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In re Estate of Seader9/23/2003
bstantial compliance with the adoption statutes. Id. at 25.
Nugent has been cited for the following proposition:
The equitable adoption doctrine first appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Missouri and Wyoming when these two pioneer states held that an agreement to adopt that did not fulfill the statutory provision of adoption could be enforced under the principles of equity.
Beth Ann Yount, Note, Lankford v. Wright: Recognizing Equitable Adoption in North Carolina, 76 N.C. L. Rev. 2446, 2455 (1998) (footnotes omitted). Our reading of Nugent leads us to the considerably more limited conclusion that the case merely stands for the proposition that substantial, rather than absolute, compliance with the adoption statutes is sufficient to create a legal adoption. The emphasis in Nugent is upon legal adoption under a statutory scheme, not equitable adoption based upon an agreement.
Commentators have noted that courts have not always done well at distinguishing between contracts to adopt and contracts to make a will or leave an inheritance:
The courts often speak in terms of specific performance of the contract to adopt. In according this remedy courts have sometimes failed to distinguish between a contract to leave a child's share of the adopting parent's estate to the adopted child -- which of course limits the right of the adopting parent to dispose of his estate by will -- and a contract to adopt, i.e., to comply with the statutory adoption procedure. The latter type of contract leaves the adopting parent free to disinherit the adopted child just as he could disinherit a natural child. Edward D. Bailey, Adoption "By Estoppel," 36 Tex. L. Rev. 30, 32-33 (1957); see also J.C.J., Jr., Note, Equitable Adoption: They Took Him Into Their Home and Called Him Fred, 58 Va. L. Rev. 727, 729-30 (1972) ("Of course, a single case may involve both a contract to make a will and a contract to adopt, and courts sometimes fail to distinguish between them; but the essence of equitable adoption is the provision of a judicial remedy for an unperformed adoption agreement.") (footnote omitted).
Pangarova v. Nichols, 419 P.2d 688 (Wyo. 1966), is just such a case, largely because the parties, long before the matter got to court, blurred the distinctions between adoption and inheritance. In Pangarova, a man and his wife wrote numerous letters to their adult niece in Bulgaria, offering to adopt her and to make her their heir if she would come to Casper, Wyoming, to live with them. Id. at 690. The niece eventually did come to Casper and moved into the home of her uncle and his new wife, his first wife having died. Id. And the uncle did, indeed, make a will naming his niece as the sole beneficiary of his estate. Id. at 690-93. Unfortunately, the niece and the new wife did not get along, the niece moved out, and the uncle drafted a new will leaving everything to his new wife. Upon the uncle's death, the niece filed an action seeking damages for breach of the contact to adopt her and to make her an heir. Id. at 693-94.
The district court directed a verdict against the niece. In reversing and remanding for a new trial, this Court emphasized that the alleged contract did not deal solely with adoption, but promised that the uncle would make the niece his heir. We concluded that " uch contracts are not uncommon in the case of minor children and are 'generally construed to impose upon the adoptive parent an obligation to make the child an heir, which equity will specifically enforce.'" Id. at 695 ( quoting R.P. Davis, Annotation, Specific Performance of, or Status of Child Under, Contract to Adopt Not Fully Performed, 171 A.L.R. 13
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