Maine lesbian "adoptee" case tests legal bounds

ROCKLAND, Maine, Feb 11 (Reuters) Olive Watson, daughter of a wealthy computer magnate, adopted her 44-year-old lesbian lover, Patricia Spado, in a Maine courtroom in 1991 to provide her partner with greater financial security.

Fast-forward 16 years. The two have split up and the Watson family is seeking to annul the adoption in a complex legal case that provides a glimpse into efforts by same-sex couples to use adoption laws to establish legal rights including inheritance.

Gay-rights advocates say it illustrates the difficulties homosexuals in the United States face in protecting the financial interest of their partners, defending the use of adoption as a last-ditch effort to provide protections otherwise unavailable to many gay and lesbian couples.

Massachusetts is the only US state where gay marriage is legal.

Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut recognize same-sex civil unions, giving gay and lesbian couples some of the protections of marriage including inheritance.

''The case in Maine is rare. But you do still hear of such cases,'' said Carrie Evans, state legislative director at gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Making the matter even more complex is money -- lots of it.

Watson, who was 43 at the time of the adoption, is the daughter of computer magnate Thomas John Watson Jr., president of IBM from 1952 to 1971 and the eldest son of the company's first president.

When Thomas Watson Jr.'s widow died in 2004, it triggered two separate trusts, reportedly worth millions, which are to be divided between the Watson grandchildren.

Spado -- as an adopted grandchild -- asked for a share of the estate. While a separate case is under way in Connecticut disputing Spado's right to inherit from those trusts, lawyers for the Watsons sought to have the adoption annulled.

Many states have restrictions that would have made this adoption impossible, including laws that prevent people in a sexual relationship from adopting, or preventing a younger person from adopting an older one.

While Maine laws on adult adoptions have since changed, in 1991 the only requirement was that both parties live in Maine.

RECUSAL REQUEST Initially, the annulment was granted. But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court kicked it back to the lower court last month, ruling that the trust's lawyers had used the incorrect forms to notify Spado of her next legal steps.

In the latest developments, lawyers representing the lesbian ''adoptee'' on Wednesday asked the judge presiding over the case to recuse herself during a pretrial conference.

In order for the adoption to be annulled, the Watson trusts' lawyers must prove some form of fraud was committed -- either in Spado's statement that she lived in Maine, or that the court was somehow deceived by the adoption proceedings.

''There needed to have been an intention to establish a parent-child relationship,'' said Stephen Hanscom, an attorney representing the Watsons.

''And there is no indication that the court was made aware of the sexual relationship'' between the two women, he said.

That means, argued Cliff Ruprecht, a lawyer representing Spado, that the judge herself -- who also presided over the 1991 adoption -- might conceivably need to be called as a witness.

The judge said she would rule on the recusal issue next week.

Some observers said annulment would be difficult.

''The bottom line is if you can dot the I's and cross the T's, you have an adoption,'' said Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a gay-rights group.

''And in this case, you have an adoption. There was no fraud, and there's no reason to void the adoption just because it involves a same-sex couple,'' she said.

She added that when gay partners are unable to marry, such blatant end-runs around the law are inevitable.

''When people want to protect their partners, as these two did at one point in their lives, they have to take pretty drastic steps to say, 'We're a family,''' Bonauto said.

REUTERS AB RK0820