Frasier v. McClair
| Decision Date | 23 February 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 0228,0228 |
| Citation | 282 S.C. 491,319 S.E.2d 350 |
| Court | South Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | James FRASIER and Nathalee Frasier, Appellants, v. Anthony Ross McCLAIR, a minor fifteen (15) years of age, and Mary Frances McClair Frasier, his mother, Respondents. . Heard |
Russell Brown, Charleston, for appellants.
Ernest G. DeVeaux, Jr., Charleston, for respondents.
Professor Randall M. Chastain, Columbia, amicus curiae.
This is an appeal from a family court order dismissing, with prejudice, appellants' request for adoption of the minor respondent, Anthony Ross McClair. We reverse.
The petition was procedurally proper and the action was duly brought on for hearing after the proper appointment of a Guardian ad Litem for the minor respondent.
In an equity action tried by a judge without a reference the Supreme Court (also Appeals Court) has jurisdiction to find facts in accordance with its view of the preponderance of the evidence. Townes Associates, Ltd. v. City of Greenville, 266 S.C. 81, 221 S.E.2d 773 (1976).
The child's father is dead, and his mother lives in New York and sees him perhaps once a year. He has been reared since age three months by his step-grandparents, and, at the time of the hearing, was fifteen years old. The child wishes to be adopted by his step-grandparents. The mother consented to his adoption, and no issues are in the case regarding its validity or the nature of the information provided to her or to the child or to the proposed adoptive parents about the adoptive process.
The child's Guardian ad Litem recommended that the adoption be approved.
Nevertheless, the family court refused to decree the adoption, without relying on any cited authority, and without reference to Section 20-7-1760 of the 1976 Code, as amended, which provides in relevant part:
The court may enter a final decree of adoption if satisfied that the adoption is for the best interest of the child.
The trial judge found that the proposed adoptive parents love the boy, and further found that he loved them. The court referred to the fact that the best interest of the child is "the guiding criterion for an adoption". The court went on to write that it was persuaded that there was no "higher purpose" which would serve the best interest of the child to be achieved by granting the adoption in question. The court apparently felt that the adoption was being sought solely so that the grandparents could secure "additional money from the taxpayers". This was to come about by the child's being eligible for social security benefits through the grandparents once adopted. Apparently the court felt this was the only reason the adoption was being sought. 1
The order of the trial court is faulty on two grounds, either of which is sufficient to warrant reversal.
The trial court also speculated on "scenarios" in which the child would have less money as a result of there being social security money available to him than he would have had were conditions to have been different than they in fact are with regard to the biological parent. Of course, none of these speculative conditions in fact exist.
What the order of the trial court seems, then, to boil down to is a finding that there should be a public policy of the state forbidding adoptions if an effect of the adoption would be to enable the adopting parents to receive, for the use of the child adopted, governmental benefits to which they would otherwise not have been entitled on behalf of the child.
On the facts, we have a fifteen year old boy who is apparently reasonably well adjusted and reasonably happy, according to the only testimony in the record, who is living with his step-grandparents, who has no living father, and whose biological mother lives 1500 miles away from him and sees him perhaps once a year. He has been raised by the step-grandparents all his life, they love him, he loves them, and they now desire to formalize what has been an informal situation by adopting him. The biological mother consents, the court's own investigative officer (Guardian ad Litem) believes it to be in the best interest of the child, and the court refuses to grant the adoption because it believes that it might be possible that the remaining biological parent could achieve great wealth and the adoption would cut the boy off from the bounty that might come his way as a result of that wealth, and further believes that it might be possible for the child to secure disability support from the remaining biological parent in the event of an illness or something of the sort following the age of eighteen. The court acknowledged federal lifetime disability benefits would also be available, but apparently discounted them because they were "calculated under complex federal bureaucratic regulations without regard for South Carolina law".
Finally, of course, the court's order makes no mention of the testimony of the step-grandparents that they wanted to adopt him so he could be "stationary and for his name". The step-grandmother testified she wanted to get him a social security card so he could get a job because she wanted him to work, and that was the same effective reason behind her wishing him to have his name changed so he could be, in effect, a member of the family community. The step-grandfather testified to like general effect. He acknowledged he would make application to the Social Security Administration "to get help for him [Anthony Ross]", but certainly made no testimony indicating the sole reason for the adoption was to get social security money. The step-grandparents acknowledged adoption would change Anthony Ross's name, he would rank equally with other children in inheritance, and he would become the nephew of their brothers and sisters, none of whom objected to having Anthony Ross become a member of the family.
From the foregoing, it can be seen the court really had no evidentiary basis upon which to conclude either (a) the adoption action was motivated by a bad motive (if securing social security benefits for the child be considered a bad motive); or (b) having social security benefits and the adoption would not be in the best interest of the minor child; or (c) the evidence did not preponderate in favor of granting the adoption on the best interest standard. There simply was no evidence contrary to the adoption's being in the best interest of the child. It was speculation on the...
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In re Adoption of Jon L.
...City, 41 Md.App. 340, 397 A.2d 233 (Md.Ct.Spec.App.1979); Smith v. Benson, 542 S.W.2d 571 (Mo.Ct.App.1976); Frasier v. McClair, 282 S.C. 491, 319 S.E.2d 350 (Ct.App.1984). But see Sowers v. Tsamolias, 23 Kan.App.2d 270, 929 P.2d 188 (1996) (vesting court with discretion to permit or deny re......