The Many Faces of Adoption

Recent news reports describe a new twist in adoption practice. According to the reports John Goodman, a wealthy Florida man, has adopted his 42 year old girlfriend, apparently in an attempt to protect some of his assets against possible losses in a wrongful death action filed against him. Goodman is alleged to have been drunk at the time he ran a stop sign, resulting in an accident that killed another man. Prior to the adoption of his girlfriend, Goodman had set up a trust for his two minor children, which the girlfriend may now share in as an adopted child, and news reports say that, under Florida law, the parents of the deceased man could not claim wrongful death damages from that trust.

When most people hear the word “adoption,” they picture what I often call the “Little Orphan Annie” model. You will recall in the Broadway play “Annie,” and before that in the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, Annie was only an infant when she was abandoned on the orphanage steps by her poor parents. After many adventures, Annie was adopted by Daddy Warbucks, a kind man with the emotional and economic resources to provide Annie with a real, forever home. Similarly, many people think of adoption mainly as a procedure for bringing babies and young children into forever families who will love and protect them. Although adoption takes that form for many people, in fact adoptions of older children and of stepchildren (adopted by second spouses to one of the children’s birth parents) are becoming more and more common.

There are also adult adoptions. The original model for adult adoptions may have been to formalize de facto family relationships, such as those that occurred when relatives would take in and raise an orphaned relative. Later, the model expanded to adoption of other adults who were significant to the adopter. In all of these situations, the adoption was not done for sentimental reasons; adoption served to secure inheritance rights for the adoptee. If the adopter wanted to leave significant property to a beloved person this could be done with a will, but disgruntled children or other relatives could seek to have the will set aside on grounds of undue influence or improper execution, thereby cutting out the interloper and increasing the shares of the will contestants. If the beloved person is legally adopted, challenging the will does not work because if a will is set aside, the property will pass by intestate succession to the children, including the adopted adult child. This technique has been effective to protect the inheritance rights of same-sex partners, although not every state allows adoptions where the parties have had a sexual relationship. Adoptions are rarely set aside, and it is questionable whether other children would even have standing to challenge the adoption.

The adoption of the adult girlfriend apparently makes her eligible for trust distributions as a child of Goodman. Goodman’s lawyer claims that his client’s motivation is to protect his children. Certainly that is part of Goodman’s motivation, given that he is facing the possibility of jail time in a criminal case as well as a potential damage judgment in the civil case. Still, the possibility of setting aside money to support children whom you already have a legal obligation to support is based on notions of protecting children and reducing the chances that society will have to support them. Here, arranging to have an adult girlfriend, who is presumably capable of self-support, share in the protections afforded to minor children seems like honoring the letter but not the spirit of the law. Even the judge who approved the adoption petition said it was “border[ing] on the surreal.” It will be interesting to see whether it withstands the inevitable legal challenges.

 

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