TRIMBLE ET AL. v. GORDON ET AL.
No. 75-5952
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 7, 1976—Decided April 26, 1977
430 U.S. 762
James D. Weill argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Devereux Bowly, Charles Linn, and Jane G. Stevens.
Miles N. Beermann argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Fred Klinsky.*
MR. JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
At issue in this case is the constitutionality of § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act1 which allows illegitimate children to inherit by intestate succession only from their mothers. Under Illinois law, legitimate children are allowed to inherit by intestate succession from both their mothers and their fathers.2
I
Appellant Deta Mona Trimble is the illegitimate daughter
Shortly after Gordon‘s death, Trimble, as the mother and next friend of Deta Mona, filed a petition for letters of administration, determination of heirship, and declaratory relief in the Probate Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. That court entered an order determining heirship, identifying as the only heirs of Gordon his father, Joseph Gordon, his mother, Ethel King, and his brother, two sisters, and a half brother.5 All of these individuals are appellees in this appeal, but only appellee King has filed a brief.
The Circuit Court excluded Deta Mona on the authority of the negative implications of § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act, which provides in relevant part:
“An illegitimate child is heir of his mother and of any maternal ancestor, and of аny person from whom his mother might have inherited, if living; and the lawful issue of an illegitimate person shall represent such person and take, by descent, any estate which the parent would
have taken, if living. A child who was illegitimate whose parents inter-marry and who is acknowledged by the father as the father‘s child is legitimate.”6
If Deta Mona had been a legitimate child, she would have inherited her father‘s entire estate under Illinois law.7 In rejecting Deta Mona‘s claim of heirship, the court sustained the constitutionality of § 12.
After a notice of appeal was filed, the Illinois Supreme Court entered an order allowing direct appeal of the decision of the Circuit Court, bypassing the Illinois Appellate Court. Appellants were granted leave to file an amicus brief in two pending consolidated appeals which presented similar challenges to thе constitutionality of § 12. On June 2, 1975, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its opinion in In re Estate of Karas, 61 Ill. 2d 40, 329 N. E. 2d 234 (1975), sustaining § 12 against all constitutional challenges, including those presented in appellants’ amicus brief.8 On September 24, 1975, oral argument was held in the instant case. Chief Justice Underwood orally delivered the opinion of the court from the bench, affirming the decision of the Circuit Court on the authority of Karas. A final judgment was entered on October 15, 1975.9
We noted probable jurisdiction to consider the arguments that § 12 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by invidiously discriminating on the basis of illegitimacy and sex.10 424 U. S. 964 (1976). We
II
In Karas, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the equal protection challenge to the discrimination against illegitimate children on the explicit authority of Labine v. Vincent, 401 U. S. 532 (1971). The court found that § 12 is supported by the state interests in encouraging family relationships and in establishing an accurate and efficient method of disposing of property at death. The court also found the Illinois law unobjectionable because no “insurmountable barrier” prevented illegitimate children from sharing in the estates of their fathers. By leaving a will, Sherman Gordon could have assured Deta Mona a share of his estate.
Appellees endorse the reasoning of the Illinois Supreme Court and suggest additional justifications for the statute. In weighing the constitutional sufficiency of these justifications, we are guided by our previous decisions involving equal protection challenges to laws discriminating on the basis of illegitimacy.11 “[T]his Court requires, at a minimum, that a statutory classification bear some rational relationship to a legitimate state purposе.” Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164, 172 (1972). In this context, the standard just stated is a minimum; the Court sometimes requires more. “Though the latitude given state economic and social regulation is necessarily broad, when state statutory classifications approach sensitive and fundamental personal rights, this Court exercises a stricter scrutiny....” Id.
Appellants urge us to hold that classifications based on illegitimacy are “suspect,” so that any justifications must survive “strict scrutiny.” We considered and rejected a similar argument last Term in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495 (1976). As we recognized in Lucas, illegitimacy is analogous in many respects to the personal characteristics that have been held to be suspect when used as the basis of statutory differentiations. Id., at 505. We nevertheless concluded that the analogy was not sufficient to require “our most exacting scrutiny.” Id., at 506. Despite the conclusion that classifications based on illegitimacy fall in a “realm of less thаn strictest scrutiny,” Lucas also establishes that the scrutiny “is not a toothless one,” id., at 510, a proposition clearly demonstrated by our previous decisions in this area.12
III
The Illinois Supreme Court prefaced its discussion of the state interests served by § 12 with a general discussion of
demonstrates that state statutes involving the disposition of property at death are not immunized from equal protection scrutiny. See also Eskra v. Morton, 524 F. 2d 9, 13 (CA7 1975) (Stevens, J.). The more specific analysis of Labine is discussed throughout the remainder of this opinion.
