The inheritance of the parents is generally inherited by the children, but if there are stepchildren in the marriage, the stepchildren are entitled to inherit the stepparents' estate when the stepchildren form a relationship of support with the stepparents. Then, judging whether the two parties have formed a custody relationship becomes the key to the problem. Recently, the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court mediated a case involving stepparents and stepchildren, spanning decades of joint and legal inheritance disputes.
Lu had three wives. In 1937, Lu and his first wife gave birth to a daughter Liang (formerly known as Lu Moulin). After the death of his first wife, Lu married his second wife and gave birth to children Lu A, Lu B, and Lu C. Later, the two parties divorced, and the two children of Lu B and Lu C lived with Lu. Lu and his third wife, Wu, had no children.
After the death of Lu and Wu, they left a house, and because the house was expropriated, Liang, Lu B, and Lu C were involved in litigation over the distribution of compensation benefits from the expropriation. According to the law, the compensation benefits for the expropriation of the house at issue should be divided by each right holder according to their share of property rights at the time of expropriation, so who is the heir of Lu and Wu has become the focus of the dispute in this case.
Among them, the evidence of the custody relationship between Lu Yi, Lu C and Wu is relatively clear. However, although Liang asserted that her biological mother died when she was young, and that she and Wu had formed a stepmother-daughter relationship with a dependency relationship and had the right to inherit Wu's share, they only provided household registration information that she and Wu had jointly moved their household registration into the house at issue, and Lu B, Lu C, and others did not recognize the fact that Liang had formed a dependency relationship with Wu.
Because the facts of the main case occurred for a long time, the household registration information at that time was vague, the marriage registration procedures were imperfect, and there were often clerical errors in the name records, there was no direct evidence to prove when Wu and Lu became husband and wife, whether there was a fact of polygamy, and whether Liang and Wu formed a dependency relationship. The facts of these complex cases are difficult to restore, resulting in an impasse in the case.
With regard to whether a custody relationship has been formed between stepparents and stepchildren, the Supreme People's Court clearly set out the criteria for judging whether a stepparent and stepchild have formed a dependency relationship, pointing out that in judicial practice, it is necessary to make a determination based on the specific facts of the case, and the specific judgment criteria are as follows:
First, on the subject of dependent education. It should be limited to minor stepchildren or stepchildren who are adults but cannot live independently, and if they are stepchildren who have reached adulthood and are able to live independently, they do not have the right to ask their parents to raise them, and naturally there is no question of raising and educating them.
Second, about the way of dependent education. Generally, stepchildren are required to live together with their stepparents, who provide care, education, and financial support for their stepchildren. Where stepparents have made a continuous and relatively large amount of financial support for their stepchildren even though they have not lived together, it may also be deemed that they have carried out upbringing and education.
Thirdly, on the duration of dependent education. Since the step-children have the obligation to support the step-parents after the establishment of the fictitious blood relationship between the step-parents and the step-children, and the step-parents and step-children have the right to inherit each other, the step-parents should have at least a few years to raise and educate the step-children, so as to achieve the basic reciprocity of rights and obligations.
Fourth, respect the wishes of stepparents and stepchildren. If the stepparents and stepchildren have clearly expressed to each other that they do not want to establish a fictitious blood relation, then even if the two parties live together and have been raised and educated, it is not appropriate to easily determine the establishment of a fictitious blood relation.
Therefore, the core of proving the existence of a dependency relationship is to prove the fact of continuous living together, the objective existence of economic and spiritual support, and the integration of family identity. Supporting materials include household registration and relocation, marital status, surname change, living and education expenses, economic relations, neighborhood committee certificates, daily communication and exchanges, etc.
In order to ascertain the facts, the collegial panel carefully reviewed the case materials and accurately captured the key content related to the facts of the case from the household registration materials, the parties' files, political questionnaires, and resumes. Based on the common sense of life and studying the facts of the case, the collegial panel held that there was a certain possibility that Liang and Wu would form a dependency relationship. However, due to the incomplete household registration information provided by the parties, there is still a lack of strong evidence. In order to further ascertain the facts of the case, the collegial panel decided to go to the household registration management department to collect evidence in depth.
Subsequently, the judge undertaking the case went to the public security organ to obtain household registration information, and through the search of household registration data registered in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he finally found the key household registration page that had been omitted by the parties in the yellowed file of more than 200 pages. The household registration page proves that when Liang was a child, Wu had become Lu's wife, and Liang had also moved his household registration from another house to the house at issue with Wu as Wu's daughter, which further strengthened the judge's inner confirmation and made the facts of the case clear.
Combined with the evidence provided by Liang to the court, such as correspondence and remittance vouchers with Wu, it is proved that he still maintained contact with Wu after he became an adult, remitted his salary to Wu to subsidize his life, and fulfilled his obligation to support, based on which it can be determined that Liang and Wu have formed a stepmother-daughter relationship with a dependency relationship, and Liang has fulfilled a certain obligation to support Wu and has the right to inherit Wu's estate.
Considering that this case is a family dispute, a judgment may not be able to resolve the conflict between the parties. Therefore, after ascertaining the relevant facts, the presiding judge decided to mediate the case.
At first, each child had their own ideas, and there was a big difference in negotiation. Therefore, the presiding judge first communicated with the parties in detail, carefully understood the demands and psychological expectations of all parties, and made full preparations for offline mediation.
In the process of offline mediation, the undertaking judge patiently listened to the opinions of all parties, and focused on the focus of the dispute, based on the facts, combined with the expectations of the parties and the litigation needs, and analyzed the case situation to the parties from the perspectives of emotion, reason and law, so as to make the mediation more reasonable and convincing, prompt the parties to correctly assess the evidence and litigation risks, and finally prompted the parties to reach a mediation plan, which not only protected the legitimate rights and interests of Liang, but also maintained the family bond between brothers and sisters as much as possible, and untied the knot of the parties.