Gilbert, Application of, 60188

• Decision Date: 10 April 1978
• Docket Number: No. 60188,60188
• Citation: 563 S.W.2d 768
• Parties: Application of Paul Robert GILBERT.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 768

563 S.W.2d 768

Application of Paul Robert GILBERT.

No. 60188.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

April 10, 1978.

Paul R. Gilbert, pro se.

James O. Swaney, Jr., Kansas City, for respondent.

RENDLEN, Judge.

This appeal arose from Paul Gilbert's pro se application in the circuit court of Jackson County to open the adoption records of appellant under authority of § 453.120, RSMo 1969, raising many of the same issues determined in the companion case of In the Matter of the Application of Annetta Louise Maples, No. 60187, 563 S.W.2d 760 (Mo.banc 1978), decided this date. here, as in Maples, the application was denied by the circuit court and an appeal taken to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Kansas City District, from which the cause was transferred prior to opinion under Art. V, § 11 of the Missouri Constitution, 1945, as amended in 1976. The dispositive facts are similar to those of Maples, with certain differences which will be noted as they appear.

Appellant, an adult, now forty-eight years of age was adopted during his first year and raised by his adoptive parents as though he was "their child since the date of adoption." At the time of filing his application in April, 1975, Gilbert's adoptive mother was deceased and his eighty year old father in ill health. Nothing in the transcript, briefs or oral arguments indicates his adoptive parents had consented or approved of the search for his natural parents, yet appellant stated, "(T)he adoptive parents really have no interest in preventing the Petitioner to obtain the information he now desires." Concerning the proceeding's effect on his natural parents, appellant states in his petition, "I assume that if my real parents are alive, that the anonymity once desired is long exhausted." This theme is repeated in the memorandum filed with the petition as follows: "Furthermore, the biological parents may now be deceased and have no interest at all in the continuation of this secretive information," with this added observation, "On the other hand the biological parents (sic) assurance for anonymity should not be preserved at the expense of the adoptee, for it is unjust that a child should suffer for the transgressions of his parents." These statements indicate a casual indifference toward rights of the natural parents and implies a knowledge of improper conduct on their part, of which neither petitioner nor this court have information and quite properly should not. In oral argument, appellant stated, "I'm not trying to find them to harm them (the natural parents), I'm trying to find them out of interest, curiosity and perhaps even love."

Without a hearing the trial court, accepting the facts alleged as true, determined that from the petition's allegation "insufficient cause has been shown to allow the inspection as requested, such information being confidential, and that no constitutional rights of petitioner are violated by denial of the request."

Appellant contends as error: (1) Section 453.120, RSMo 1969, impermissibly abridges his constitutional rights to receive information, his right to privacy and his rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is thus invalid; (2) The trial court erred in denying his petition because appellant had shown good cause for inspection of the records.

The constitutional issues are essentially the same as those raised in Maples, supra and for the reasons set forth there, appellant's first contention as to constitutional invalidity of the statute is denied.

Appellant's other allegation of error is that he has shown good cause for inspection of the records and the trial court erred by denying the same. As stated in Maples, 563 S.W.2d at p. 760, "The court on good cause shown may release such portions of an adoption proceeding record as it deems necessary to satisfy the needs of the applicant when measured against the rights of the natural parents, the adoptive parents and the societal need to protect and maintain a viable system for adoption." Though the court apparently adopted the proper standard of "good cause" when judicially determining plaintiff's petition failed to state a claim for relief, under the guidelines set forth in Maples, the court should on remand, because of the factual situation presented in this case, undertake to learn if the natural parents will waive the confidentiality of the records and consider that fact in making its final determination of the cause.

Appellant's application alleged he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and "(a) fundamental belief of that church is that in order to be saved and exalted after death every person must trace their ancestry and perform certain ordinances for their blood relatives . . . . I desire to perform my genealogy and trace my ancestry and I cannot so do without the names of my real mother and father." Respondent's brief challenges the validity of the allegations concerning the church's "fundamental belief," and offers contrary documentary evidence quoting from a July 12, 1973, letter of the Mormon Genealogical Society Executive Assistant in which the precise issue was...