Adoption of B.L.V.B., In re, 92-321

• Decision Date: 18 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-321,92-321
• Citation: 628 A.2d 1271,160 Vt. 368
• Parties: , 62 USLW 2063, 27 A.L.R.5th 819 Adoptions of B.L.V.B. and E.L.V.B.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Page 1271

628 A.2d 1271

160 Vt. 368, 62 USLW 2063, 27 A.L.R.5th 819

Adoptions of B.L.V.B. and E.L.V.B.

No. 92-321.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

June 18, 1993.

Julie A. Frame, David W. Curtis and Leslie J. Dunn of Hoff, Agel, Curtis & Cassidy, P.C., Burlington, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Paula L. Ettelbrick, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc., New York City, and Susan M. Murray of Langrock Sperry & Wool, Middlebury, for amici curiae.

Before ALLEN, C.J., and GIBSON, DOOLEY, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.

JOHNSON, Justice.

The issue we decide today is whether Vermont law requires the termination of a natural mother's parental rights if her children are adopted by a person to whom she is not married. We hold that when the family unit is comprised of the natural mother and her partner, and the adoption is in the best interests of the children, terminating the natural mother's rights is unreasonable and unnecessary. We reverse.

Appellants are two women, Jane and Deborah, who have lived together in a committed, monogamous relationship since 1986. Together, they made the decision to have and raise children, and together, they consulted various sources to determine the best method for them to achieve their goal of starting a family. On November 2, 1988, Jane gave birth to a son, B.L.V.B., after being impregnated with the sperm of an anonymous donor. On August 27, 1992, after being impregnated with sperm from the same donor, she gave birth to a second son, E.L.V.B. Deborah assisted the midwife at both births, and she has been equally responsible for raising and parenting the children since their births.

Appellants sought legal recognition of their existing status as coparents, and asked the probate court to allow Deborah to legally adopt the children, while leaving Jane's parental rights intact. The adoption petitions were uncontested. The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services conducted a home study, determined the adoptions were in the best interests of the children, and recommended that they be allowed. A clinical and school psychologist who had evaluated the family testified that it was essential for the children to be assured of a continuing relationship with Deborah, and recommended that the adoptions be allowed for the psychological and emotional protection of the children.

Despite the lack of opposition, the probate court denied the adoptions, declining to reach whether the adoptions were in the best interests of the children because the proposed adoptive mother "does not satisfy the statutory prerequisite to adoption." The court relied on 15 V.S.A. §§ 431 and 448. Section 431, covering who may adopt, provides:

A person or husband and wife together, of age and sound mind, may adopt any other person as his or their heir with or without change of name of the person adopted. A married man or a married woman shall not adopt a person or be adopted without the consent of the other spouse. The petition for adoption and the final adoption decree shall be executed by the other spouse as provided in this chapter.

Section 448, which describes how the rights and obligations of both parents and children are altered by a final adoption decree, provides in pertinent part:

The natural parents of a minor shall be deprived, by the adoption, of all legal right to control of such minor, and such minor shall be freed from all obligations of obedience and maintenance to them.... Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, when the adoption is made by a spouse of a natural parent, obligations of obedience to, and rights of inheritance by and through the natural parent who has intermarried with the adopting parent shall not be affected.

The court read the last sentence of § 448, the "step-parent exception," and § 431, as clearly requiring that "if a couple adopts together, they must be married. If one partner is the birth parent, and the other partner desires to adopt, then they must be married: otherwise, the birth parent will lose rights in the child under § 448."

Appellants make numerous attacks on the probate court's interpretation of the statutes, but in the main, they contend that the statutory language does not prohibit the adoptions, that enforcing the termination of the birth mother's rights under § 448 would reach an absurd result in these circumstances, and that such a result is inconsistent with the best interests of the children and the public policy of this state. We agree.

