Case Title: Ex Parte SCW

Citation: 826 So. 2d 844

Docket Number: 1001107

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2001-10-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
826 So. 2d 844 (2001)
Ex parte S.C.W., P.D., and S.D.H.
(In re S.C.W. v. C.B. P.D. v. R.L. S.C.W. and S.D.H. v. C.B.)
1001107.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 12, 2001.
Rehearing Denied December 28, 2001.
*846 Pate DeBardeleben, Montgomery, for petitioners.
Floyd Minor of Minor & Olszewski, L.L.C., Montgomery; and B. Andrew Whitmire, Jr., Birmingham, for respondents R.E.L. and C.A.L.
PER CURIAM.
S.C.W. ("the biological father") appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals from a judgment granting the petition for adoption filed in this case by R.E.L. and C.A.L. ("the adoptive parents"). The juvenile court held that the biological father's failure to comply with the Putative Father Registry Act, §§ 26-10C-1 and -2, Ala. Code 1975 ("the Registry Act"), constituted his implied consent to the adoption of his biological child. P.D. and S.D.H., the biological father's attorneys, appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals from a judgment sanctioning them pursuant to the Alabama Litigation Accountability Act, §§ 12-19-270 et seq., Ala.Code 1975 ("the ALAA"). The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the judgments. S.C.W. v. C.B., 826 So. 2d 825 (Ala.Civ.App.2001). We granted certiorari review; we reverse and remand.
For a detailed account of the facts in this case, see the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion, 826 So. 2d  at 827-32. We summarize only the pertinent facts.
The biological parents are unmarried teenagers. In October 1998, C.B. ("the biological mother"), gave birth to a child. Testing confirmed the paternity of the biological father. The biological mother had decided to place the child for adoption, against the wishes of the biological father and his family. Upon the birth of the child, the adoptive parents, who were selected by the biological mother, took custody of the child; they have had custody of the child since that time.
The biological father and the adoptive parents filed petitions in different counties relating to the child. The adoptive parents filed in the Autauga County Probate Court a petition for adoption and obtained an interlocutory order giving them custody of the child. The biological father filed in the Elmore County Probate Court, among other petitions and motions, a petition for a declaration of legitimation, a petition to change the child's name, and a petition for a paternity adjudication and for custody. These proceedings were eventually consolidated into one proceeding in the Elmore Juvenile Court.
The biological father did not file with the Department of Human Resources, within the time required by the Registry Act (i.e., within 30 days of the birth of the child), a notice of intent to claim paternity pursuant *847 to the Registry Act. In January 1999, a news reporter told the biological father about the Registry Act. He filed the notice required by the Registry Act on January 16, 1999.
In August 1999, the biological mother and the adoptive parents moved to dismiss the biological father's legitimation and paternity actions, and moved for a summary judgment in the adoption action, arguing that the biological father had consented to the child's adoption by failing to timely file the required notice pursuant to the Registry Act. On September 1, the juvenile court entered a summary judgment in favor of the adoptive parents based on the biological father's failure to comply with the Registry Act. On September 14, the biological father moved for a declaratory judgment, questioning the constitutionality of the Registry Act. The juvenile court denied his motion two days later.
The biological father appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals from the summary judgment, but on January 4, 2000, that court remanded the case with instructions for the juvenile court to conduct a final dispositional hearing on the adoption petition. The juvenile court held the hearing and then entered a final judgment of adoption, granting the adoptive parents' petition to adopt the child.
The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the judgment of adoption, holding that the biological father's failure to comply with the Registry Act was dispositive and rejecting his arguments that the Registry Act is unconstitutional as applied to him and that he had substantially complied with the Registry Act by filing petitions for legitimation and paternity.[1] Judge Crawley dissented. In his dissent, Judge Crawley stated that he believed the Registry Act and the Alabama Adoption Code, § 26-10A-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975 ("the Adoption Code"), were in conflict, and he explained how the two statutes could be harmonized to give effect to each. He concluded that the juvenile court had erred in entering the judgment of adoption. He also concluded that if the Court of Civil Appeals had reversed the judgment, the judgment imposing sanctions against the biological father's attorneys should also be reversed.
After considering the voluminous record in this case, the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion, Judge Crawley's dissent, cases from courts in several of our sister states that have considered the problem presented here, and the adoption codes and putative-father registry statutes of many of our sister states, we agree with the views expressed by Judge Crawley in his well-researched dissent. We quote Judge Crawley's dissent below:
"§ 26-10C-1(i), Ala.Code 1975.
