S.C.H. v. L.A.
| Decision Date | 04 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2190714 |
| Citation | 334 So.3d 500 |
| Parties | S.C.H. v. L.A., L.C.M., and Y.C.M. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Samuel J. McLure of The Adoption Law Firm, Montgomery, for appellant.
Submitted on appellant's brief only.
In April 2015, S.C.H. ("the adoptive father") filed a complaint in the Fayette Probate Court ("the probate court") seeking to adopt his niece by marriage, L.A. ("the adoptee"). The adoptive father also filed executed consents from the adoptee, the adoptee's biological mother, L.C.M., and the adoptee's biological father, S.A.A. The complaint alleged that the adoptive father wished to establish a parent-child relationship with the adoptee and that the adoptee had lived in his home and had been in his care since December 1, 2013. The post-placement report completed by the Fayette County Department of Human Resources ("DHR") indicates that the adoptee desired to be adopted because it would help her achieve her goal of attending college; that report also indicated that the adoptee lived in the home of the adoptive father and that all of her needs were being met by the adoptive father. In July 2016, the probate court entered an adoption judgment ("the 2016 adoption judgment").
On February 21, 2020, the adoptive father filed in the probate court a "Petition to Nullify and Set Aside [the 2016] Adoption [Judgment] as an Independent Action." In that petition, the adoptive father alleged that the "[complaint] for adoption was perpetrated by fraud and misrepresentation" and that it was "conceived and perpetrated solely for the basis of the adoptee obtaining a favorable immigration status." He also alleged that the adoption complaint had contained false averments because, he stated, (1) the adoptee had never been in his care, (2) he and the adoptee had never had or formed a parent-child relationship, and (3) the address of the adoptee's biological mother, L.C.M., had been falsely stated in the complaint "to mask their illegal grab for immigration status." The adoptive father further contended that, because his wife, Y.C.M., who is the adoptee's maternal aunt, did not join in the adoption complaint, the adoption was void and illegal. The adoptive father later moved for Y.C.M. and L.C.M. to be made parties to the action to set aside the 2016 adoption judgment, and the probate court granted that motion.
After a trial held on June 2, 2020, at which the adoptive father and the adoptee testified, the probate court entered a judgment on June 4, 2020, denying the petition to set aside the 2016 adoption judgment. The adoptive father timely filed a notice of appeal to this court. We affirm.
The testimony of the adoptive father indicated that he had signed the adoption complaint and that he had answered the questions of the DHR worker who compiled the post-placement report. He testified, however, that the factual averments in his adoption complaint were false. He said that, at the time he signed that complaint, the adoptee's biological mother, L.C.M., was living in his home and not elsewhere, as was averred in the complaint, and that he had employed the adoptee as his housekeeper; therefore, he explained, he had not "provided for her." He also testified that the reason for the adoption was that the adoptee desired to attend college, and he admitted that he had listed the adoptee on his income-tax returns as his daughter in the years following the adoption. The adoptive father also testified that Y.C.M. had told him in 2019 that she had never loved him, that he had also discovered that she had engaged in extramarital affairs, and that they were in the process of getting a divorce. He called both his marriage, which had lasted nearly 10 years, and the adoption "shams."
The adoptee testified that, at the time of the filing of the adoption complaint, she was living in the home of the adoptive father with her biological mother and had done so since December 2013. She said that the adoptive father had wanted to assist her in attending college and that the adoption had been his idea; she said that he had always wanted the best for her. She also testified that she thought of the adoptive father as "my dad" and that their relationship after the adoption had been like that of father and daughter. She admitted that their relationship had since soured to the point that she did not want to have anything to do with him and that she had no issue with nullifying the 2016 adoption judgment.
The adoptive father first argues that the failure of his wife, Y.C.M., to join in the adoption complaint makes the resulting 2016 adoption judgment void. He contends that the language of Ala. Code 1975, § 26-10A-5(a), supports his argument. Section 26-10A-5(a) provides, in pertinent part: "Any adult person or husband and wife jointly who are adults may petition the court to adopt a minor." Thus, the adoptive father contends, because the adoption complaint was not joined by Y.C.M., which, he asserts, was required by § 26-10A-5(a), the 2016 adoption judgment should be set aside pursuant to Rule 60(b)(4), Ala. R. Civ. P.
