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    CASE DIGEST - Reed Vs Reed

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    Kent-Kent Villaceran
    1) Sally Reed and Cecil Reed, the separated parents of a deceased minor son, both petitioned to be appointed administrator of their son's estate. 2) An Idaho statute mandated that males be preferred over females in such appointments. Based on this statute, the probate court appointed the father, Cecil Reed, as administrator. 3) The US Supreme Court ruled that the Idaho statute violated the Equal Protection Clause by giving mandatory preference to members of one sex over the other for no purpose other than eliminating hearings on the merits.

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    CASE DIGEST - Reed Vs Reed

    Uploaded by

    Kent-Kent Villaceran
    32 views2 pages
    1) Sally Reed and Cecil Reed, the separated parents of a deceased minor son, both petitioned to be appointed administrator of their son's estate. 2) An Idaho statute mandated that males be preferred over females in such appointments. Based on this statute, the probate court appointed the father, Cecil Reed, as administrator. 3) The US Supreme Court ruled that the Idaho statute violated the Equal Protection Clause by giving mandatory preference to members of one sex over the other for no purpose other than eliminating hearings on the merits.

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    CASE DIGEST - Reed vs Reed

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    1) Sally Reed and Cecil Reed, the separated parents of a deceased minor son, both petitioned to be appointed administrator of their son's estate. 2) An Idaho statute mandated that males be preferred over females in such appointments. Based on this statute, the probate court appointed the father, Cecil Reed, as administrator. 3) The US Supreme Court ruled that the Idaho statute violated the Equal Protection Clause by giving mandatory preference to members of one sex over the other for no purpose other than eliminating hearings on the merits.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    32 views2 pages

    CASE DIGEST - Reed Vs Reed

    Uploaded by

    Kent-Kent Villaceran
    1) Sally Reed and Cecil Reed, the separated parents of a deceased minor son, both petitioned to be appointed administrator of their son's estate. 2) An Idaho statute mandated that males be preferred over females in such appointments. Based on this statute, the probate court appointed the father, Cecil Reed, as administrator. 3) The US Supreme Court ruled that the Idaho statute violated the Equal Protection Clause by giving mandatory preference to members of one sex over the other for no purpose other than eliminating hearings on the merits.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 2

    Reed v.

    Reed
    404 U.S. 71
    November 22, 1971

    FACTS:
    Richard Lynn Reed, a minor, died intestate in Ada County, Idaho, on March 29,
    1967. His adoptive parents, who had separated sometime prior to his death, are the
    parties to this appeal. Approximately seven months after Richard's death, his mother,
    appellant Sally Reed, filed a petition in the Probate Court of Ada County, seeking
    appointment as administratrix of her son's estate.

    Prior to the date set for a hearing on the mother's petition, appellee Cecil Reed,
    the father of the decedent, filed a competing petition seeking to have himself appointed
    administrator of the son's estate. The probate court held a joint hearing on the two
    petitions and thereafter ordered that letters of administration be issued to appellee Cecil
    Reed upon his taking the oath and filing the bond required by law.

    The court treated Section 15-312 and 15-314 of the Idaho Code as the
    controlling statutes, and read those sections as compelling a preference for Cecil Reed
    because he was a male. Section 15-312 designates the persons who are entitled to
    administer the estate of one who dies intestate. In making these designations, that
    section lists 11 classes of persons who are so entitled, and provides, in substance, that
    the order in which those classes are listed in the section shall be determinative of the
    relative rights of competing applicants for letters of administration.

    ISSUE:
    Whether a statute that includes a gender-based provision, preferring males over
    females to administer an estate, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
    Amendment of the Constitution?

    RULING:
    Yes. The Court held that the Idaho statute violated the Equal Protection Clause.
    To give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other,
    merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind
    of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
    Amendment; and whatever may be said as to the positive values of avoiding intrafamily
    controversy, the choice in this context may not lawfully be mandated solely on the basis
    of sex.

    Cited the case of Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27 (1885); Lindsley v. Natural


    Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61 (1911); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.
    S. 106 (1949); McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners, 394 U. S. 802 (1969).
    The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States
    the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a
    statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of
    that statute. A classification "must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon
    some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the
    legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike."

    The judgment of the Idaho Supreme Court is reversed.

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