In the Matter of the Estates of JOHN J. DONNELLY et al., Deceased. KATHLEEN M. KELLY, as Administratrix, Petitioner, v. JEAN LOUISE IVERSON, Respondent.
No. 42081
Supreme Court of Washington
November 14, 1972
Petition for rehearing denied December 22, 1972.
81 Wn.2d 430 | 502 P.2d 1163
NEILL, J.
En Banc.
I cannot reasonably conceive from this record a state of facts to justify the required conversion of sports gear to fixed gear for commercial fishing to accomplish the objective intended by the statute, the conservation of the salmon fishery.
The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
ROSELLINI and HALE, JJ., concur with HUNTER, J.
Petition for rehearing denied December 22, 1972.
Albert Olsen and George W. Steers (of Jones, Grey, Bayley & Olsen), for respondent.
NEILL, J.—May an adopted child inherit from her natural grandparents? Both the trial court and the Court of Appeals (5 Wn. App. 158, 486 P.2d 1158 (1971)), answered “yes.” We granted review (79 Wn.2d 1010 (1971)), and disagree. In speaking of heirs and inheritance, we refer to
John J. and Lily Donnelly, husband and wife, had two children, a daughter, Kathleen M., now Kathleen M. Kelly, and a son, John J., Jr. The son had one child, Jean Louise Donnelly, born October 28, 1945. Jean Louise‘s father, John J. Donnelly, Jr., died on July 9, 1946, less than a year after her birth. Her mother, Faith Louise Donnelly, married Richard Roger Hansen on April 22, 1948. By a decree entered August 11, 1948, Jean Louise was adopted by her stepfather with the written consent of her natural mother. She lived with her mother and adoptive father as their child and kept the name Hansen until her marriage to Donald J. Iverson. Thus she is a party to this action as Jean Louise Iverson.
Lily Donnelly, the grandmother, died October 7, 1964, leaving a will in which she named but left nothing to her two children. All of her property she left to her husband, John J. Donnelly, Sr., Jean Louise Iverson‘s grandfather.
John J. Donnelly, Sr., the grandfather, died September 15, 1970, leaving a will dated October 16, 1932, in which he left his entire estate to his wife, Lily, who had predeceased him. He, too, named but left nothing to his two children, and made no provision for disposition of his property in event his wife predeceased him. His daughter, Kathleen M. Kelly, as administratrix with wills annexed of the estates of her parents, brought this petition to determine heirship and for a declaration that Jean Louise Iverson, the granddaughter, take nothing and that she, Kathleen M. Kelly, the daughter, be adjudged the sole heir of her mother and father, Lily and John J. Donnelly, Sr., to the exclusion of Jean Louise Iverson, her niece and their granddaughter.
The trial court decided that each was an heir. It concluded that Jean Louise Iverson, daughter of John J. Donnelly, Jr., and granddaughter of his father, John J. Donnelly, Sr., should inherit one-half of the latter‘s estate and that Kathleen M. Kelly, daughter of John J. Donnelly, Sr., should inherit the other half of the estate.
As the trial court in its memorandum opinion and the Court of Appeals noted, the issue is whether
In Washington, may a natural granddaughter inherit from her intestate grandparents, notwithstanding her adoption by her stepfather after the death of her natural father, the son of the decedent grandparents?
The sole beneficiary under his will having predeceased him, John J. Donnelly, Sr., died intestate. In re Estates of Sims, 39 Wn.2d 288, 235 P.2d 204 (1951). His estate would thus pass by the statutes governing intestacy according to
The net estate of a person dying intestate . . . shall be distributed as follows:
. . .
(2) . . . the entire net estate if there is no surviving spouse, shall descend and be distributed . . .
(a) To the issue of the intestate; if they are all in the same degree of kinship to the intestate, they shall take equally, or if of unequal degree, then those of more remote degree shall take by representation.
(Italics ours.)
Issue “includes all of the lawful lineal descendants of the ancestor.”
[E]ach share of a deceased person in the nearest degree shall be divided among those of his issue who survive the intestate and have no ancestor then living who is in the line of relationship between them and the intestate, those more remote in degree taking together the share which their ancestor would have taken had he survived the intestate.
Thus, a statutory right to inherit one-half of the grandfather‘s estate is vested in Jean Louise Iverson, the granddaughter, unless that right is divested by operation of
A lawfully adopted child shall not be considered an “heir” of his natural parents for purposes of this title.
When the question of the right of an adopted child to inherit from his natural parents came before us, the intent of the legislature was clear from the literal language of the statute. We held that
The purpose of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature. To decide whether
In placing a judicial construction upon a legislative enactment, the entire sequence of all statutes relating to the same subject matter should be considered.
Connick v. Chehalis, 53 Wn.2d 288, 290, 333 P.2d 647 (1958).
The legislature has addressed itself to the inheritance rights of adopted children in both the probate and domestic relations titles of RCW. (RCW Titles 11 and 26.) For example,
By a decree of adoption the natural parents shall be divested of all legal rights and obligations in respect to the child, and the child shall be free from all legal obligations of obedience and maintenance in respect to them, and shall be, to all intents and purposes, and for all legal incidents, the child, legal heir, and lawful issue of his or her adopter or adopters, entitled to all rights and privileges, including the right of inheritance and the right to take under testamentary disposition, and subject to all the obligations of a child of the adopter or adopters begotten in lawful wedlock.
(Italics ours.)
Since
Where . . . two statutes relate to the same subject matter, the court will, in its attempt to ascertain legislative purpose, read the sections as constituting one law to the end that a harmonious total schema which maintains the integrity of both is derived.
Beach v. Board of Adjustment, 73 Wn.2d 343, 346, 438 P.2d 617 (1968).