A
The Illinois Supreme Court relied in part on the State‘s purported interest in “the promotion of [legitimate] family relationships.” 61 Ill. 2d, at 48, 329 N. E. 2d, at 238. Although the court noted that this justification had been accepted in Labine, the opinion contains only the most perfunctory analysis. This inattention may not have been an oversight, for § 12 bears only the most attenuated relationship to the asserted goal.13
consistent with a theory of social opprobrium regarding the parents’ relationships and with a measured, if misguided, attempt to deter illegitimate relationships.
In Weber we examined a Louisiana workmen‘s compensation law which discriminated against one class of illegitimate children. Without questioning Louisiana‘s interest in рrotecting legitimate family relationships, we rejected the argument that “persons will shun illicit relations because the offspring may not one day reap the benefits of workmen‘s compensation.” 406 U. S., at 173. Although Weber distinguished Labine on other grounds, the reasons for rejecting this justification are equally applicable here:
“The status of illegitimacy has expressed through the ages society‘s condemnation of irresponsible liaisons beyond the bonds of marriage. But visiting this condemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust. Moreover, imposing disabilities on the illegitimate child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual re-
sponsibility or wrongdoing. Obviously, no child is responsible for his birth and penalizing the illegitimate child is an ineffectual—as well as an unjust—way of deterring the parent.” 406 U. S., at 175 (footnote omitted).
The parents have the ability tо conform their conduct to societal norms, but their illegitimate children can affect neither their parents’ conduct nor their own status.
B
The Illinois Supreme Court relied on Labine for another and more substantial justification: the State‘s interest in “establish[ing] a method of property disposition.” 61 Ill. 2d, at 48, 329 N. E. 2d, at 238. Here the court‘s analysis is more complete. Focusing specifically on the difficulty of proving paternity and the related danger of spurious claims, the court concluded that this interest explained and justified the asymmetrical statutory discrimination against the illegitimate children of intestate men. The more favorable treatment of illegitimate children claiming from their mothers’ estates was justified because “proof of a lineal relationship is more readily ascertainable when dealing with maternal ancestors.” Id., at 52, 329 N. E. 2d, at 240. Alluding to the possibilities of abuse, the court rejected a cаse-by-case approach to claims based on alleged paternity. Id., at 52-53, 329 N. E. 2d, at 240-241.
The more serious problems of proving paternity might justify a more demanding standard for illegitimate children claiming under their fathers’ estates than that required either for illegitimate children claiming under their mothers’ estates or for legitimate children generally. We think, however, that the Illinois Supreme Court gave inadequate consideration to the relation between § 12 and the State‘s proper objective of assuring accuracy and efficiency in the disposition of property at death. The court failed to consider the
The orderly disposition of property at death requires an appropriate legal framework, the structuring of which is a matter particularly within the competence of the individual States. In exercising this responsibility, a State necessarily must enact laws governing both the procedure and substance of intestate succession. Absent infringement of a constitutional right, the federal courts have no role here, and, even when constitutional violations are alleged, those courts should accord substantial deference to a State‘s statutory scheme of inheritance.
The judicial task here is the difficult one of vindicating constitutional rights without interfering unduly with the State‘s primary responsibility in this area. Our previous decisions demonstrate a sensitivity to “the lurking problems with respect to proof of paternity,” Gomez v. Perez, 409 U. S. 535, 538 (1973), and the need for the States to draw “arbitrary lines . . . to facilitate potentially difficult problems of proof,” Weber, 406 U. S., at 174. “Those problems are not to be lightly brushed aside, but neither can they be made into an impenetrable barrier that works to shield otherwise invidious discrimination.” Gomez, supra, at 538. Our decision last Term in Mathews v. Lucas, supra, provides especially helpful guidance.
