{ "id": 8724130, "name": "Pardo v. Creamer", "name_abbreviation": "Pardo v. Creamer", "decision_date": "1958-02-24", "docket_number": "5-1465", "first_page": "746", "last_page": "751", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "228 Ark. 746" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "310 S.W.2d 218" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "208 Ark. 55", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1478594 ], "weight": 2, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/208/0055-01" ] }, { "cite": "161 So. 806", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "So.", "case_ids": [ 3650530, 10077371 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ala/230/0423-01", "/so/161/0806-01" ] }, { "cite": "230 Ala. 423", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ala.", "case_ids": [ 3650530 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ala/230/0423-01" ] }, { "cite": "217 Ark. 499", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8721684 ], "weight": 2, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/217/0499-01" ] }, { "cite": "216 Ark. 761", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1614132 ], "weight": 3, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/216/0761-01" ] }, { "cite": "26 S. W. 2d 101", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "181 Ark. 111", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8718859 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/181/0111-01" ] }, { "cite": "28 S. W. 30", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "59 Ark. 483", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1327685 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/59/0483-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 600, "char_count": 10207, "ocr_confidence": 0.524, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.479012678310846e-07, "percentile": 0.6607497193851842 }, "sha256": "3e2d27f9aa00c561fc6debbd4d9179b10ef68012ae72694eda27e44515a85054", "simhash": "1:a99fa2fef40e52f8", "word_count": 1793 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:19:24.371217+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Pardo v. Creamer." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Minor W. Mill wee, Associate Justice. \u2022\nThis appeal involves the validity of an-.adoption order made in 1907 by the Probate Court of Monroe County, Arkansas, in which J. F. Linzey attempted to .adopt Vena Vista Allen, the four-year-old .daughter of his wife, Alice L. Linzey, by a former marriage. The order' reads as follows:\n\u201cOrder of Court-\nNow on this day October 21st 1907, a day of the regular October 1907 term of the Monroe Probate Court the above matter came on to be heard upon the petition of the petitioner, J. P. Lindsay, seeking the adoption of the minor, Uena Vista Allen: It appearing to the court that said petition was in the manner and form as prescribed by law, and duly verified, it further appeared to the Court from the consent of the mother of said minor who appeared in open court and was examined touching said matter, that it is to the best interest of said child that she be adopted by the said J. P. Lindsay and henceforth bear the name of Buena Vista Lindsay and shall occupy the same position in the household of the said Lindsay as a natural child would occupy in the way of liability on part of petitioner for education maintenance, power and right to inherit and in every other wise as a natural child, and the Clerk hereof will spread upon the record this order of the Court in full.\u201d\nThe petition mentioned in the order was never recorded until July 1, 1957, and reads:\n\u201cTo the Hon. Probate Court of Monroe county, Arkansas, Hon. R. P. Millwee, Judge thereof, presiding:\n\u201cYour petitioner, the undersigned J. P. Lindsay, would most respectfully state and show unto your hon- or, that he is a bona fide resident of Monroe county, Arkansas, that he desired to adopt to himself and to his name Buena Vista Allen, minor daughter of petitioner\u2019s wife; that the age of said child is four years; that it has no property; that both its parents are living, its mother being the wife of petitioner, and its father, Alfred Allen is living at Monroe, Arkansas, the divorced husband, of petitioner\u2019s wife. Petitioner says upon his oath that said child was given to petitioner\u2019s wife upon her separation from the said Alfred Allen and that the sole purpose for which he seeks the adoption of said child is to the end that it may inherit of the estate, of petitioner as his own children shall inherit and be entitled to all the rights and privileges that his own children bearing his own name enjoy or may hereafter enjoy.