It is clear that: (1) the adopted child cannot take from his natural parent because he is no longer an “heir” (
Legislative intent is to be ascertained from the statutory text as a whole, interpreted in terms of the general object and purpose of the legislation. Guinness v. State, 40 Wn.2d 677, 679, 246 P.2d 433 (1952); Nationwide Papers, Inc. v. Northwest Egg Sales, Inc., 69 Wn.2d 72, 76, 416 P.2d 687 (1966).
The question at bench should, therefore, be decided in the context of the broad legislative objective of giving the adopted child a “fresh start” by treating him as the natural child of the adoptive parent, and severing all ties with the past. We believe it clearly follows that the legislature intended to remove an adopted child from his natural bloodline for purposes of intestate succession.
The trial court and Court of Appeals, however, held that although an adopted child may not take from a natural parent dying intestate, the same child may take through the natural parent, by representation, if the natural parent dies before the natural grandparent. Little supportive reasoning is offered for this inconsistent result. In reaching its conclusion, the Court of Appeals reasoned that consanguineal ties are so fundamental that an explicit expression of legislative intent is required to deprive an adopted child of the bounty which would normally be his by reason of the “intuitive impulses” generated by the blood relationship. In re Estates of Donnelly, 5 Wn. App. 158, 164, 486 P.2d 1158 (1971). The Court of Appeals reasoned that had the legislature desired to remove an adopted child from its natural bloodline, it could have used the word “kin” in place of the word “parents” in
However, where the literal interpretation of a particular word is repugnant to the intent of the legislature
The only object of construction is to ascertain the meaning and intention of the legislature, and when that intention is discovered it is controlling, although it may be contrary to the strict letter of the statute.”
Cory v. Nethery, 19 Wn.2d 326, 332, 142 P.2d 488 (1943), quoting from Howlett v. Cheetham, 17 Wash. 626, 630, 50 P. 522 (1897).
Obviously, the legislature did not consider consanguinity to be of controlling importance where the blood relationship must be presumed to be strongest—the natural parent. Moreover,
The legislative policy of providing a “clean slate” to the adopted child permeates our scheme of adoption. The natural grandparents are not entitled to notice of any hearing on the matter of adoption.
The consistent theme of the relevant legislation is that the new family of the adopted child is to be treated as his natural family. The only conclusion consistent with the spirit of our overlapping adoption and inheritance statutes is that
Respondent suggests it is most probable that the legislature never considered the problem of inheritance by adopted persons from their remote natural kin when it passed
On numerous occasions this court has indicated that a statute should be construed as a whole in order to ascertain legislative purpose, and thus avoid unlikely, strained or absurd consequences which could result from a literal reading. That the spirit or the purpose of legislation should prevail over the express but inept language is an ancient adage of the law.
Alderwood Water Dist. v. Pope & Talbot, Inc., 62 Wn.2d 319, 321, 382 P.2d 639 (1963).
As we stated in State ex rel. Spokane United Rys. v. Department of Pub. Serv., 191 Wash. 595, 598, 71 P.2d 661 (1937):
The rule that the expression of one thing will, under certain circumstances, exclude others, should be applied as a means of discovering the legislative intent, and its application should not be permitted to defeat the plainly indicated purpose of the legislature. [Citations omitted.] In determining the legislative intent, the purpose for which a law was enacted is a matter of prime importance in arriving at a correct interpretation of its parts, and ” ‘A thing which is within the object, spirit and the meaning of the statute is as much within the statute as if it were within the letter.’ ” 2 Lewis’ Sutherland Statutory Construction (2d ed.), §§ 369 and 379.
The broad legislative purpose underlying our statutes relating to adopted children is consistent only with the inference that
The chain of inheritance was broken by respondent‘s adoption. Reversed.
HAMILTON, C.J., STAFFORD, WRIGHT, and UTTER, JJ., concur.
HALE, J. (dissenting)—I dissent. This court asks whether an adopted child may inherit from her natural grandparents. Both the trial court and the Court of Appeals, 5 Wn. App. 158, 486 P.2d 1158 (1971), answered yes, and I agree. I would, therefore, adopt the opinion of the Court of Appeals verbatim as declaring the law of the state in this case.
But there are other reasons, I think, why the granddaughter is entitled to an inheritance and why the statute,
One should note the absence of the simple declarative in
If the circumstances of this case are changed slightly, the flaw in the court‘s opinion becomes apparent. Had the plaintiff granddaughter, Jean Louise Iverson, in this case been the sole surviving descendant of her grandfather, John J. Donnelly, Sr., then under the court‘s opinion, all of the estate of her grandfather, John J. Donnelly, Sr., would escheat to the state. Such a forfeiture of estate, I think, was neither intended by the legislature nor reasonably contemplated by the language it employed in
One can readily agree with the court‘s proposition that the legislature has designed the adoption and inheritance code so as to make an adopted child the full equal in law with a natural child and, so far as the law can do so, to establish a relationship between adopted parents and adopted children identical to that of natural parents and children. To that end it expressly enacted that the natural parents are divested of all legal rights and obligations; that the adopted child becomes “to all legal intents and purposes and for all legal incidents” the child, legal heir and lawful issue of her adopters,
But nothing in the Court of Appeals opinion militates against the integrity and totality of an adoption. To the
The court‘s opinion depends largely on In re Estate of Wiltermood, 78 Wn.2d 238, 472 P.2d 536 (1970), as a basis for holding here that if the statute,
The court seems to find some operative significance in the statute which declares that those who are of equal degree of kinship to the intestate take in equal shares, but if of unequal degree, those of the more remote degree take by representation.
Thus, as earlier observed, I would affirm the Court of Appeals and thereby affirm the trial court.
FINLEY, ROSELLINI, and HUNTER, JJ., concur with HALE, J.
Petition for rehearing denied January 4, 1973.