Wells v. Children's Aid Soc. of Utah

• Decision Date: 23 March 1984
• Docket Number: No. 18537,18537
• Citation: 681 P.2d 199
• Parties: Gladys Fay WELLS, Guardian ad litem for Dennis Edgar Wells, Jr., a minor over the age of 14 years, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY OF UTAH, Successor in Custody of K.B., Mother of Infant B., and K.B., Defendants and Appellants, v. John DOE and Mary Doe and Robert D. Maack, Esq., Guardian ad litem for Infant B., Intervenors and Appellants.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 199

681 P.2d 199

Gladys Fay WELLS, Guardian ad litem for Dennis Edgar Wells, Jr., a minor over the age of 14 years, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY OF UTAH, Successor in Custody of

K.B., Mother of Infant B., and K.B., Defendants and Appellants, v. John DOE and Mary Doe and Robert D. Maack, Esq., Guardian ad

litem for Infant B., Intervenors and Appellants.

No. 18537.

Supreme Court of Utah.

March 23, 1984.

Jane A. Marquardt, Salt Lake City, for K.B. & Children's Aid.

Tim W. Healy, Ogden, for John & Mary Doe.

Robert D. Maack, pro se.

Paul Gotay, Midvale, for plaintiffs and respondents.

OAKS, Justice:

This appeal involves the constitutionality of U.C.A., 1953, § 78-30-4(3), which terminates the parental rights of the father of an illegitimate child if he fails to give the required timely notice of his claim of paternity. The district court concluded that the notice requirement could not constitutionally be applied to this father because he was denied a reasonable opportunity to comply. We reverse.

K.B., a 16-year-old unmarried girl residing in Moab, gave birth to a child. About six days earlier, she had traveled from Moab to Ogden, where the child was born September 23, 1981. She had previously arranged with appellant Children's Aid Society, a licensed agency, to receive the child for adoption immediately after its birth.

On September 24, K.B. signed the consent and release that placed the child in the custody of Children's Aid. On September 23, 24, 25, and 28, representatives of Children's Aid contacted the office of the registrar of Vital Statistics in the Department of Health by telephone to determine whether an acknowledgment of paternity form had been filed regarding the child. They were informed each time that no form had been received. On September 25, Children's Aid placed the child, Infant B., in the home of intervenors John and Mary Doe for purposes of adoption. On September 28, the Department of Health issued its official certificate of search verifying that no acknowledgment of paternity had been filed. This certificate assured both Children's Aid and the adoptive parents that the child could be adopted without notice to the natural father. ¹

On September 30, the Department of Health notified the Children's Aid Society that they had received an acknowledgment of paternity form signed by Dennis E. Wells, Jr., the plaintiff in this case. The form arrived by mail at the Department's office in Salt Lake City on September 30 in an envelope post-marked Moab, Utah, September 23. Children's Aid took no action to alter the child's placement for adoption.

Dennis filed this action, through his guardian ad litem, on October 6, 1981, seeking custody of the child. The complaint alleged that Children's Aid and K.B. had fraudulently concealed the facts surrounding the infant's birth to deprive him of his parental rights.

The evidence at trial showed that Dennis and K.B., who were both sophomores in high school, had sexual relations in the fall of 1980, the last occurring on December 23 1980. In January of 1981, K.B. informed Dennis that she thought she was pregnant. Thereafter, he refused to speak to her and they ceased dating. K.B. did not begin dating anyone else until approximately one month later. K.B.'s pregnancy was not medically confirmed until August. At that time, K.B.'s boyfriend informed Dennis of the pregnancy, and Dennis discussed it with his parents. He never discussed the pregnancy or had any other communications with K.B.

Gladys Fay Wells, Dennis's mother, learned about the pregnancy on September 2. She immediately contacted the physician who had confirmed the pregnancy and he advised her that the probable date of birth was September 22 or 23. Mrs. Wells was very concerned about the child. On September 4, she contacted K.B. and offered financial support and help with the child's upbringing. When K.B. expressed a desire to put the child up for adoption, Mrs. Wells attempted to dissuade her. In mid-September, Mrs. Wells also contacted an attorney in Moab to determine what steps were required to obtain the child if Dennis decided to assert his parental rights. She and Dennis were informed about the need for filing an acknowledgment of paternity certificate and were instructed to obtain forms from the Department of Social Services. On September 15, Mrs. Wells met with Walter Miller, a social worker with that department, and they discussed the need for filing the certificate. Miller obtained the forms and gave them to Mrs. Wells on September 17. On September 14, Mrs. Wells and Dennis had met in Moab with Colleen Burnham of Children's Aid Society. Mrs. Wells expressed a desire to raise the child if K.B. decided to relinquish it, but Dennis, who remained mostly silent at this meeting, was equivocal, never indicating positively whether or not he desired to assert his paternal rights.

