Adopted Children. Gail MacCallum was the daughter of Anita Seymour. (After the death of Gail's father, Anita had married Richard Seymour, who adopted Gail the next year, when she was seven years old.) The same year, Janet Seymour was born to Richard and

Question

Anita. Almost forty years later, when Richard's brother Philip died, both Gail and Janet sought to share in the estate. A Vermont state court concluded that Gail could not share in the estate because a state statute prohibited "inheritance between the person adopted . . . and collateral kin of the person or persons making the adoption." Gail appealed, arguing that the statute was unconstitutional. Will the court agree? Discuss fully.

Answer 1

Adopted children
The trial court ruled in Janet's favor, and Gail appealed. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed. The state's highest court concluded that the statute "is not reasonably related to a valid public purpose, at least with respect to persons who are adopted during their minority," and declared the statute to be unconstitutional. Janet argued that "(1) [in adopting the statute] the [state] Leg-islature could presume that the intent of collateral relatives was that their property would pass only within the bloodline; and (2) the adoption of plaintiff represented a contract between her and her adoptive father that did not affect the interests and expectations of others." To the first argument, the court responded that such a presumption was discriminatory against adopted persons. To the second argument, the court pointed out that "[w]hether or not an adoptee has some ‘contractual' relationship with her adoptive relatives is completely irrelevant." This argu-ment "ignore[s] the fact that a child's birth always imposes a potential heir on the relatives of his biological parents, yet no one would suggest that the child should not inherit from his blood relatives because they had not consented to his conception."