Ex Parte Libertini

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from the dismissal by Judge John E. Raine, Jr. of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County of a petition for adoption of an unmarried, thirty-five year old captain in the Women’s Army Corps, who has given her consent, by an unmarried fifty-six year old sergeant in the W.A.C., who is domi ⁵⁴³ ciled in Maryland. The proposed adoption is allegedly for reasons of inheritance and maternal feeling. After receiving the petition, the court below did not hold a hearing, thus the parties had no opportunity to present their case.

The court dismissed the petition for the reasons that “to declare a person a legal child of an unmarried woman is to declare her to be illegitimate” and that to the judge, it seemed to be a “perversion of the entire adoptive process” and would serve no useful purpose. The statutory provisions and the Maryland Rules on adoption provide that any person of lawful age may file a petition for adoption of any person, whether a minor or an adult. Code (1957), Article 16, Sections 70-71; Rules D71 and D74. If the adopting petitioner is married, then the spouse must join in or consent to the petition.

Code (1957), Article 16, Section 70; Rule D71. There is nothing in the law which required that the adopting person be married or have been married, thus, Maryland law makes permissible the adoption of an adult by an adult who is single. See Strahorn, Changes Made By the New Adoption Law, 10 Md. L. Rev. 20 , 23-24 (1949); Strahorn, Adoption in Maryland, 7 Md. L. Rev. 275, 283-84 (1943). In other states which have an adoption statute similar to that of Maryland, the courts have reached comparable conclusions in cases involving the legal effect of the adoption of one adult by another.

See Wilson v. Johnson, 389 S. W. 2d 634 (Ky. Ct. App. 1965); Brock v. Dorman, 339 Mo. 611 , 98 S. W. 2d 672 (1936); Collamore v. Learned, 171 Mass. 99 , 50 N. E. 518 (1898); 2 Am. Jur. 2d, Adoption, Sections 10-11. The effect of the adoption of an adult is the same as that of the adoption of a minor, except as to guardianship.

Code (1957, Cum. Supp. 1966), Article 16, Section 82. That is, the adopted person is treated as an heir, issue, or an equivalent, in a deed, grant, will, or other written instrument,