Shepherd v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 12 June 1933
• Docket Number: No. 31009.,31009.
• Parties: ROSA B. SHEPHERD ET AL. v. MAURICE P. MURPHY ET AL., Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

61 S.W.2d 746

ROSA B. SHEPHERD ET AL. v. MAURICE P. MURPHY ET AL., Appellants.

No. 31009.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division One.

June 12, 1933.

Appeal from Clinton Circuit Court. — Hon. Guy B. Park, Judge.

AFFIRMED.

Pross T. Cross, R.H. Musser and Gerald Cross for appellants.

The court erred in denying the defendants the relief prayed for by the answer and in holding that the plaintiffs the brothers and sisters of Edgar T. Webb and of Virginia L. Webb, inherited under the law and decisions of Missouri. Art. I, Ch. 125, Sec. 14079, R.S. 1929; Art. 14, Ch. 1, Secs. 306-314, R.S. 1929; Morris v. Claxton, 274 S.W. 77; Moore v. Moore, 169 Mo. 432, 69 S.W. 278; Hahn v. Hammerstien, 198 S.W. 833, 272 Mo. 248; Marshall v. Wabash Railroad, 120 Mo. 275. The court erred in its holding, that the collateral heirs at law of Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb became by law, the heirs at law of Richard Edgar Webb, the deceased child, for the reason that under the law the natural mother only inherits through him. Cases above cited. Hockaday v. Lynn, 200 Mo. 460; Reindeers v. Koppleman, 68 Mo. 482; Moran v. Stewart, 122 Mo. 295; Schafer v. Enue, 54 Pa. 304. The court erred in its ruling and decision, in that under the law the collateral heirs of Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb are not named by the laws of adoption or by the law of descents and distributions as heir at law of Richard Edgar Webb, the child. See cases above cited. Secs. 314, 14079, R.S. 1929; 27 Amer. & Eng. (2 Ed.) 334; 1 C.J. 1400-1402; Estate Paul Broderick, 158 Wash. 377, 291 Pac. 325; Roberts v. Roberts, 160 Minn. 140, 199 S.W. 581; Clarkson v. Hatton, 143 Mo. 47. The court erred in its ruling and judgment, in that inheritance from adopted children, in this State, is limited solely to the surviving adopting parent, and no provisions of the Missouri law provides for the collateral kindred inheriting, in the event of the adopting parent dying prior to the death of the adopted child. Hockaday v. Lynn, supra; Reindeers v. Koppleman, supra; Yastes Estate, 196 Pac. 1077, 108 Kan. 721; Baird v. Yates, 200 Pac. 280; Appeal Simons, 115 Atl. 765, 121 Me. 97; McMaster v. Forbes, 115 N.E. 487, 226 Mass. 396; Mace v. Batchelder, 114 Atl. 818, 80 N.H. 131; Dodson v. Ward, 240 Pac. 991, 31 N.M. 54; Russell v. Jordan, 147 Pac. 694, 58 Colo. 445; Coleman v. Swick, 75 N.E. 807, 218 Ill. 33; Baker v. Clowser, 138 N.W. 837, 158 Iowa, 156; Edwards v. Yearby, 85 S.E. 19, 168 N.C. 663; Fisher v. Browning, 66 So. 132, 107 Miss. 729; In re Webb's Estate, 95 Atl. 419, 250 Pa. 179.

Alva F. Lindsay and Mayer, Conkling & Sprague for respondents.

The court did not err in decreeing title in plaintiffs and did not err in decreeing that defendants had no right, title or interest in or to the real estate described in the petition. Secs. 306, 14079, R.S. 1929; Fienup v. Stamer, 28 S.W. (2d) 437; In re Cook's Estate, 79 N.E. 993; In re Enyart's Estate, 218 N.W. 89; Humphries v. Davis. 100 Ind. 274; Humphries v. Davis, 100 Ind. 369; Davis v. Krug, 95 Ind. 7; Paul v. Davis, 100 Ind. 422; In re Havsgord's Estate, 147 N.W. 378; Calhoun v. Bryant, 133 N.W. 266; In re Jobson's Estate, 128 Pac. 938; Brewer v. Browning, 76 So. 267; Lauferman v. Vanzile, 150 S.W. 1008; Carpenter v. Electric Co., 106 N.E. 1026; Remmers v. Remmers, 239 S.W. 509.

FERGUSON, C.

