Case ID: so2d_567/html/0303-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. MADDOX, Justice", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ex parte David and Marthella FESSLER. (Re David and Marthella FESSLER v. STATE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES).
    89-40.
    Supreme Court of Alabama.
    Aug. 17, 1990.
    J. Wilson Mitchell of Colebeck, Yates & Mitchell, Florence, for petitioner.
    William Prendergast and Coleman Campbell, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Lynn S. Merrill, Spec. Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
   PER CURIAM.

WRIT QUASHED AS IMPROVIDENTLY GRANTED.

HORNSBY, C.J., and JONES, ALMON, ADAMS, HOUSTON, STEAGALL and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.

MADDOX, J., concurs specially.

MADDOX, Justice

(concurring specially).

I concur in the judgment to quash the writ in this case as having been improvidently granted, but I must point out again that I do not believe that “the trial court ... must determine the child’s dependency, Fessler v. State Dept. of Human Resources, 567 So.2d 301, 301 (Ala.Civ.App.1989) (emphasis added), before parental rights can be terminated. As I stated in Ex parte Beasley, 564 So.2d 950 (Ala.1990) (Maddox, J., concurring in the result), there is no requirement, in my opinion, that a petitioning party show that the child is “dependent.” In Ex parte Beasley, I set forth, in some detail, my reasons for believing that our Child Protection Act makes no such requirement. I agree, however, that in this case the judgment of the trial court, which was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, correctly determined the case on the merits.