In Lucas we sustained provisions of the Social Security Act governing the eligibility for surviving children‘s insurance benefits. One of the statutory conditions of eligibility was dependency on the deceased wage earner. 427 U. S., at 498,
Although the present case arises in a context different from that in Lucas, the question whether the statute “is carefully tuned to alternative considerations” is equally applicable here. We conclude that § 12 does not meet this standard. Difficulties of proving paternity in some situations do not justify the total statutory disinheritance of illegitimate children whose fathers die intestate. The facts of this case graphically illustrate the constitutional defect of § 12. Sherman Gоrdon was found to be the father of Deta Mona in a state-court paternity action prior to his death. On the strength of that finding, he was ordered to contribute to the support of his child. That adjudication should be equally sufficient to establish Deta Mona‘s right to claim a child‘s share of Gordon‘s estate, for the State‘s interest in the accurate and efficient disposition of property at death would not be compromised in any way by allowing her claim in these circumstances.14 The reach of the statute extends well
C
The Illinois Supreme Court also noted that the decedents whose estates were involved in the consolidated appeals could have left substantial parts of their estates to their illegitimate children by writing a will. The court cited Labine as authority for the proposition that such a possibility is constitutionally significant. 61 Ill. 2d, at 52, 329 N. E. 2d, at 240. The penultimate paragraph of the opinion in Labine distinguishes that case from Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968),15 because no insurmountable barrier prevented the illegitimate child from sharing in her father‘s estate. “There is not the slightest suggestion in this case that Louisiana has barred this illegitimate from inheriting from her father.” 401 U. S., at 539. The Court then listed three different steps that would have resulted in some recovery by Labine‘s illegitimate daughter. Labine could have left a will; he could have legitimated the daughter by marrying her mother; and he could have given the daughter the status of a legitimate child by stating in his acknowledgment of paternity his desire to legitimate her. Ibid. In Weber our distinction of Labine was based in part on the fact that no such alternatives existed, as state law prevented the acknowledgment of the children involved. 406 U. S., at 170-171.
Despite its appearance in two of our opinions, the focus on the presence or absence of an insurmountable barrier is somewhat of an analytical anomaly. Here, as in Labine, the question is the constitutionality of a stаte intestate succession law that treats illegitimate children differently from legitimate children. Traditional equal protection analy-
By focusing on the steps that an intestate might have taken to assure some inheritance for his illegitimate children, the analysis loses sight of the essential question: the constitutionality of discrimination against illegitimates in a state intestate succession law. If the decedent had written a will devising property to his illegitimate child, the case no longer would involve intestate succession law at all. Similarly, if the decedent had legitimated the child by marrying the child‘s mother or by complying with the requirements of some other method of legitimation, the case no longer would involve discrimination against illegitimates. Hard questions cannot be avoided by a hypothetical reshuffling of the facts. If Sherman Gordon had devised his estate to Deta Mona this case would not be here. Similarly, in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), if the decedent had left a will naming an executor, the problem of the statutory preference for male administrators of estates of intestates would not have been presented. The opinion in Reed gives no indication that this available alternative had any constitutional significance. We think it has none in this case.
D
Finally, appellees urge us to affirm the decision below on the theory that the Illinois Probate Act, including § 12, mirrors the presumed intentions of the citizens of the State regarding the disposition of their property at death. Individualizing this theory, appellees argue that we must assume that Sherman Gordon knew the disposition of his estate under the Illinois Probate Act and that his failure to make a will shows his approval of that disposition. We need not
To the extent that other policies are not considered more important, legislators enacting state intestate succession laws probably are influenced by the desire to reflect the natural affinities of decedents in the allocation of estates among the
Notes
Even if one assumed that a majority of the citizens of the State preferred to discriminate against their illegitimate children, the sentiment hardly would be unanimous. With respect to any individual, the argument of knowledge and approval of the state law is sheer fiction. The issue therefore becomes where the burden of inertia in writing a will is to fall. At least when the disadvantaged group has been a frequent target of discrimination, as illegitimates have, we dоubt that a State constitutionally may place the burden on that group by invoking the theory of “presumed intent.” See Eskra v. Morton, 524 F. 2d, at 12-14 (Stevens, J.).
IV
For the reasons stated above, we conclude that § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act17 cannot be squared with the command of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST dissent. Like the
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.
