## Facts

- Prince Rogers Nelson died intestate on April 21, 2016, in Minnesota.
- Prince’s birth certificate listed Mattie Della Shaw as his mother and John L. Nelson as his father.
- Shaw and Nelson married in 1957 and divorced in 1968; Prince was born during the marriage.
- Probate proceedings began shortly after Prince’s death; a bank trustee was appointed to administer the estate.
- Multiple individuals asserted heirship; the district court created a protocol for genetic testing of claimants.
- Venita Jackson Leverette and the Gresham appellants claimed Prince’s legal father (John L. Nelson) was not his biological father and sought to prove alternative paternity through their own alleged biological fathers.
- The district court dismissed those claims as a matter of law based on the Minnesota Parentage Act’s paternity presumption and related probate provisions.

## Issues

1. Whether third parties may establish heirship in an intestate estate by proving genetic paternity through an alleged father different from the decedent’s statutorily presumed father.
2. Whether the probate code permits genetic-testing-based heirship claims that effectively bypass the Minnesota Parentage Act’s procedures for rebutting a paternity presumption.
3. Whether appellants’ equal-protection challenge to the district court’s genetic-testing protocol was preserved and, if so, whether the protocol was unconstitutional.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s order excluding Leverette and the Gresham appellants as heirs.
- Because Prince had a presumed father under Minn. Stat. § 257.55, subd. 1, appellants could not litigate competing genetic paternity to create intestate succession rights without first rebutting the presumption in a proper parentage action.
- The equal-protection challenge was forfeited because it was not adequately raised in the district court; the court also indicated the protocol comported with legitimate probate-administration objectives.

## Legal Principles

- When a man qualifies as a presumed father under Minn. Stat. § 257.55, subd. 1 (married to the mother when the child is born), that presumption governs father-child status for probate purposes unless rebutted under the Minnesota Parentage Act.
- Intestate succession determinations involving parentage rely on legally recognized parent-child relationships as defined through the Parentage Act, not on ad hoc biological proof offered in probate.
- A claimant cannot use probate proceedings as a collateral route to disestablish an unrebutted paternity presumption; the Parentage Act supplies the mechanism and limits for contesting paternity.
- Constitutional challenges not presented to the district court are generally not reviewable on appeal.

## Conclusion

The court held that an unrebutted Parentage Act paternity presumption forecloses third-party attempts to establish heirship through an alternative alleged genetic father in intestate probate, and it affirmed dismissal of the appellants’ claims.


In re Estate of Prince, 901 N.W.2d 234 (Minn. Ct. App. 2017)