Adoption of Marlene

• Decision Date: 06 December 2004
• Parties: ADOPTION OF MARLENE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

443 Mass. 494

822 NE 2d 714

ADOPTION OF MARLENE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

December 6, 2004.

February 17, 2005.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

Deborah Sirotkin Butler for the father.

Virginia A. Peel for Department of Social Services.

Brigid Kennedy-Pfister for the child.

COWIN, J.

In this case, we consider the effect of a parent's consent to adoption on that parent's duty to support his or her child. The child involved here, whom we shall call Marlene, was the subject of a care and protection petition, and after her attorney petitioned for child support on her behalf, her father voluntarily consented to her adoption under G. L. c. 210, § 2. A judge in the Juvenile Court granted the child's motion for support, and the father appealed from that order, arguing that a § 2 consent to adoption terminates the entire parent-child relationship, including the parent's obligation to support the child. We granted the father's application for direct appellate review. We conclude that a parent's consent to adoption of his or her child under G. L. c. 210, § 2, does not terminate the parental duty to support the child.

Facts. The facts underlying this appeal are not in dispute. On February 6, 2003, the Department of Social Services (department) filed a care and protection petition, see G. L. c. 119, § 24, seeking temporary custody of Marlene.¹ The basis for the petition was alleged physical abuse of Marlene by her father. One week later, the father waived his right to a hearing to contest the award of temporary custody. Shortly thereafter, a Juvenile Court judge awarded temporary custody of Marlene to her stepsister. Marlene was later placed in a "Planned Permanency Living Arrangement."² Adoption was never sought for Marlene, and the department's original plan was reunification between the father and the child.

The issue of support for the child developed as follows. On March 14, 2003, after Marlene was placed in the temporary custody of her stepsister, the child, by her attorney, moved for an order, pursuant to G. L. c. 119, § 28,³ for child support from her father.⁴ On March 18, 2003, the father signed an adoption surrender that complied with the requirements of G. L. c. 210, § 2, which provides that a parent can consent to the adoption of his or her child, and waive all right to further notice of proceedings involving the child's custody, guardianship, adoption, or other disposition.⁵ The statute also contains the wording for the form by which a parent consents to adoption,⁶ and the form the father signed was in the statutory language. In accordance with the statutory mandate "[a] copy of said consent [was] filed with the department." See G. L. c. 210, § 2. Although nothing in the statute requires a court filing, on April 8, 2003, the father filed a copy of the adoption surrender with the court. Concerned about a lack of authority to order child support after a voluntary surrender, the judge declined to order support from the father.

On June 19, 2003, the judge reversed herself and allowed the child's motion for support, requiring the father "to file a financial statement with probation and to pay [c]hild [s]upport consistent with the Child Support Guidelines." The judge later issued findings of fact and conclusions of law in support of her order, holding that a § 2 consent could not relieve the father of his child support obligations. The father appealed from the order, and child support proceedings were stayed pending resolution of this issue.

Discussion. We have not had occasion to determine whether the filing of a voluntary consent to adoption under G. L. c. 210, § 2, terminates a parent's obligation of child support. In interpreting § 2, we look first to the language of the statute. "[S]tatutory language is the principal source of insight into legislative purpose." Local 589, Amalgamated Transit Union v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth., 392 Mass. 407, 415 (1984), quoting Bronstein v. Prudential Ins. Co., 390 Mass. 701, 704 (1984). When the words of a statute are clear, they are to be given their ordinary and natural meanings. Bronstein v. Prudential Ins. Co., supra,

citing Hashimi v. Kalil, 388 Mass. 607, 610 (1983). If the meanings are unclear, the statute must be interpreted "according to the intent of the Legislature ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished, to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated." Telesetsky v. Wight, 395 Mass. 868, 872 (1985), quoting Commonwealth v. Galvin, 388 Mass. 326, 328 (1983). In addition, "a statute should be read as a whole to produce an internal consistency." Telesetsky v. Wight, supra at 873.

Section 2 does not mention the word "support," and makes no reference to any other section that addresses the topic. Hence, any relationship between § 2 and a parent's duty to support exists only by inference. The father asks us to infer that the Legislature intended that the language of § 2 terminate this statutory obligation. We decline to do so.

