## Facts

- A settlor created two irrevocable inter vivos trusts for the life benefit of her daughter, Barbara W. Piel.
- Under the 1926 trust, net income was payable to Barbara for life, with principal at her death to “her descendants, if any, in equal shares, per stirpes.”
- Under the 1963 trust, after Barbara’s death the principal was to be divided equally for “each then living child of hers.”
- Barbara had three biological daughters: Elizabeth McNabb (born in 1955) and two later daughters born during Barbara’s marriage.
- Shortly after Elizabeth’s birth, Barbara consented to Elizabeth’s adoption “by strangers”; an Oregon court finalized the adoption in 1955, and Elizabeth was raised in the adoptive family.
- There was no indication the settlor knew of Elizabeth’s birth or adoption.
- After Barbara’s death in 2003, the trustee sought judicial settlement of final accounts involving about $9.7 million in principal and cited only the two later-born daughters.
- Elizabeth intervened, asserting she and her children were entitled to a one-third remainder share under both trusts.

## Issues

1. Whether a biological child adopted shortly after birth by unrelated adoptive parents is included in class gifts to the life tenant’s “descendants” (1926 trust) and “children” (1963 trust).
2. Whether interpretive rules and policy disfavoring inclusion of adopted-out children in biological-family class gifts apply to older inter vivos trusts absent proof of contrary donor intent.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and reinstated the Surrogate’s Court decrees.
- Elizabeth, as a child adopted out by strangers, was not presumptively within the class of “descendants” or “children” under either trust.
- The court held the controlling policy and interpretive approach applied equally to these inter vivos trusts despite their earlier execution dates.
- The remainder principal was distributable to Barbara’s two non-adopted daughters, not to Elizabeth or her children.

## Legal Principles

- In construing class gifts using general family terms (e.g., “children,” “descendants”), an adopted-out child is not presumed included in gifts tied to the biological family when adoption by strangers severed the legal parent-child relationship.
- The presumption against inclusion may be overcome only by a clear manifestation of donor intent, shown expressly or by necessary implication from the instrument and admissible proof bearing on intent.
- Donor intent is assessed in historical context at the time the instrument was executed; absent evidence the donor knew of the adopted-out child, inclusion is not inferred from generic class terms.
- Adoption statutes generally substitute the adoptive family relationship for the biological one for inheritance and class-gift purposes, subject to limited statutory exceptions.

## Conclusion

The court held that, absent clear evidence the settlor intended otherwise, a child adopted out by strangers does not share in remainder distributions under inter vivos trusts describing takers as the life tenant’s “children” or “descendants,” and it excluded the adopted-out child from both class gifts.


Matter of Piel, 10 N.Y.3d 163, 884 N.E.2d 1040 (N.Y. 2008)