A Chinese girl adopted by a wealthy Westchester man who later died remains entitled to a share of his will and a trust established despite the fact that she was adopted out to another family eight years after his death, a Brooklyn appellate court has ruled.
"Taking the language of the subject trust agreements and will as well as these circumstances into account, we conclude that Emily’s adoption by the petitioners did not, and was not intended to, terminate her interest in the Marital Trust or the 1995 Trust," Justice Leonard Austin (See Profile) of the Appellate Division, Second Department, wrote in a case of first impression as he affirmed the lower court’s holding in Matter of Svenningsen, 2010-11057. "The decedent expressed an intention to include his adopted child in the absence of any reason to believe that his status as the parent of Emily would be terminated by her subsequent adoption many years after his death,"