In interpreting § 2, we start from the proposition that parents have a preexisting obligation to support their children. This duty to support "has existed by statute in some form since as early as 1692." T.F. v. B.L., 442 Mass. 522, 532 (2004), citing Commonwealth v. Chase, 385 Mass. 461, 469 (1982), and Province Laws 1692-1693, c. 18, § 5. Over time, the Legislature has created a comprehensive statutory system governing child support, imposing that obligation on any parent who acknowledges paternity or is adjudicated to be the father. See T.F. v. B.L., supra at 532 (duty to support minor child is statutory and longstanding). This responsibility is imposed by several statutes. See, e.g., G. L. c. 119A, § 1; G. L. c. 208, § 28; G. L. c. 209, § 37; G. L. c. 209C, § 9. Our cases have acknowledged as much. See T.F. v. B.L., supra; L.W.K.

v. E.R.C., 432 Mass. 438, 443 (2000). Thus, when a parent consents to adoption of a child under § 2, such consent must be viewed in terms of the preexisting duty of support toward that child.

Section 2 says nothing and implies nothing concerning the termination of a parent's support obligations. The statutory consent form is very limited and precise. It states that the parent "voluntarily and unconditionally surrender[s] (child) to the care and custody of (agency or person receiving custody) for the purpose of adoption or such other disposition as may be made by a court of competent jurisdiction." It also provides for a "waive[r] [of] notice of any legal proceeding affecting the custody, guardianship, adoption or other disposition of (child)." G. L. c. 210, § 2. The form has two effects. First, the parent grants to the specified agency or person custody of the child and consent to "adoption or such other disposition" of the child. Second, the parent thereby waives the right to notice of any legal proceeding that affects the "custody, guardianship, adoption or other disposition" of the child. This consent to custody and adoption and accompanying waiver of notice surrender important parental rights, but only those specific rights.

To the extent there is any ambiguity in the effect of § 2, resolution of that ambiguity is informed by the fact that the Legislature is unlikely to have relieved a biological parent of the existing duty of support by inference. Had the Legislature intended that § 2 have any impact beyond its stated terms, it could have done so by specifying what consequence signing the form would have on a parent's obligations. Cf. G. L. c. 210, § 6 (decree of adoption ends all "rights, duties and other legal consequences" of natural parents). In the absence of any indication of such legislative intent, we do not read such an effect into this section. "We will not add words to a statute that the Legislature did not put there, either by inadvertent omission or by design." Commonwealth v. Callahan, 440 Mass. 436, 443 (2003), quoting Commonwealth v. McLeod, 437 Mass. 286, 294 (2002), and cases cited. See Civitarese v. Middleborough, 412 Mass. 695, 700 (1992) ("We will not read into the plain words of a statute a legislative intent that is not expressed by those words"). The various support statutes and § 2 are unrelated, and reading the section more broadly than its explicit terms allow is inappropriate. "The law of adoption is purely statutory. . . and the governing statute, G. L. c. 210 . . ., is to be strictly followed in all its essential particulars." Adoption of Tammy, 416 Mass. 205, 210 (1993).

The father contends that a legislative intent that the § 2 surrender should end all parental obligations to the child is evidenced by the following language in the § 2 form, "I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS SURRENDER IS FINAL AND CANNOT BE REVOKED." G. L. c. 210, § 2. These words (as well as another statutory reference to the final and irrevocable nature of the consent) mean only that the surrender is final as to the enumerated rights being surrendered. The finality of that surrender does not expand the scope of what is thereby surrendered, nor does it transform the surrender into a document terminating the responsibilities of the parent.

Our interpretation of the statute renders it a consistent part of the statutes concerning adoption. "We ordinarily construe statutes to be consistent with one another." Green v. Wyman-Gordon Co., 422 Mass. 551, 554 (1996). "Statutes addressing the same subject matter clearly are to be construed harmoniously so as to give full effect to all of their provisions and give rise to a consistent body of law." Ciardi v. F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd., 436 Mass. 53, 62 (2002), citing Green v. Wyman-Gordon Co., supra. See St. Germaine v. Pendergast, 411 Mass. 615, 626 (1992). "A basic tenet of...