The Fourteenth Amendment‘s prohibition against “any State . . . deny[ing] to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws” is undoubtedly one of the majestic generalities of the Constitution. If, during the period of more than a century since its adoption, this Court had developed a consistent body of doctrine which could reasonably be said to expound the intent of those who drafted and adopted that Clause of the Amendmеnt, there would be no cause for judicial complaint, however unwise or incapable of effective administration one might find those intentions. If, on the other hand, recognizing that those who drafted and adopted this language had rather imprecise notions about what it meant, the Court had evolved a body of doctrine which both was consistent and served some arguably useful purpose, there would likewise be little cause for great dissatisfaction with the existing state of the law.
Unfortunately, more than a century of decisions under this Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment have produced neither of these results. They have instead produced a syndrome wherein this Court seems to regard the Equal Protection Clause as a cat-o‘-nine-tails to be kept in the judicial closet as a threat to legislatures which may, in the view of the judiciary, get out of hand and pass “arbitrary,” “illogical,” or “unreasonable” laws. Except in the area of the law in which the Framers obviously meant it to apply—classifications based on race or on national origin, the first cousin of race—the Court‘s decisions can fairly be described as an endless tinkering with legislative judgments, a series of conclusions unsupported by any central guiding principle.
It is too well known to warrant more than brief mention that the Framers of the Constitution adopted a system of
Following the Civil War, Congress propounded and the States ratified the so-called “Civil War Amendments“—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which, together with post-Civil War legislation, sharply altered the balance of power between the Federal and State Governments. See Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 238-242 (1972). But they were not designed to accomplish this purpose in some vague, ill-defined way which was ultimately tо be discovered by this Court more than a century after their enactment. Their language contained the mechanisms by which their purpose was to be accomplished. Congress might affirmatively legislate under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to carry out the purposes of that Amendment; and the courts could strike down state laws found directly to violate the dictates of any of the Amendments.
This was strong medicine, and intended to be such. But it cannot be read apart from the original understanding at Philadelphia: The Civil War Amendments did not make this Court into a council of revision, and they did not confer upon this Court any authority to nullify state laws which were merely felt to be inimical to the Court‘s notion of the public interest.
The Equal Protection Clause is itself a classic paradox, and makes sense only in the context of a recently fought Civil War. It creates a requirement оf equal treatment to be applied to the process of legislation—legislation whose very purpose is to draw lines in such a way that different people are treated differently. The problem presented is one of sorting the legislative distinctions which are acceptable from those which involve invidiously unequal treatment.
All constitutional provisions for protection of individuals involve difficult questions of line drawing. But most others have implicit within them an understandable value judgment that certain types of conduct have a favored place and are to be protected to a greater or lesser degree. Obvious examples are free speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to a fair trial. The remaining judicial task in applying those guarantees is to determine whether, оn given facts, the constitutional value judgment embodied in such a provision has been offended in a particular case.
In the case of equality and equal protection, the constitu-
The essential problem of the Equal Protection Clause is therefore the оne of determining where the courts are to look for guidance in defining “equal” as that word is used in the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the Amendment grew out of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves, the core prohibition was early held to be aimed at the protection of blacks. See Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880);
The presumptive invalidity of all of these classifications has made decisions involving them, for the most part, relatively easy. But when the Court has been required to adjudicаte equal protection claims not based on race or national origin, it has faced a much more difficult task. In cases involving alienage, for example, it has concluded that such classifications are “suspect” because, though not necessarily involving race or national origin, they are enough like the latter to warrant similar treatment. See Graham v. Richard-son, 403 U. S. 365 (1971); Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U. S. 634 (1973); In re Griffiths, 413 U. S. 717 (1973). While there may be individual disagreement as to how such classes are to be singled out and as to whether specific classes are sufficiently close to the core area of race and national origin to warrant such treatment, one cannot say that the inquiry is not germane to the meaning of the Clause.
Illegitimacy, which is involved in this case, has never been held by the Court to be a “suspect classification.” Nonetheless, in several opinions of the Court, statеments are found which suggest that although illegitimates are not members of a “suspect class,” laws which treat them differently from those born in wedlock will receive a more far-reaching scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than will other laws regulating economic and social conditions. Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968); Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Ins. Co., 391 U. S. 73 (1968); Labine v. Vincent, 401 U. S. 532 (1971); Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972); Gomez v. Perez, 409 U. S. 535 (1973); New Jersey Welfare Rights Org. v. Cahill, 411 U. S. 619 (1973); Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628 (1974). But see Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495 (1976). The Court‘s opinion today contains language to that effect. Ante, at 766-767. In one sense this language is a source of consolation, since it suggests that parts of the Court‘s analysis used in this case will not be carried over to traditional “rational basis” or “minimum scrutiny” cases. At the same time, though, it is a source of confusion, since the unanswered question remains as to the precise sort of scrutiny to which classifications based on illegitimacy will be subject.