We agree, and we adopt Judge Crawley's dissent. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals and remand the cause for that court to, in turn, remand the cause to the trial court with instructions to vacate the judgment of adoption, to hold a contested hearing pursuant to § 26-10A-24, and to conduct any further necessary proceedings that are consistent with this opinion. In light of this conclusion, those further proceedings should include a reevaluation of the sanctions entered against the biological father's attorneys.
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
MOORE, C.J., and LYONS, SEE, and JOHNSTONE, JJ., concur.
HARWOOD, J., concurs specially.
HOUSTON, BROWN, WOODALL, and STUART, JJ., dissent.
HARWOOD, Justice (concurring specially).
I concur specially, because of my following considerations and concerns:
I agree that the conflicting portions of the Putative Father Registry Act and the Alabama Adoption Code can be harmonized by regarding registration with the Putative Father Registry as but one of the ways by which a putative father can entitle himself to receive notice of, and the right to contest, the proposed adoption of a child born out of wedlock, but only to the extent that the putative father has, as in this case, been made known to the court within 30 days of the birth of the child. That particular time limitation is mandated by § 26-10C-1(i) of the Putative Father Registry Act, which states unambiguously and emphatically that "[a]ny person who claims to be the natural father of a child and fails to file his notice of intent to claim paternity pursuant to subsection (a) [which establishes a putative-father registry for the recording of, among other things, the name and other personal data of any person filing a notice of intent to claim paternity of a child] prior to or within 30 days of the birth of a child born out of wedlock, shall be deemed to have given an irrevocable implied consent in any adoption proceeding."
As Judge Crawley notes in his dissent, now adopted by this Court, "[O]n November 12, [1998,] when the child was 15 days old, the putative father was `made known' to the court...."
Section 26-10A-17(a)(10) of the Alabama Adoption Code, as it read at the commencement of the proceedings involved in this case, provided that "[u]nless service has been previously waived, notice of pendency of the adoption proceeding shall be served by the petitioner on: ... The father and putative father of the adoptee if made known by the mother or otherwise known by the court." (Emphasis added.) That subsection was amended effective June 11, 1999, to add the following at its end, "unless the court finds that the father *853 has given implied consent to the adoption, as defined in Section 26-10A-9." 826 So. 2d  at 854.
Section 26-10A-7(a)(5) of the Adoption Code provides that "[c]onsent to the petitioner's adoption ... shall be required of the following: ... [t]he putative father if made known by the mother or is otherwise made known to the court provided he responds within 30 days to the notice he receives under § 26-10-17(a)(10)."
I agree with Judge Crawley, and with the main opinion, that "The Putative Father Registry Act can be harmonized with the Alabama Adoption Code by holding that filing with the registry is just one of several ways in which a putative father can bring about judicial awareness of his paternity claim." 826 So. 2d  at 851. However, to hold that such judicial awareness can be fully effectual if occurring more than 30 days after the birth of the child in question would do extreme violence to the clear mandate of § 26-10C-1(i) of the codified version of the Putative Father Registry Act that notice of intent to claim paternity by means of a filing with the putative-father registry must be accomplished "prior to or within 30 days of the birth of the child," or else there "shall be deemed to have been given an irrevocable implied consent in any adoption proceedings." Such a holding would go well beyond permissible harmonizing and reconciling of two statutes, and would constitute a complete repeal of that portion of the Putative Father Registry Act.
If making known to the court the identity of the putative father may be accomplished at some point in time more than 30 days after the birth of the child, with the result that the putative father's consent to the adoption must be required if he responds within 30 days of his receipt of notice of the adoption proceeding, then the above-quoted § 26-10C-1(i) of the Putative Father Registry Act is relegated to the status of a "dead letter," and its clear legislative declarationthat a putative father who has failed to file "prior to or within 30 days of the birth of the child born out of wedlock, shall be deemed to have given an irrevocable implied consent in any adoption proceeding"completely nullified. There is no such thing as an "irrevocable" implied consent that can become subsequently revocable, long after the passage of 30 days from the birth of the child, simply by a response by the putative father within 30 days after notice to him of the pendency of an adoption proceeding. Given the facts of this case, the "harmonization" and "reconciliation" between the Alabama Adoption Code and the Putative Father Registry Act need go no further than to judicially construe and expand § 26-10C-1(i) of the Putative Father Registry Act to mean "[a]ny person who claims to be the natural father of a child and fails to file his notice of intent to claim paternity [with the putative father registry]; or who is not otherwise made known to the court in which an adoption proceeding is pending, prior to or within 30 days of the birth of a child born out of wedlock, shall be deemed to have given an irrevocable implied consent in any adoption proceeding."
The wisdom of the "30 days of the birth" time limit imposed by the Legislature is not for us to second-guess, absent constitutional impediments. We do not reach the constitutional issues the putative father raises in this case because of the disposition ordered by the main opinion, and similarly, but more restrictively, called for in this special concurrence.
