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And she turned out to be the heiress to the Jell-o fortune? The woman is suing BM's estate (BM is deceased) for her fair share.
What do you think??
Story follows:
When Longview resident Beth McNabb set out to find her birth mother, she had no idea the woman who gave her up for adoption was heiress to the Jell-O fortune.
McNabb reunited with her mother, Barbara (Woodward) Piel, and her two half-sisters in 1988. Only then did McNabb find out she was the product of an affair Piel had with a married man -- and that McNabb's great-grandfather, entrepreneur Orator Francis Woodward, bought a flavored gelatin business for $450 in 1899 that would one day become a household name.
Piel, a resident of Genesee County, N.Y., married another man after adopting out her daughter. She died in 2003.
Now McNabb, 51, is in a legal battle with Fleet Bank to claim her one-third share of the $10 million trust that was to be divided among Barbara W. Piel's children, the New York Law Journal reports.
Friday, a New York appellate court panel ruled that McNabb is legally considered a "descendant" and "living child" of Piel under the trusts Piel's mother set up in 1926 and 1963. The ruling overturned a lower court's December 2005 decision that said as an "adopted-out" daughter, McNabb didn't qualify for a share of the trust.
Fleet Bank is seeking permission to appeal.
Wednesday, a receptionist at Northwest Psychological Resources in Longview, where McNabb is office manager, said McNabb was referring all media inquiries to her attorney, Paul Boylan.
Boylan, reached by telephone Wednesday in LeRoy, NY, said he and McNabb aren't giving any interviews until the case is resolved.
McNabb told the New York Law Journal the court case wasn't about the money -- it was about establishing her relationship to her family. When she began looking for her birth mother in 1974 at age 19, she half-expected to find a "bag lady" because many women who choose adoption are poor, she said.
McNabb and her husband, Duke, a Norpac operator, are licensed foster parents who have sheltered more than 160 children at their Longview home since 1993. They have two adult children of their own.
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wow! I just saw this post or would have replied earlier! I'm a bmom myself, and have nothing monetary to give to my dd if she came wanting so I come from a very hypothetical place. However, her parents are not her bio-parents so why should she be entitled right? That sounds very mean to write, or at least I feel wierd writing it, but bparents don't try to get the joys of parenting a child and just having aparents be like glorified babysitters, so why should bchildren have parents and then financial backers in bparents...right? wow...I'll have to think about this some more...
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I'm not an adoptee, but I read this story extensively. I thought it was interesting how the birth mother wrote her will. According to what I read, she simply left her fortune to be divided among her children. Not "children of her marriage", not "child A, child B, and child C", not "split X number of ways and left to my children", nor did she use any of the other legal steps to ensure that her fortune was left only to the children she parented.
She really left that door wide open to it including the child she gave birth to and placed for adoption.
But on the other hand she didn't name that child straight out, either. No mention of "all children to whom I gave birth" or anything else.
There are ways to legally include or exclude just about anybody from your will. And as the heiress to the Jell-O fortune, this bio mom would have had access to lawyers who could have done so, had she chosen to pursue it.
I don't know if the person who was placed for adoption has a legal "right" to the money, but I do think this choice to pursue it is understandable, if the will was written the way I heard it was. I think an adoptee deciding "my birth mother was thinking about me because she did not intentionally phrase her will to keep me from inheriting. I will pursue these apparant rights to inherit because apparantly she wouldn't mind if I did" is a perfectly normal thing to think.
I will be interested in seeing how this court case comes out.
As I recall, during the finalization hearings of both our children, one of the questions we were asked went something like this: "and do you understand adoption is forever and that in doing so this child becomes a legal heir to your estate?" So, as a devil's advocate, what entitles this person to 2 estates? Adoption is adoption and you become part of a new family in every legal way. Maybe it was not her choice, but it happened regardless. I find this hard to believe as well...if it were about establishing a family relationship then why sue for her fair share? The last time I checked I did not ask to see the balance of a family member's account before I chose to be part of their family. I am sorry, but it sounds terribly selfish. I can't say that I would not be upset and feel slighted if I were in her shoes...but you can't change the past.
McNabb told the New York Law Journal the court case wasn't about the money -- it was about establishing her relationship to her family.
I have an adoptee friend, who found both his (married) parents deceased. There were NO ofher surviving family to even claim and take the steps to intern his fathers remains. His father had sat in a city morgue for nearly a full year, and had come very close to the time frame where his body was to be turned over to use for medical science.
My friend claimed his fathers body, gave him a proper funeral, and then took the steps to establish and estate, and close it.
Several of his online triad friends and I helped him spend hours and hours searching the archives for ANY distant relative to inherit what was left of the estate. There were NONE. This estate was turned over to the city of Baltimore, as unclaimed assets.
We had one legislator who drafted a bill that would allow an adoptee, when there are no other surviving family, the legal right to inherit from the natural parents. That bill died.......sigh.
I read the article about the Jell-O inheritance, and from what I interpreted, its not the siblings that are seeking to cut her out......its the bank (?)