In interpreting Vermont's adoption statutes, we are mindful that the state's primary concern is to promote the welfare of children, In re Camp, 94 Vt. 455, 458, 111 A. 565, 567 (1920), and that application of the statutes should implement that purpose. ¹ See In re S.B.L., 150 Vt. 294, 301-02, 553 A.2d 1078, 1083-84 (1988) (in applying custody statute to fact pattern breaking substantial new ground, intent of legislature, gleaned from whole of statute, must be considered). In doing so, we must avoid results that are irrational, unreasonable or absurd. Id. at 301, 553 A.2d at 1083. We must look "not only at the letter of a statute but also its reason and spirit." Id.

Nothing in Vermont law, other than a restrictive interpretation of § 448, would exclude Deborah from adopting another person. Under 15 V.S.A. § 431, which broadly grants the right to adopt to "a person or husband and wife together," an unmarried person is permitted to adopt, and the sole limitation--that the adoption of a married person requires the consent of the adoptee's spouse--does not apply here. Even reading § 431 in conjunction with § 448, we cannot conclude, as the probate court did, that the legislature meant to limit the categories of persons who were entitled to adopt.

Section 448 was passed by the legislature in 1945, then revised and adopted in substantially its present form in 1947. ² It is highly unlikely that the legislature contemplated the possibility of adoptions by same-sex partners, and the scant legislative history does not indicate that such adoptions were considered. See Record of Committee Meetings for H. 206, Judiciary Committee (March 14, 1945). Because adoptions by same-sex partners were apparently not contemplated when § 448 was drafted, it cannot be said that they are either specifically prohibited or specifically allowed by the statute. To determine whether such adoptions are consistent with the purpose of the statute, it is necessary to discern what § 448 was designed to accomplish.

When the statute is read as a whole, we see that its general purpose is to clarify and protect the legal rights of the adopted person at the time the adoption is complete, not to proscribe adoptions by certain combinations of individuals. Who may adopt is already covered by § 431. Section 448 is concerned with defining the lines of inheritance for adoptees, preserving their right to inherit from their natural parents and granting the right to inherit from the "person or persons" by whom they are adopted. The statute also terminates the natural parents' rights upon adoption, but this provision anticipates that the adoption of children will remove them from the home of the biological parents, where the biological parents elect or are compelled to terminate their legal obligations to the child. This legislative intent is evidenced by the step-parent exception, which saves the natural parent's rights in a step-parent adoption. The legislature recognized that it would be against common sense to terminate the biological parent's rights when that parent will continue to raise and be responsible for the child, albeit in a family unit with a partner who is biologically unrelated to the child.

Although the precise circumstances of these adoptions may not have been contemplated during the initial drafting of the statute, the general intent and spirit of § 448 is entirely consistent with them. The intent of the legislature was to protect the security of family units by defining the legal rights and responsibilities of children who find themselves in circumstances that do not include two biological parents. Despite the narrow wording of the step-parent exception, we cannot conclude that the legislature ever meant to terminate the parental rights of a biological parent who intended to continue raising a child with the help of a partner. Such a narrow construction would produce the unreasonable and irrational result of defeating adoptions that are otherwise indisputably in the best interests of children. See Lubinsky v. Fair Haven Zoning Board, 148 Vt. 47, 50, 527 A.2d 227, 228 (1986) (intent of statute is derived from consideration not only of language, but from entire enactment, its reason, purpose and consequence, and on presumption that no unjust or unreasonable result was intended).

Although no state supreme court has confronted the issue, a number of lower court decisions support our conclusion. Interpreting a similar "step-parent exception" in a factually similar adoption case, the Superior Court for the District of Columbia stated that cutting off the biological mother's rights "would be a particularly counterproductive and even ludicrous result" once the adoption by the mother's partner was found to be in the child's best interest. In re L.S. & V.L., slip op. at 5, 1991 WL 219598 (D.C.Super.Ct.Fam.Div. Aug. 30, 1991). Instead, following the legislative intent, the court likened same-sex partners who adopted to step-parents, holding them exempt from the provision cutting off a biological parent's rights. Id. at 8. ³

A New York court also upheld the adoption of a child by the biological mother's same-sex partner under a section of its adoption statute ⁴ identical in effect to that of Vermont's § 448. That court stated that:

[i]f this provision were strictly enforced it would require termination of the parental rights of [the biological mother] upon granting the adoption to [the mother's partner]. This would be an absurd outcome...