Intestacy — One Day Makes The Difference

In 1942, Leonard Jotham and Margaret Jotham were married. They had Diann Jotham [later Diann Nelson] while married.  In 1947, Leonard and Margaret were divorced.  Margaret Jotham gave birth to Sandra Barnett 279 days after the divorce was final.  Barnett’s birth certificate listed Leonard as her father. Leonard later remarried and died intestate on June 8, 2004. His widow filed a Petition for Formal Adjudication of Intestacy, Determination of Heirs, and Appointment of Administrator.  She named herself as Jotham’s surviving spouse and Nelson and Barnett as his daughters. Nelson objected to the petition, saying that Barnett was not Jotham’s daughter and therefore she was not entitled to share in the estate.

The district court said that as a matter of law, Jotham was Barnett’s father.  The court based its conclusion on the Minnesota’s Parentage Act.  That Act provided that a man is presumed to be the father of a child born to the man’s former wife within 280 days of the termination of their marriage.

The district court then concluded that “it could not consider the evidence offered by Nelson to rebut this presumption because Nelson’s challenge to Jotham’s paternity of Barnett [was] barred by the three-year statute of limitations in [the Act].”

The Supreme Court of Minnesota in In re Estate of Jotham, 722 N.W.2d 447 (Minn. 2006), agreed that Nelson was barred from rebutting the Act’s presumption.

[T]his case presents an opportunity for us to clarify when it is appropriate for a probate court to use a Parentage Act presumption to establish paternity for intestacy purposes.***

In such a situation, the provisions of the Parentage Act must apply in their entirety. That is, when a party seeking to establish paternity in a probate proceeding invokes a Parentage Act presumption, the provisions of the Act limiting attempts to rebut such a presumption may not be disregarded. Put another way, because the Parentage Act sets forth a carefully constructed, unitary statutory scheme, the presumptions found in [the Act] cannot be divorced from the rest of the Act.***

[W]e conclude that when a party benefits from a presumption of paternity found in the Parentage Act [in this case, Barnett] and relies on that presumption to establish paternity in a probate proceeding, the probate court must apply the Parentage Act in its entirety to determine paternity for purposes of intestate succession [including the limitation period]***.