The appropriate “scrutiny,” in the eyes of the Court, appears to involve some analysis of the relation of the “purpose” of the legislature to the “means” by which it chooses to carry out that purpose. The Court‘s opinion abounds in language of this sort. We are told that “the sufficiency of the justifi-
The “difficulty” of the “judicial task” is, I suggest, a self-imposed one, stemming not from the Equal Protection Clause but from the Court‘s insistence on reading so much into it. I do not see how it can be doubted that the purpose (in the ordinary sense of that word) of the Illinois Legislature in enacting § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act was to make the language contained in that section a part of the Illinois law. I presume even the Court will concede that this purpose was accomplished. It was this particular language which the Illinois Legislature, by thе required vote of both of its houses and the signature of the Governor, enacted into law. The use of the word “purpose” in today‘s opinion actually expands the normal meaning of the word into something more like motive. Indeed, the Court says that the law “must be considered in light of this motivating purpose.” Ante, at 768. The question of what “motivated” the various individual
“Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the ‘dominant’ or ‘primary’ one. In fact, it is because legislators and аdministrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265 (1977) (footnote omitted).
What the Court in this case is apparently trying to ascertain is what the legislature had in mind or was trying to accomplish by enacting § 12. And, of course, this is actually an inquiry into motive: Why did the legislature pass this particular law?
If the great difficulties, described in Arlington Heights, supra, of ascertaining what various individual legislators “had in mind” when they voted to enact § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act are surmounted, this Court then takes it upon itself to inquire into whether the Act in question accomplished the “purpose” which the Court first determines the legislature had in mind. It should be apparent that litigants who wish to succeed in invalidating a law under the Equal Protection Clause must have a certain schizophrenia if they are to be successful in their advocacy: They must first convince this Court that the legislature had a particular purpose in mind in enacting the law, and then convince it that the law was not at all suited to the accomplishment of that purpose.
But a graver defect than this in the Court‘s analysis is that it also requires a conscious second-guessing of legislative judgment in an area where this Court has no special expertise
The fundamental flaw, to me, in this approach is that there is absolutely nothing to be inferred from the fact that we hold judicial commissions that would enable us to answer any one of these questions better than the legislators to whose initial decision they were committed. Without any antecedent constitutional mandate, we have created on the premises of the Equal Protection Clause a school for legislators, whereby opinions of this Court are written to instruct them in a better understanding of how to accomplish their ordinary legislative tasks.
I would by no means suggest that this case is the first, and I fear it will not be the last, to import this sort of analysis into the Equal Protection Clause. As long ago as Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920), the Court declared that a classification to be valid under the Equal Protection Clause “must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation . . . .” Mr. Justice Pitney wrote the opinion of the Court in that case, and Mr. Justice Brandeis, joined by Mr. Justice Holmes, dissented. While the quotation in context is
The familiar quotation from Royster Guano comes from a time when the Court was giving a broad reading to both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate legislation in a way which, it is hoped, would not recur today. See, e. g., Concordia Ins. Co. v. Illinois, 292 U. S. 535 (1934); Hartford Co. v. Harrison, 301 U. S. 459 (1937). Every law enacted, unless it applies to all persons at all times and in all places, inevitably imposes sanctions upon some and declines to impose the same sanctions on others. But these inevitable concomitants of legislation have little or nothing to do with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, unless they employ means of sorting people which the draftsmen of the Amendment sought to prohibit. I had thought that cases like McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426 (1961), in which the Court, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Warren, said that “[a] statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it,” and McDonald v. Board of Election, 394 U. S. 802, 809 (1969), in which the Court, again speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Warren, said that “[l]egislatures are presumed to have acted constitutionally even if source materials normally resorted to for ascertaining their grounds fоr action are otherwise silent, and their statutory classifications will be set aside only if no grounds can be conceived to justify them,” would have put to rest the expansive notions of judicial review suggested in the above-quoted excerpt from Royster Guano.
Here the Illinois Legislature was dealing with a problem of intestate succession of illegitimates from their fathers, which, as the Court concedes, frequently presents difficult problems of proof. The provisions of Illinois Probate Act § 12, as most recently amended, alleviate some of the difficulties which pre-