This is in response to your request for an opinion concerning whether the adoption
of the claimant, John M.-P~, by the number holder, Delia I. P~, is valid under Massachusetts
law. For the following reasons, we believe the adoption is valid.
The materials you submitted indicate that the claimant filed for child's benefits
on the record of Delia P~ on September 24, 2008. The number holder has been receiving
retirement benefits since January 1998. The claimant, who was born on May 26, 1966,
currently receives disability benefits and SSI benefits on his own account number.
A Report of Contact states that the number holder has been the claimant's foster mother
since 1983. Delia P~ adopted the claimant on September 22, 2008, and furnished a copy
of the Special Certificate of Adoption issued by the Probate and Family Court pursuant
to Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 210 § 6A.
Massachusetts law allows for the adoption of a person over the age of twenty one.
The applicable Massachusetts statute provides that any adult may adopt as his or her
child "another person younger than himself, unless such other person is his or her
wife or husband, or brother, sister, uncle or aunt, of the whole or half blood." Mass.
Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 210 § 1. The claimant here is younger than the number holder and
there is no evidence that the claimant is in any manner related to the number holder.
Accordingly, the adoption is valid.