Morris v. Ulbright
Missouri Supreme Court
558 S.W.2d 660 (1977)
Lina and Frank Ulbright deeded property to Logan Ulbright 'and his bodily heirs,' creating a fee tail, and the property eventually passed to Dorothy and Ralph Ulbright (defendants). Logan Ulbright's only son, adopted by another family and renamed Logan Morris (plaintiff), filed a quiet-title action seeking the property, but Dorothy and Ralph argued his adoption removed him from his natural father's bloodline and thus from the fee tail; the trial court granted them summary judgment, and the court of appeals reversed before the case was transferred to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Whether the interest that an heir acquires via a fee tail is that of a substitute purchaser in fee simple from the original donor.