Wallace v. Blanchard

Citations

• 26 N.M. 181
• 190 P. 1020

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Under section 17, Code 1915, only the consent of the mother of an illegitimate child is required for its adoption. The consent of the putative father of a bastard child is not required for its adoption, nor is it essential that notice should be given to such father of the petition for adoption. P. 186</p> <p>2. As the parents have no property right in a child, its custody may be given to others, even without the consent of the parents and without notice to them. P. 187</p> <p>3. While the putative father of a bastard child might be entitled to its custody as against strangers, he would not be entitled to its custody as against adopting parents, upon whom rests a legal duty to support, educate, and care for such child. P.187</p> <p>4. At common law a bastard was looked upon as a son of nobody, and sometimes was called “filius nullius,” and sometimes “filius populi,” a child of the people, having no father and being incapable of inheriting, nor could he have heirs but of his own body. P. 191</p> <p>ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.</p> <p>5. Code .1915, § 1850, .as amended by Laws 1915, c. 69, entitling illegitimate to inherit, the other statutory conditions appearing, although there were'legitimate children, deals only with the right of inheritance, and does not cast upon the putative father the duty to support, care for, and educate such children during their minority, or change the rights of custody as between the putative father and those claiming the custody of such children under an attempted adoption. P. 194</p> <p>6. The poor laws of England, under which the putative father was required to support his illegitimate child, did not, by the adoption of the common law, become a part of the law of the state. ' P. 194</p>