Why would they have any interest in who gets the money?
I agree with the other poster, who noted that Piel could have very easily took steps to write her adopted (out) daughter out of the trust that her grandmother set up.
Frank, if you're out there and your ears are burning....... lol
I miss ya! hugs- mel
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Bug-n-Bears-Mommy, can I be a devil's advocate back? :flowergift:
A person is entitled to any estate anyone wants to give them. I can leave my estate to my neighbor if I wish - does that mean she shouldn't inherit from her parents later because that would mean she got 2 estates?
Or if someone has a mom and dad who divorce and each remarry, does he have to choose which estate to inherit? Because inheriting from both would mean receiving money from 2 estates...
Or would it seem different if the birth mother had named her adopted-out child specifically in the will? If instead of leaving it in such a grey area, what if she had stated her money should go to all children to whom she gave birth, including my first child with birthdate of XX-XX-XXXX placed for adoption with X Agency? That would have meant a second estate for the adult adoptee too, but without the grey area. Maybe that would feel different to the rest of us.
I guess I can see lots of cases where someone might inherit from more than one person (or pair of persons), and most of them seem OK, so I'm not sure what to think about the validity of an "you should only inherit one estate" argument.
Thoughts?
Bug-n-Bears-Mommy
So, as a devil's advocate, what entitles this person to 2 estates? Adoption is adoption and you become part of a new family in every legal way. Maybe it was not her choice, but it happened regardless.
I have mixed feelings about the article and in no way will I say whether she was right or wrong to try as each case is different.Under British law when a child is adopted they have no legal right to their biological family's estate. However if their first parents or family choose to include the child in their wills then they legally can do so. However if the child is included the surviving family could contest this and would win on the grounds that the child has no legal right to the estate.From a personal point of view my parents have included my relinquished son in their wills and it has been done fairly. At this moment in time I don't have much to leave my son but even if we did I would still want to include him. My husband and I haven't made wills yet and it is something that is preying on my mind as I would rather my son inherited than relatives who would probably just get rid of everything . He at at least would want to keep some things as we are in reunion so these items would be things that would mean something to him.
I do agree that if a family should choose to include a biological child that was adopted that is AWESOME! I think it would give the child a sence of still belonging. I agree that I would much rather have my child who is likely to treasure my belongings receive them than a family member who would probably have an estate sale to make money on my worldly posessions. By saying that a child should not be entitled to 2 estates I spoke wrong. I agree that anyone can leave their estate to anyone...or anything as people have certainly left them to their beloved pets...I do not dissagree with that. But it is clearly a different thing to have someone state that you are to receive something as opposed to "a legal battle with Fleet Bank to claim her one-third share of the $10 million trust". Sure if there are no other decendents she should receive it rather than it sitting in some unclaimed property, or be divided amongst some big corporation. Maybe it is the wording of this specific artical as I have not followed the case...it sounds greedy. As an a-parent I would be hurt that my child felt I provided so little for them that they felt they had to get into a legal battle for their "share" of their bio family's estate.
Bug-n-Bears-Mommy
I do agree that if a family should choose to include a biological child that was adopted that is AWESOME! I think it would give the child a sence of still belonging. I agree that I would much rather have my child who is likely to treasure my belongings receive them than a family member who would probably have an estate sale to make money on my worldly posessions. By saying that a child should not be entitled to 2 estates I spoke wrong. I agree that anyone can leave their estate to anyone...or anything as people have certainly left them to their beloved pets...I do not dissagree with that. But it is clearly a different thing to have someone state that you are to receive something as opposed to "a legal battle with Fleet Bank to claim her one-third share of the $10 million trust". Sure if there are no other decendents she should receive it rather than it sitting in some unclaimed property, or be divided amongst some big corporation. Maybe it is the wording of this specific artical as I have not followed the case...it sounds greedy. As an a-parent I would be hurt that my child felt I provided so little for them that they felt they had to get into a legal battle for their "share" of their bio family's estate.
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I have been thinking about this some more as I said I would, and personally, I would worry about stepping on the toes of the aparents by one day including DD in my will. I would love to give her whatever I could, but I would worry that it wasn't my place to do so. I know that right now I think about giving a gift to dd, and I get nervous about what would be appropriate to give her, so leaving millions of dollars would seem to me like crossing a line.I didn't read closely and didn't recall how long they family had been in reunion which I feel definitely changes the arguement. I wonder how this would work out if they had NOT been in reunion and instead bchild had found out about her bmother being a heiress to Jello either shortly before or even shortly after she passed away? Then is she entitled?
The article says they reunited in 1988, and Piel (the birth mom) died in 2003. That's 15 years of being in reunion.
Now you have me curious as to when the will was written. 15 years of being in reunion is plenty of time (in my opinion) for Piel to have written her will thinking of ALL her children and to have simply forgotten about the legal difference between them.
But if she wrote the will before reunion, it's probably still in that whole grey area of not knowing if she was thinking of her birth child or not.
Anybody know when the will was written?