Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/890

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
854
HARVARD LAW REVIEW
854

854 HARVARD LAW REVIEW drqff, 183 U. S. 424; The Manhattan, 46 Fed. 797. This jurisdiction is not lost though incidental repairs are performed while the vessel is hauled out on land, the criterion being that the contract relates to repair, not to the use of the ma- rine railway or dry dock. The Steamship Jefferson, 215 U. S. 130; Wartman v. Griffith, 3 Blatchf. (C. C.) 528. Adoption — Contract to Adopt — Right of Inheritance — Specific Performance. — The defendant's intestate and her husband contracted with the paternal grandmother of the plaintiff to adopt the plaintiff's father, "ac- cording to the statutory law" and "to do for him in every respect as if he were their offspring." Under this contract, the plaintiff's father entered the home of the defendant's intestate, and until the day of his death, the assumed ties of mother and son were maintained. The defendant's intestate did not, how- ever, legally adopt the child. The latter's daughter sought to take under the laws of intestacy and inheritance. Held, that she might take. Barney v. Hutchinson, etal. 177 Pac. 890 (New Mexico). Adoption is universally authorized in this coimtry by statute, being unknown to the common law. Matter of Zeigler, 82 Misc. 346, 143 N. Y. Supp. 562. The resulting relation is therefore statutory, not contractual. Calhoun v. Bryant, 28 S. D. 266, 133 N. W. 266. Such statutes generally confer a right to inherit from the adopting parent. Gilliam v. Guaranty Trust Co., 186 N. Y. 127, 78 N. E. 697; Ryan v. Foreman, 262 III. 175, 104 N. E. 189; 31 Harv. L. Rev. 488. Accordingly a contract to adopt carries with it the incidental right of heirship. Thomas v. Malone, 142 Mo. App. 193, 126 S. W. 522. This right descends to the children of the adopted child. Gray v. Holmes, 57 Kan. 217, 45 Pac. 596. The right of the adopting parent to disinherit naturally follows unless the con- tract definitely states otherwise. The relation alone wiU not groimd a contract of inheritance. Odenhreit v. Utheim, 131 Minn. 56, 154 N. W. 741; Steele v. Steele, 161 Mo. 566, 61 S. W. 815. In the principal case, the adoption proceed- ings did not conform to statutory requirements, but the contract was fully per- formed by the child. In such a case, the child or his heirs may recover. Craw- ford V. Wilson, 139 Ga. 654, 78 S. E. 30. The measure of damages for the breach of such a contract is the value of the service performed, with interest, not the value of the share of the promisor's estate which would have been inherited by the child, had the contract been performed. Sandham v. Grounds, 94 Fed. 83. Where the consideration executed on the part of the child consists of services, companionship, and a change of domestic relations, its value cannot be ade- quately compensated in damages. Crawford v. Wilson, supra. The court, re- garding that as done which ought to have been done, in decreeing that the child, and therefore its heir, was entitled to the fruits of legal adoption, is in accord with the great weight of authority. Thomas v. Malone, supra; Chehak V. Battles, 133 Iowa, 107, no N. W. 330. But see contra, Davis v. Jones' Adm'r, 94 Ky. 320, 22 S. W. 331. Adverse Possession — Tax Liens — Whether Continuity of Posses- sion Affected by. — In an action of ejectment the plaintiff based his claim in part upon a tax deed from the state which had purchased the land for the delinquent taxes of X. The defendant claimed under an adverse possession, which was running when the tax lien attached, but which had not ripened into title. The statutory period had run at the time of the purchase by the state. Held, the tax deed was invalid because the tax lien was extinguished by ad- verse possession. West Virginia &• Virginia Coal Co. v. Charles, 254 Fed. 379. For a discussion of this case, see Notes, page 844. Bankruptcy — Adjudication — Insolvency — Res Judicata. — A trus- tee in bankruptcy sued to recover a preference and offered as evidence of the