Watson-Spado Adoption Validated by Maine High Court, Reviving Former Lesbian Partner’s Claim on a Share of the IBM Fortune

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled on July 23 that the adoption of Patricia Spado by her then-same-sex-partner, Olive Watson, in 1991 was valid, reversing a Probate Court ruling that had threatened to derail Spado’s attempt to claim a portion of the trust established by Thomas J. Watson, Jr., son of the founder of International Business Machines (IBM).  Adoption of Patricia S., 2009 WL 2195428.

Spado and Watson had been a couple for many years and had spent several weeks in Maine each summer in a house that Watson, granddaughter of the IBM founder, owned. At the time, they were looking for a way to protect Spado legally, and consulted an attorney about the possibility of adoption. The attorney advised that under the Maine adoption statute, there was no bar on a same-sex adult adoption, and that their summers at the Maine house would be sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the Probate Court to grant an adoption, since Patricia would qualify as "living" in Maine at the time of the application. By contrast, the lawyer advised, Olive could not adopt Patricia in New York, where they resided on Long Island, because the N.Y. Court of Appeals had specifically ruled against adoptions for adult same-sex partners in an earlier case.

The adoption was granted, but the couple split up a year later. After their break-up, Thomas J. Watson Jr. and his wife, also named Olive, passed away. This triggered the terms of the Watson family trust, under which the trust funds were to be divided among the grandchildren of Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and his wife. Although Patricia and Olive were no longer living together as a couple, the adoption had never been dissolved or voided, and Patricia applied as a legal grandchild of the Watsons to receive a share of the funds. This application was made to the trust in Connecticut.

The Watson family trustees determined to reject Patricia’s claim, contesting that she was contemplated as a granddaughter by the Watsons. Patricia sued the trustees in Connecticut, where the trust was amenable to suit. The trustees then filed a lawsuit in the Maine Probate Court seeking to have the adoption declared invalid, arguing that Patricia and Olive had defrauded the Probate Court by representing that Patricia lived in the state. (They had stated on the adoption petition that Olive resided in New York.)

Under the Maine Adoption Law as it then was, in order for an adoption to take place, either the adopting party had to be a resident of Maine, or the prospective adoptee had to "live" in the state. The Probate Judge decided that three weeks of using the summer home did not equate to "living" in Maine, because, in that judge’s view, there was really no distinction between the words "reside" and "live," and "reside" connotes numerous attachments to the jurisdiction, such as owning property, spending substantial time "in residence," registering to vote, obtaining a driver’s license, and similar indicia of legal residence. Based on this conclusion, the Probate Judge issued an order declaring the adoption to be void on account of fraud.

In unanimously reversing this ruling in an opinion by Justice Clifford, the Supreme Judicial Court found that when the legislature uses two different words, it intended two different meanings. "Reside" is a legal term of art, and nobody was claiming that Patricia resided in Maine at the time of the adoption. "Live" is not a legal term of art and is not defined in the statute. The court noted that most adoptions involve adults adopting children, and children, especially very young children, would not be capable of taking steps to establish residence in any particular state, so the legislature used a different term, "live," to suggest the place where the prospective adoptee was living when the petition was filed.

Given this interpretation, the court found that the trustees had presented insufficient evidence to show that a fraud had been perpetrated on the Probate Court. In this case, Patricia and Olive had relied upon advice of a lawyer that their situation would be covered by the Maine adoption statute. There was no evidence that they intended to mislead the Probate Court.

The Watson trustees had also argued that recognizing this adoption as valid would violate the public policy of the state, since Watson and Spado had not intended to establish a parent-child relationship through this adoption, but instead were seeking a legal status for their relationship as same-sex partners. The court noted that the Maine legislature had amended the adoption statute after this 1991 adoption in two relevant respects, requiring that both the adopting party and the adoptee "reside" in the state, and requiring that the adoption petitioner swear to an intent to create a parent and child relationship. But these were not requirements under the statute when the Watson-Spado adoption was granted, and the court was not willing to impose them retroactively, finding that the adoption statute as of 1991 did not impose any such requirement. The court pointed out that the Maine statute at that time unequivocally allowed adult adoptions, which might be sought for any of a variety of reasons, not least for purposes of estate planning.

The result of the ruling is that Patricia Spado remains the legal daughter of Olive Watson, as far as the law of Maine is concerned. Since the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution has been consistently interpreted to require states to recognize adoptions granted by courts in other states, the Connecticut court that is considering Spado’s claim against the Watson trust would be bound to find that Spado is the adoptive daughter of Watson. While that does not preclude them from finding some other ground to reject Spado’s claim, it means that they can’t reject the claim on the basis that she is not the legal daughter of Olive Watson.