On September 17, Mrs. Wells learned that K.B. had gone to Ogden to have the baby. The baby was born on September 23, and Mrs. Wells and Dennis learned of the birth that same day. Although Dennis had signed the form on September 18, he did not mail it until September 23, the day before K.B. relinquished custody to Children's Aid. Dennis claimed that he waited to ensure that the baby was his, since if the baby had been born any later he believed that someone else would have been the father.

After a nonjury trial, the court granted custody of the child to Dennis. Although Dennis did not make a timely filing of his acknowledgment of paternity as required by § 78-30-4(3)(b), the court held that this statute could not constitutionally be applied to him because he was "denied a reasonable opportunity to file his acknowledgment of paternity prior to placement of the child by Children's Aid Society." However, judgment for Dennis was stayed pending appeal, and the infant remained with the adoptive parents.

I. THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF THE FATHER

The relationship between parent and child is protected by the federal and state constitutions. In re J.P., Utah, 648 P.2d 1364 (1982). These protections include the father of an illegitimate child. Id. at 1374-75; Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972); Miller v. Miller, 504 F.2d 1067 (9th Cir.1974). Insofar as it suggests otherwise, Thomas v. Children's Aid Society of Ogden, 12 Utah 2d 235, 239, 364 P.2d 1029, 1031-32 (1961), has now been overruled. Also see State in Interest of M, 25 Utah 2d 101, 107, 476 P.2d 1013, 1016-17 (1970) (first recognition of a "statutory parent-child relationship" in unwed father who acknowledges paternity).

Although parental rights have their origin in biological relationships, those relationships do not guarantee the permanency of parental rights. Constitutionally protected parental rights can be lost. They can be surrendered pursuant to statute. U.C.A., 1953, § 78-30-4(1), (2). They can be lost through abandonment of the child by "inaction or a course of conduct for which the parent is personally responsible." In re J. Children, Utah, 664 P.2d 1158, 1159 (1983); § 78-30-5. Parental rights can also be terminated through parental unfitness or substantial neglect. E.g., In re Castillo, Utah, 632 P.2d 855 (1981).

II. THE STATE'S INTEREST

There are special problems in defining parental rights over newborns who are illegitimate. The identity of the father may be unknown. The mother may desire to give the child up for adoption. The state has a strong interest in speedily identifying those persons who will assume the parental role over such children, not just to assure immediate and continued physical care but also to facilitate early and uninterrupted bonding of a child to its parents. The state must therefore have legal means to ascertain within a very short time of birth whether the biological parents (or either of them) are going to assert their constitutional rights and fulfill their corresponding responsibilities, or whether adoptive parents must be substituted.

To serve its purpose for the welfare of the child, a determination that a child can be adopted must be final as well as immediate. Thus, in rejecting a mother's attempt to recover her child about eight months after she had given it up for adoption, this Court declared:

It is and should be the policy of the law to so operate as to encourage the finding of suitable homes and parents for children in that need. It is obvious that persons who might be willing to accept a child for adoption will be more reluctant to do so if a consenting parent is permitted to arbitrarily charge [change] her mind and revoke the consent, and thus desolate the plan of the adoptive parents and bring to naught all of their time, effort, expense and emotional involvement .... A moment's reflection will reveal that to the degree that such commitments are given respect and solidarity, so they can be relied upon, persons desiring children will be willing to accept and give them homes. Conversely, to the degree that such commitments can easily be withdrawn and the adoptive plan thus destroyed, such persons will tend to be discouraged from doing so.

In re Adoption of F---, 26 Utah 2d 255, 262, 488 P.2d 130, 134 (1971). Accord Matter of S, Utah, 572 P.2d 1370 (1977). These considerations obviously set limits to the rights of fathers as well as mothers.

The state's strong interest in immediate and secure adoptions for eligible newborns provides a sufficient justification for significant variations in the parental rights of unwed fathers, who, in contrast to mothers, are not automatically identified by virtue of their role in the process of birth. Relying on leading decisions in the United States Supreme Court, we have said that fathers who have "fulfilled a parental role over a considerable period of time are entitled to a high degree of protection," whereas unwed fathers "whose relationships to their children are merely biological or very attenuated"...