Harding v. DeAngelis

The petitioner is the father of an illegitimate child who was stillborn as the result of an automobile accident. Seeking to share equally with the mother in the proceeds of a wrongful death claim prosecuted by the child’s administratrix, the petitioner asks that the administratrix, the child’s maternal grandmother, be ordered to make distribution of half of the net proceeds to him. He appeals from a decree of a Probate Court dismissing his petition for distribution.

The mother and father of the stillborn child were high school students, seventeen and eighteen years of age, respec*456tively, at the…