\n\u201cPetitioner introduces into open court his wife, the mother of said child, to the end that she may show her consent to the said adoption.\nRespectfully submitted,\n(s) Greo. P. Chaplin\nAttorney for petitioner\n\u201cI, J. P. Lindsay state upon my oath that the statements in the foregoing petition are true, to the best of my knowledge and belief.\n(s) J. P. Linzey\n\u201cSubscribed and sworn to before me on this the 1st day of Oct. 1907.\n(s) W. L. Hinton\nCounty Clerk\u201d\nWhen J. P. Linzey sought to adopt Vena Vista Allen in 1907 he was married to the child\u2019s mother by a former marriage. The child lived with her mother and stepfather until her marriage- to the father of James S. Wilson and died intestate about 1918, survived by the said James S. Wilson as her sole heir. J. P. Linzey died intestate in 1929 survived by his widow, Alice L. Linzey, and by appellee, Effie W. Creamer, his only natural child. Alice L. Linzey subsequently married one McPherson and was living on the lands involved in this litigation at the time of her death testate on June 20, 1956. After a bequest of $5.00 to appellee she bequeathed and devised the remainder of her property to James S. Wilson.\nOn July 6, 1956, James S. Wilson brought the instant partition suit against appellee claiming they were tenants in common of J. F. Linzey\u2019s lands by reason of the adoption of his mother by J. F. Linzey in 1907. On August 15, 1956, James S. Wilson conveyed his interest in the lands to the appellant, Valentine Pardo who was duly substituted as party plaintiff in the suit. The chancellor adopted appellee\u2019s contention that the order of adoption was, and is, void for want of jurisdiction, dismissed the complaint for want of equity and quieted appellee\u2019s title to the lands as against the claims of the appellant and James S. Wilson.\nAct 28 of 1885 was the statute governing adoptions when the instant order was made in 1907. It is noted that neither the order nor the petition upon which it was based stated that the child, Vena Vista Allen, was a resident of Monroe county at the time of the filing of the petition and the making of the order. These were the identical facts in the rather controversial but landmark case of Morris v. Dooley, 59 Ark. 483, 28 S. W. 30 and 430, where the court held that a proceeding in the probate court to adopt a child under the statute is a special statutory proceeding, not according to the course of the common law, nor in the exercise of the court\u2019s general jurisdiction; and that a judgment rendered therein is void upon collateral attack if neither the judgment nor the petition states that the child was a resident of the county. The 3 to 2 decision has been followed in many subsequent cases including Minitree v. Minitree, 181 Ark. 111, 26 S. W. 2d 101, where another divided court held that the failure of the formal order of adoption to state that the child was a resident of the county constituted a jurisdictional defect which rendered it void upon collateral attack. Vigorous and eloquent dissents were written by Justice Riddick in the Dooley case and by Justice Frakk G. Smith in the Minitree case.\n. The question arose again more recently in Dean v. Brown, 216 Ark. 761, 227 S. W. 2d 623, where this court in a unanimous decision said in reference to the Dooley case: \u201cThe correctness of the holding in that case is.not open to reconsideration by ns at this time. There are many cases of this Conrt which hold to be -void orders of \u00bfdoption similar to the one at bar when the order failed- to recite the residence of the minor. \u25a0 The case of Morris v. Dooley'is directly in point, and w\u00e9 declin\u00e9 to overrule it; so we hold that the purported order of adoption made by the G-arlarid Probate Court in 1911 is void on this collateral attack, because neither the order, nor the petition, showed that the minor, Nettie Bond, was a resident of' Carland County, Arkansas, at the time the order was made.\u201d See also, Brunk v. Merchants National Bank, Executor, 217 Ark. 499, 230 S. W. 2d 932.