This is an action to quiet title to four town lots in the city of Plattsburg and eighty acres of farm land, all situate in Clinton County. The plaintiffs are the brothers and sisters and constitute all the heirs at law, respectively, of Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb, husband and wife, both deceased, who held title, by the entirety, to said real estate. The controversy as to title results from the adoption by the Webbs, in 1929, of a child born, out of wedlock, to defendant Esther Bledsoe Foster. The child, a boy, was born February 21, 1925, at St. Joseph, Missouri. The mother, Esther Bledsoe, was an unmarried girl of the age of sixteen years. To the attending physician, in making out a birth certificate, the mother stated her name as Matilda Walker and gave the child the name of Lawrence Walker. The attending physician called the Superintendent of the Humane Society of St. Joseph and the infant child was placed in the care of that society. Three days later the mother under the name of Matilda Walker signed and acknowledged a petition addressed to the Juvenile Division of the Circuit Court of Buchanan County praying the court "for an order authorizing her to surrender" the child "Lawrence Walker" to the "Humane Society of St. Joseph and Buchanan County" and requesting and authorizing "said society ... to secure for said child a home in a good family ... including legal adoption ... by order of the court." The petition was heard and granted and an order made authorizing "the surrender of said infant child to the Humane Society ... pending further orders of the court." The society placed the child in the Sheltering Arms Home at St. Joseph where he remained until his adoption, under a decree of the court, by Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb, husband and wife on January 26, 1929.

The Webbs resided on their farm, described in the petition, near Plattsburg. Being childless but desiring a child they arranged to adopt the infant Lawrence Walker. Our present code relating to the adoption of children (Article 1, Chapter 125, R.S. 1929) enacted in 1917 (Laws 1917, p. 193) was in force and effect at all the times herein mentioned. The petition for adoption filed by the Webbs in the Juvenile Division of the Circuit Court of Buchanan County conformed to the requirements of the statute (Sec. 14077, R.S. 1929) and all the formalities and conditions of the adoption code having been strictly complied with the court, upon the hearing, entered a decree of adoption finding the facts in accordance with Section 14078, Revised Statutes 1929, and changing the name of the child, as prayed in the petition, to Richard Edgar Webb. No question is made as to the regularity or sufficiency of the proceedings and it is conceded that the adoption proceeding being in all respects valid the child thereby became, and thereafter was, the child, by adoption, of Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb and that all the rights, privileges and duties incident to such relationship attached. The child, Richard Edgar Webb, was immediately taken into the home of its foster parents where he thereafter resided. On July 29, 1929, approximately six months after the adoption was completed, an automobile in which the foster parents and the child were riding was struck by a train at a crossing of a highway over a railroad track and both adopting parents, Edgar T. Webb and Virginia L. Webb, were "instantly and simultaneously killed" and the child Richard Edgar injured from which injuries he died three hours later.

It is conceded that by virtue of the adoption statutes the child, having survived his foster parents, inherited from them in the same manner as would a natural child and was their sole and only heir at law and that therefore the real estate described in the petition, owned by the Webbs by the entirety, vested under our Statute of Descents in him. At the time of his death, on July 29, 1929, Richard Edgar Webb was of the approximate age of four years and five months. The natural mother, Esther Bledsoe, at a date, not shown but immaterial, subsequent to the birth of the child, intermarried with Lester C. Foster and on September 23, 1929, following the death of the Richard Edgar Webb, Esther Bledsoe Foster and her husband Lester C., executed and delivered a quitclaim deed conveying an undivided one-half interest in the real estate described in the petition to Maurice C. Murphy, an attorney of St. Joseph, for a consideration as stated therein of one dollar. Esther Bledsoe Foster and Maurice C. Murphy are defendants in this action.

Upon a trial in the circuit court the court found for plaintiffs and decreed that the title to the real estate involved "is vested in plaintiffs in fee simple" and that "defendants ... have no right, title claim, interest or estate" therein from which decree and judgment defendants appeal. The position of plaintiffs, respondents, is that the title which, on the death of the adoptive parents, vested in the child, Richard Edgar Webb, vested on his death in plaintiffs in the same manner as title would have passed to them had he been a natural child of Edgar T. and Virginia L. Webb; while appellants contend that upon the death of the adopted child title passed to and vested in his natural mother, the defendant Esther Bledsoe Foster.

[1] Succession to estates and the right of inheritance is wholly a matter of statutory regulation. It is an exclusive power of the Legislature to determine what persons or whether any persons shall inherit from one who dies intestate, to direct the course of succession of the intestate's property and define what proportion of such estate shall descend to a particular person or class of persons. The Legislature has the power to both create and take away the right of inheritance and in the exercise thereof it can confer the right of inheritance upon adopted children or adopting parents or both, deprive the natural parents of any right of inheritance from such adopted child and fix the course of succession to property in such case.

[2] While no mention is made in our Statute of Descents concerning the succession of property as between adopting parents and an adopted child the Statute of Descents "must be understood as merely laying down general rules of inheritance, and not as completely and accurately defining how the status is to be created which gives the capacity to inherit. It does not undertake to prescribe who shall be considered a child ... or what is necessary to constitute the legal relation ... of parent and child. Those requisites must be sought elsewhere." [See Fosburgh v. Rogers, 114 Mo. 122, 133, 21 S.W. 82, 84....