Warner v. King

• Decision Date: 17 February 1915
• Docket Number: No. 9844.,9844.
• Citation: 267 Ill. 82,107 N.E. 837
• Parties: WARNER et al. v. KING et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

267 Ill. 82

107 N.E. 837

WARNER et al.

v.KING et al.

No. 9844.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 17, 1915.

Error to City Court of Kewanee; H. Sterling Pomeroy, Judge.

Bill by Orman R. Warner and others against Susan O. King and others to partition land. From the decree, Melvina H. Ellis and others bring error. Affirmed.Gardner G. Willard, of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.

James K. Blish, of Kewanee, for defendants in error.

CARTER, J.

This was a bill filed in the city court of Kewanee, in Henry county, to partition three tracts of land in the said county. Certain of the defendants named in the bill, besides filing an answer thereto, filed a cross-bill setting up a different claim as to the ownership of an undivided portion of the premises sought to be partitioned. The report of the master to whom the matter had been referred was approved by the court, and a decree was entered finding that an undivided one-half interest and dower and homestead in the other half of the real estate in question were in the husband of the deceased intestate, and the other undivided one-half (subject to said dower and homestead) in two uncles and an aunt of Delia Warner Huntington. This appeal was taken from that decree.

The real estate in question was owned in fee simple, at the time of her death, by Helen Huntington Farr. It consisted of two tracts of land and an undivided one-half of another tract in the city of Kewanee. She became seized of said real estate through the will of said Delia Warner Huntington, in which will she is described as ‘my adopted daughter, Helen Warner Huntington.’ She afterwards married Claude H. Farr. It appears from the evidence that Helen Warner Huntington was taken into the family of Delia Warner Huntington and her husband, Henry Huntington, when she was an infant. The couple always claimed and represented to the public that they had adopted her as their child. The proof, however, shows that she was never legally adopted, in Illinois or elsewhere. Henry Huntington died before his wife, and left her (said Delia Warner Huntington) the property here in question by will. Helen Huntington Farr died on April 8, 1913, in Vermont, aged about 17 years. She left a husband, Claude H. Farr, but no children or descendants thereof, or brothers or sisters. Her only heirs at law were her father and mother, William J. Ellis and Melvina Huntington Ellis, who are plaintiffs in error here. Said Melvina was a daughter of Henry Huntington's sister, Julia, hence Helen was a granpdniece of the one she had known as her adoptive father. Delia Warner Huntington left no children, brothers, or sisters, or descendants thereof, or husband or father, her surviving. Her mother survived her for a year, but died before said Helen did, and said Delia's next of kin in equal degree (computed by the rules of the civil law) at the time of Helen's death were the brother of said Delia's father and the brother and sister of her mother, which three persons are the defendants in error here.

There is no controversy in the briefs that the decree was correct in its finding as to the interests of the husband of Helen Huntington Farr. The only controversy is over the remaining part of the estate. Counsel for plaintiffs in error contends that his clients, the father and mother of Helen, are entitled to this remainder under clauses 2 and 3 of section 1 of the Illinois statute of descent, while counsel for defendants in error contends that the decree rightly holds that this remainder descended to the persons who at the death of said Helen were next of kin to Delia Warner Huntington under the fifth clause of said section 1, construed in connection with sections 6 and 7 of the Illinois statute of adoption, which read:

‘Sec. 6. The parents by adoption and their heirs shall take by descent, from any child adopted under this or any other law of this state for the adoption of children, and the descendants, and husband or wife, of such child, only such property as he has taken or may hereafter take from or through the adopting parents, or either of them, either by gift, bequest, devise or descent, with the accumulations, income and profits thereof; and all laws of descent and rules of inheritance shall apply to and govern the descent of any such property, the same as if the child were the natural child of such parents; but the parents by adoption and their heirs shall not inherit any property which such child may take or have taken, by gift, bequest, devise or descent, from his kindred by blood.

‘Sec. 7. The preceding section shall apply to any case where a child has heretofore been declared by any court to have been adopted, or where such adoption has been declared or assumed in any deed or last will and testament, giving, bequeathing or devising property to such child, as the adopted child of the grantor or testator, and the wife or husband of such adopting parent shall be capable of inheriting from such child the same as if she or he had become the adopted mother or father of such child, pursuant to this act.’ Hurd's Stat. 1913, p. 36.

Counsel for plaintiffs in error argues that, under the proper construction of section 7, the words ‘where such adoption has been declared or assumed in any deed or last will and testament’ refer only to deeds or wills executed before said Adoption Act went into effect, in 1874; that the word ‘heretofore,’ in the first clause of said section 7, must, under clause 17 of section 1 of chapter 131 (Hurd's Stat. 1913, p. 2379), be construed as relating only to adoptions that had taken place before said Adoption Act went into force, July 1, 1874, and that the word ‘such,’ in the clause just quoted, under proper rules of grammatical construction, must refer to the nearest antecedent, and therefore the words ‘such adoption,’ in the quoted clause, must refer to the adoption of the child as provided in the clause immediately preceding. He further argues that, as the right of adoption was unknown to the common law, and exists in the United States only by statute (1 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law [2d Ed.] 726; Watts v. Dull, 184 Ill. 86, 56 N. E. 303,75 Am. St. Rep. 141), the construction contended for by him finds further support in the rule that statutes in derogation of the common law must be strictly construed. Keegan v. Geraghty, 101 Ill. 26; Watts v. Dull, supra.

‘Strict construction’ is not a precise, but a relative, expression. A statute, to be construed strictly, should be confined to such subjects or applications as are obviously within its terms and purposes. In other words, it is a close and conservative adherence to the literal or textual interpretation. It is not the exact converse of ‘liberal construction,’ for it does not consist in giving words the narrowest meaning of which they are susceptible. It is not violated by permitting words of the statute to have their full meaning. 2 Lewis' Sutherland on Stat. Const. (2d Ed.) §§ 518, 519. ‘It is not a substitute for all other rules. It does not mean that, whenever a controversy is or can be raised of the meaning of a statute, ambiguity occurs, which immediately and inevitably determines the interpretation of the statute. * * * Its proper office is to help to solve ambiguities, not to compel an immediate surrender to them-to be an element in decision, and effective, maybe, when all other tests of meaning have been employed which experience has afforded, and which it is the duty of courts to consider when rights are claimed under a statute.’ Citizens' Bank v. Parker, 192 U. S. 73, 24 Sup. Ct. 181, 48 L. Ed. 346; 2 Lewis' Sutherland on Stat. Const. (2d Ed.) § 518. The rule of strict construction ‘has lost much of its force and importance in recent years, since it has...