrine. More importantly, it is the unique role...