\nAppellant earnestly contends: (1) That appellee, being in privy with J. F. Linz\u00e9y, the adopting parent in the 1907 proceedings, is bound by and now estopped to attack the order; (2) that in granting the order a presumption arose as to the existence of the .jurisdiction of the Probate Court concerning its validity; and (3) that the adoption statutes should be most liberally construed in favor of the adopted child and so as to preclude a holding in favor of appellee. These propositions were ably urged by the dissenting justices but rejected by the majority in the Dooley and Miottree cases. We still decline to overrule those cases, and conclude that the 1907 adoption order is void for lack of jurisdiction. Since title to the lands in question vested in appellee upon the death of J. F. Liiizey in 1929, subject to the widow\u2019s life estate, appellant is entitled to no relief under the curative provisions of Act 408 of 1947. Dean v. Brown, supra.\nAppellant also contends that the petition for adoption and its recordation constituted a declaration of heirship by J. F. Linzey in favor of Vena Vista Allen so as to make her one of his heirs at law under Ark.. Stats. Secs. 61-301 and 61-302. It first should be noted that the petition was not recorded as required hy the second section of the statute until many years after title to the lands in question had already vested in appellee. J. P. Linzey did not execute or sign the petition nor did he acknowledge that he had done so, hut only executed a jurat verifying the instrument. An acknowledgment is a formal declaration of admission before an authorized public officer hy a person who has executed an instrument that such instrument is his act and deed. It is distinguished from a jurat in that a jurat-is.a \u00a1simple statement that an instrument is subscribed and-'Sworn to or affirmed before a proper officer without the further statement that it is the act or deed of the- person making it. 1 C. J. S., Acknowledgments, Sec. 1.; Jemison v. Howell, 230 Ala. 423, 161 So. 806, and other cases cited in Vol. 1, Words & Phrases, 62\u00d3. \u00cdSTor can the curative provisions \u00f3f Ark.- Stats., Sec.' 49-213, designed to cure defective acknowledgments be held to-sup-' ply an acknowledgment when in fact, there is none. Jackson v. Hudspeth, 208 Ark. 55, 184 S. W. 2d 906.\nJ.\" \u00cdVKLiU\u00edzey Avas not-merely seeking \"to -declare the child his\" heir in- the ihstant -proceeding.- His clear intent was to- declaf\u00e9: her an- heir provided 1 he could adopt her \u00e1s Ms oav\u00edi child;-but this attempt -failed-for the reasons already stated:; Under the- circumstances we cannot agree there has been sufficient compliance! Avitli the statute in question to make thq \u00a1.child one of his heirs at laAv. . . . .; ,u .1, ,\n' The decree is affirmed. ' ' \u25a0 \u2019\n\u201cSec. 61-301. Declaration \u2014 Acknowledgment.\u2014In all cases hereafter, when any person may desire to make a person or persons his or her heirs at law, it shall be lawful to [do] so by a declaration in writing in favor of such person or persons, to be acknowledged before any judge, justice of the peace, clerk of any court, or before any court of record-in'this St\u00e1te.\u201d \u2022'< i \u2022 . \u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022*' \u2022' ' . , . ;\n\u201cSec. 61-302. Recording of declaration. \u2014 Before said declaration shall be'of any force or effect, it shall be recorded in the county where the said declarant may - reside, or in the county where the' person in whose favor such declaration is made, may reside.\u201d", "type": "majority", "author": "Minor W. Mill wee, Associate Justice. \u2022" } ], "attorneys": [ "\u2022 Baggett .& 'Baggett axiS'Sharp &'Sharp,\"for appellant. \u25a0 ... -.", "\u25a0 John G.' Sheffield, H. M.' McCastlain and \u2019Fred MacBonald-, for appellee. \u2018 -" ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Pardo v. Creamer.\n5-1465\n310 S. W. 2d 218\nOpinion delivered February 24, 1958.\n\u2022 Baggett .& 'Baggett axiS'Sharp &'Sharp,\"for appellant. \u25a0 ... -.\n\u25a0 John G.' Sheffield, H. M.' McCastlain and \u2019Fred MacBonald-, for appellee. \u2018 -\nPetitioner\u2019s correct name is J. F. Linzey and the child\u2019s correct name is Vena Vista Allen." }, "file_name": "0746-01", "first_page_order": 772, "last_page_order": 777 }