HOUSTON, Justice (dissenting).
I concur with the per curiam majority opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals. Therefore, I dissent.
BROWN and WOODALL, JJ., concur.
*854 STUART, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I believe the majority opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals is correct. The Putative Father Registry Act, § 26-10C-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, is clear and unambiguous. It does not conflict with the Alabama Adoption Code, § 26-7-1 et seq. These statutory provisions can easily be read in harmony. Unless two statutes are in irreconcilable conflict, it is the court's duty to regard each as effective and to construe them in such a way as to harmonize any seeming conflict and give each statute a reasonable field of operation. See, e.g., Benson v. City of Birmingham, 659 So. 2d 82 (Ala.1995).
Hayden v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Alabama, 843 F. Supp. 1427, 1437 (M.D.Ala.1994). This Court has the duty to construe provisions that appear within a statutory scheme in harmony with each other. J.N.H. v. N.T.H., 705 So. 2d 448 (Ala.Civ.App.1997). An adoption statute "should be interpreted to give consistent, harmonious and sensible effect to all its parts." N. Singer, 3A Sutherland Statutes and Statutory Construction, § 68.04 at 104 (5th ed.1992)(footnote omitted).
The Putative Father Registry Act and the notice of provisions of the Alabama Adoption Code, § 26-10A-17, can easily be read together harmoniously. Section 26-10A-17(a) lists those persons or agencies upon whom notice of a petition for adoption must be served:
Section 26-10C-1(f) of the Putative Father Registry Act provides an additional method by which a father of a child born out of wedlock may secure his right to notice of a pending adoption proceeding.
The Alabama Adoption Code was adopted in 1990. The Alabama Putative Father Registry Act was adopted in 1996 and became effective on January 1, 1997. The Putative Father Registry Act specifically references § 26-10A-17 of the Adoption Code. See § 26-10C-1(f). The two acts are codified as Chapter 10A and Chapter 10C of Title 26 of the Alabama Code. The Alabama Putative Father Registry Act, adopted as Act No. 96-537, contains no repealer section. It was clearly intended to supplement, not repeal, the provisions of the Adoption Code. Section 26-10A-7 identifies those persons whose consents or relinquishment are required:
The consents or relinquishments required may be implied (see § 26-10A-9) or express (see § 26-10A-11). Section 26-10C-1(i) sets forth one circumstance under which consent will be implied, and it makes that implied consent irrevocable. Section 26-10C-1(i) provides:
This section sets forth a period within which the father of a child born out of wedlock must act. This is clearly within the authority of the Legislature, just as it is within its authority to establish statutes of limitation to bar a cause of action.
Judge Crawley's dissent, quoted and adopted by the majority as its opinion, states:
It is not the prerogative of the courts to make law or to declare one means of asserting parental rights superior to another, especially where the Legislature has spoken, and spoken to the contrary. The Legislature has recognized a paternity action completed to adjudication (see § 26-10C-1(a)(1), (a)(3) and (b)) or the filing of an instrument acknowledging paternity pursuant § 26-11-1 to 26-11-3, inclusive (statutes providing for the Legitimation of Children) (see § 26-10C-1(a)(4)), as initial steps toward claiming parental rights, but it is the filing with the registry of the adjudication of paternity or the legitimation declaration that makes a paternity action complete or the filing of an instrument acknowledging paternity effectual. Filing a paternity action in a juvenile court or filing a declaration of legitimation in a probate court is clearly not, alone, in the eyes of the Legislature, the equivalent of, or superior to, filing a notice of intent to claim paternity with the Putative Father Registry.
The majority has directed the Court of Civil Appeals to reverse its judgment in this case and to remand the case to the trial court for a contested hearing. The trial court will be required to determine if S.C.W. has given, in this case, implied consent to the adoption by his actions or his failure to act as required by § 26-10A-24. It was clearly the intent of the Legislature in enacting the Putative Father Registry Act to obviate the need for such a hearing and to make the failure to file a claim of paternity by a method prescribed *857 in the act an irrevocable implied consent to the adoption of a minor child.
Because the provisions of the Alabama Adoption Code and the Putative Father Registry Act can be read together harmoniously and in a manner so as to give each statute its own field of operation, the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals affirming the trial court's summary judgment and final order of adoption should be affirmed. Therefore, I dissent.
[1]  The Court of Civil Appeals also concluded that the biological father had not properly challenged the constitutionality of the Registry Act. We disagree. We have reviewed the record and the briefs filed by the biological father, and, although he may not have expressed his constitutional argument in the most artful of terms, we believe that the father's constitutional challenge to the Registry Act was sufficiently raised before the juvenile court and the Court of Civil Appeals to allow us to consider it.