In further support of his claim that the 2016 adoption judgment is void, the adoptive father contends in his brief on appeal that the Office of Vital Statistics ("OVS") "affirmed by letter dated April 23, 2019, [that] it was statutorily impossible for OVS to create a new birth certificate for the adoptee because the adoption was per se void." The letter from OVS is contained in the record on appeal, and it does not state that the 2016 adoption judgment is void. Instead, the letter indicates that the Report of Adoption filed with OVS after the entry of the 2016 adoption judgment incorrectly listed information for the biological mother and failed to list the country of the adoptee's birth; OVS requested in the letter that the Report of Adoption be corrected to include the adoptee's birth country and to omit the biological mother's information. The word "void" does not appear in the letter.
Regardless, the adoptive father cites no authority supporting his assertion that the failure of both spouses to join in an adoption complaint renders an adoption judgment void as opposed to merely voidable. The adoptive father merely states that, because of the well settled general principle that strict adherence to the adoption statutes is required, see Ex parte Sullivan, 407 So. 2d 559, 562–63 (Ala. 1981), the probate court lacked the "discretion" to grant the adoption in 2016 and that the 2016 adoption judgment is therefore "void -- illegal at its core." However, a trial court's judgment is not void merely because of the court's failure to comply with the law; rather, a judgment is void only " ‘if the court which rendered it [1] lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, or [2] of the parties, or [3] if it acted in a manner inconsistent with due process.’ " Neal v. Neal, 856 So. 2d 766, 781 (Ala. 2002) (quoting Seventh Wonder v. Southbound Records, Inc., 364 So. 2d 1173, 1174 (Ala. 1978) ). Put another way, "[e]rrors in the application of the law by the trial court do not render a judgment void." Bowen v. Bowen, 28 So. 3d 9, 15 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009). The adoptive father does not clearly explain the specific basis for his voidness argument, but we presume that he is contending that, because of the alleged noncompliance with § 26-10A-5(a), the probate court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to enter the 2016 adoption judgment.
We cannot agree. As our supreme court has explained:
"Jurisdiction is ‘[a] court's power to decide a case or issue a decree.’ Black's Law Dictionary 867 (8th ed. 2004). Subject-matter jurisdiction concerns a court's power to decide certain types of cases. Woolf v. McGaugh, 175 Ala. 299, 303, 57 So. 754, 755 (1911) )). That power is derived from the Alabama Constitution and the Alabama Code. See United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 630–31, 122 S. Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed. 2d 860 (2002) ()."
Ex parte Seymour, 946 So. 2d 536, 538 (Ala. 2006). Certainly, the probate court is the proper court to have entertained the adoption action. See Ala. Code 1975, 26-10A-3 (granting the probate courts original jurisdiction over adoption proceedings). The requirement that the probate court strictly comply with the adoption statutes does not necessarily render any error made by the probate court in applying those statutes a jurisdictional defect. See V.L. v. E.L., 577 U.S. 464, ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1017, 1021, 194 L.Ed.2d 92 (2016) (quoting Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 146, 132 S.Ct. 641, 181 L.Ed.2d 619 (2012) ) ( that "[t]his Court ‘has long rejected the notion that all mandatory prescriptions, however emphatic, are properly typed jurisdictional’ "). We cannot conclude that every single requirement in the adoption statutes is jurisdictional merely because the adoption statutes must be strictly construed. See V.L. v. E.L., 577 U.S. at ––––, 136 S. Ct. at 1021 ().
In addition, to the extent that the adoptive father might be arguing that he lacked "standing" to seek the adoption without having his wife join in the complaint, we must reject that claim. Our supreme court, in Ex parte BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, 159 So. 3d 31, 46 (Ala. 2013), explained that the concept of "standing" has no place in private-law actions. Generally, our supreme court explained, issues termed as "standing" issues are, in reality, often "problems" properly addressed by the concepts of real party in interest under Rule 17(a), Ala. R. Civ. P., or...
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