## Facts

- Eleanor G. Hamilton, a Montgomery County, Maryland resident, died intestate in August 1990, leaving an estate of about $394,405.57 and no known living blood relatives.
- Maryland intestacy law provides that when a decedent dies without heirs, the estate escheats to the local board of education.
- Paula M. Browning was born in 1919; her natural father, Lawrence E. Hutchison, legally adopted her in 1921.
- In 1922 Hutchison married Marian Estelle Gibson, Hamilton’s sister; Browning was raised in their household, but Marian never completed a statutory adoption of Browning.
- Browning asserted that she and Marian maintained a parent-child relationship and that Marian repeatedly represented that Browning had been adopted; Browning later learned there was no legal adoption by Marian.
- Browning, as personal representative of Hamilton’s estate, sought a declaration that she was Marian’s equitably adopted child and could inherit from Hamilton as Marian’s collateral heir, defeating escheat.

## Issues

1. Whether Maryland’s doctrine of equitable adoption permits an equitably adopted child to inherit by intestate succession from the sibling of the equitably adoptive parent.
2. If not, whether the intestate estate must escheat to the local board of education for lack of statutory heirs.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the circuit court’s summary judgment for Browning.
- The court held that equitable adoption does not permit intestate inheritance from the equitably adoptive parent’s collateral relatives, including the adoptive parent’s siblings.
- Because Hamilton had no statutory heirs, the estate escheated to the Board of Education of Montgomery County.

## Legal Principles

- Equitable adoption is a limited equitable doctrine that may allow a child to inherit from the estate of a person who agreed to adopt but did not complete statutory adoption.
- Equitable adoption does not create the full parent-child legal status of statutory adoption for all intestacy purposes.
- Maryland intestacy rights are defined by statute; courts may not expand classes of heirs beyond legislative authorization.
- Inheritance rights based on equitable adoption do not extend to collateral relatives of the putative adoptive parent who were not parties to the adoption agreement.
- Escheat applies when no statutory heirs exist; equity cannot be used to bypass the statutory succession scheme by creating new categories of collateral heirs.

## Conclusion

Maryland recognizes equitable adoption only to the extent necessary to permit inheritance from the person who promised adoption, and it does not allow an equitably adopted child to inherit intestate from that person’s siblings; absent statutory heirs, the decedent’s estate escheats to the local board of education.


Bd. of Educ. of Montgomery Cnty. v. Browning, 333 Md. 281, 635 A.2d 373 (Md. 1994)