Decisions & Verdicts: Of Fright, Nudists & Spinsters

DECISIONS & VERDICTS

Every day, every week, U.S. courts resolve individual human conflicts — the stuff of the law that governs everyone else. Current examples:

¶ One spinster can adopt another — at least in Maryland. For reasons of "in heritance and maternal feeling," un married WAC Sergeant Dorothy Libertini, 56, sought to adopt unmarried WAC Captain Frances Hagler, 35. A Baltimore court denied the petition, reasoning that Captain Hagler would, in effect, become a spinster's "illegitimate" daughter. Not so, ruled the Maryland Court of Appeals. Unmarried adults can adopt persons of any...

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