291 Mass. 153 | Mass. | 1935
This is a petition for distribution of the balance of the estate of Laura M. Phillips, deceased, intestate, late of North Brookfield, among her next of kin. The relevant facts are these: On July 8, 1913, Thomas E. Hall of Boston and Jennie E. Hall, his wife, adopted J. Lanette Wiles, whose parents were deceased. On October 19, 1916, the same Thomas E. Hall, then a widower, adopted Laura M. Phillips, whose parents also were deceased. He predeceased said Laura M. Phillips leaving
It is settled that if the deceased had been a legitimate child born according to nature to her adoptive parent, her intestate estate would go to her sister adopted by the same parent. An adopted daughter inherits as a sister from a son of one of the adoptive parents. The statute “gives the adopted child the same right to inherit directly from legal descendants of his adopted parent that he would have if born to the parent in lawful wedlock.” Stearns v. Allen, 183 Mass. 404, 409. A child by adoption has been held to be “issue” of the adoptive parent within the meaning of that word as used in the statute as to descent and distribution. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 190, § 1 (2). Buckley v. Frasier, 153 Mass. 525. “Issue ordinarily means all lineal descend
It can hardly be thought to have been the intent of the Legislature that two strangers, both adopted by the same parents, cannot upon the death of the adoptive parents inherit from each other on the decease of one, although in the same situation each would inherit from the children of such parents born in wedlock and such children would inherit from adopted children. It would be a strange anomaly in the law of domestic relations if two children, without previous kinship with each other, adopted by the same parents, should be farther away from each other than each is from the children born in lawful wedlock to the adoptive parents. Such distinctions would tend to disrupt a family. The whole purpose of the law of adoption is to unify the family. The adopted child stands with respect to legal descendants of the adopting parents on the same footing as if born in wedlock to such parents. The adopted child becomes such legal descendant by operation of law. Buckley v. Frasier, 153 Mass. 525. Young v. Stearns, 234 Mass. 540. It is apparent that the word “descendants” in this context is not confined in meaning to those alone
Decree affirmed.