Cranston

The relationship of the heirs at law to the adoptive father of decedent entitled them to succeed to decedent’s estate: Our question is whether the same collateral adoptive relationship necessarily requires that they be treated, for inheritance tax purposes, as relatives.

Decedent came to California from the Azores early.in the present century to live with Mr. and Mrs. J ose P. Amaral, By the time of the 1951 amendment which permitted adoption of adults .(Civ. Code,. §227p), Mrs. Amaral had died, but decedent was' formally adopted by Mr. Amaral. He died in *813 1953, and Ms will left Ms estate to her. Decedent died in 1960. Her estate, wMeh she had received from her adoptive father, was devised in equal shares to a natural brother and two natural sisters in the Azores. One sister and the brother predeceased her, but left lineal descendants. On the prior appeal (Estate of Goulart, 222 Cal.App.2d 808 [ 35 Cal.Rptr. 465 ]), we held that the deceased brother and sister of decedent were not “kindred” within the meaning of the anti-lapse statute Probate Code, section 92, and that the devises to the predeceased siblings failed. Thus decedent died intestate as to two-thirds of her estate…