Inheritance Rights of Unwed Fathers and Their Children

Linda Kelly Hill (M. Dale Palmer Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law) has recently published her article entitled Equal Protection Misapplied: The Politics of Gender and Legitimacy and the Denial of Inheritance, 13 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 129 (2006).

Here is the conclusion of her article:

Inheritance is “one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.” When a person dies without a valid will or certain property has not or can not be devised, the State must create a default plan to distribute the decedent’s property. Yet while the State creates the intestate scheme, the right of inheritance remains with the decedent. Such right is not altered by one’s familial position. The inheritance rights of unwed fathers and their children need to be afforded the same constitutional safeguards provided to all others. In accordance with equal protection, a State may create different, but constitutionally sound, evidentiary standards to prove the relationship between an unwed father and his child. States can also legitimately debate whether all parents, regardless of gender or marital status, should be held to a support standard in order to inherit from or through a deceased child. Such requirements can be established consistently with a decedent’s interests. In so doing, equal protection will be properly applied, and the rights of inheritance will be affirmed.