relationship between her adopted daughter however after jim chose not to marry maria and chose not to adopt her daughter maria cut off that relationship and moved on the issue in this case has always been jim standing whether or not parent can bring common law claims of parentage custody and visitation in regard to a child a minor child who is already in the care custody and control of  parent the lower courts have already considered and rejected jim's common law claims regarding to facto parentage and equitable parenthood and psychological parenthood and then local  now jim is trying to claim the same relief would go there under another name equitable adoption so the question here is whether the theory of equitable adoption has the support applied in the inheritance context in the case of the heart can or should also be applied in the context of family law i would like to address why equitable adoption should not be applied to the area family law and in so doing also address how the theory is incompatible with illinois comprehensive legislative scheme and the constitutional rights of parents with regard to this course of the situation i and the theory about what it will and the option we agree with the first district's decision in man seen which held that equitable adoption is a concept in probate to determine inheritance and should have no application in the seized non parent and this court fashioned using an equitable adoption and equitable remedy to prevent an injustice in that case that was caused by the misrepresentations in the state of the deceased non parent the deceased non parent held out the child as a biological child for his entire life over sixty years and also the nine parent  mistakenly thought that he had legally adopted the child after the child found out the truth that he was not the biological son he confronted that the seed and and the one parent admitted that but said that he had legally and not the child when he was two years old and that they made it you know all legal by going through an attorney and even obtaining a birth certificate that the child used for most of his life the heart had nothing to do with parentage custody or visitation the and an adult one parent especially where in this case the minor child has a living parent and in this case we have a living non parent were never married in this case unlike to her we do not have an invalid attempt to adopt in this case unlike the heart there's been no misrepresentation or miss stant mistake either by jim or maria but the lower courts found that maria misrepresentations of fact to jim and that in fact jim was aware at all times that he was neither the biological nor adoptive father of scarlet so in this case unlike the heart we ha considered what the right circumstances would be for the application of equitable adoption and this court consider two types of cases one being where the non parent incorrectly held out the child as being legally mistake this court in the heart found that equitable adoption was in the stop and sometimes it's even call option by a stop however the court found in the heart that the non parent estate was a stop from denying the airship of the adult child due to the deceit its misrepresentations that were made over a lifetime however in the trial  found that jim did not identify a single fact that maria mis represented jim's response was that well it wasn't that maria misrepresented my legal status but rather maria misrepresented to me that i would be a role in scarlet's life as her father but a promise to do something in the future does not constitute a factual misrepresentation just like jim's promise to never found it raining between jim and maria jim's relationship with scarlett was always based upon intention upon his relationship lisa starlet only parent and maria encouragement of a relationship between scarlett and jim was consistent with someone who had received a marriage proposal so jim's complaint is that after he asked maria to marry him maria said that that is no unjust effect and that is no requirement for equity because there's been no fraud or injustice where it is not done just for a mother to not want her daughter to hang out with her ex fiance who broke his  fact is that equitable stoppel did not apply and neither should adoption by a scout what should the point is illinois comprehensive legislative scheme which provides clear and bright line rules as to who can become a parent how one becomes a parent and what a parent's rights are and in addition the comprehensive legislative scheme has built in protections for both children and parents all the while also giving rights to non parents mansingh was correct when it found that the application of equitable adoption in the family law context would undermine the entire family law structure an it may have an impact i believe in cases involving assisted reproduction such as the m j case or jim cited cases he hasn't and last but not in this case which involves a heterosexual couple it's unclear you know how the appellate court found when it was considering equitable parenthood that the comprehensive legislative s comprehensive legislators common law never covered custody and visitation by nine parents where there is a fit parent who has the care custody and control of her child if there was any common wro of law rule it was that the parents are entitled to the care custody and control their children and that includes respect for the parent's determination of the best interests of her child and that's what the superior rights doctrine is all about under the united states supreme court case of troxel parents enjoy a presumption that they act in the best interests of their children and that presumption is incorporated into illinois comprehensive legislative scheme to recognize jim as having equitably adopted scarlett with vialli maria's constitutional rights to raise her child according to her further question her ability to make decisions on behalf of scarlet and this court in the way can be burned case so that parents don't have to be perfect they have latitude they can make wrong decisions they can make decisions that others disagree with even trial judges but that does not require or dinner vention the courts should not be put in a position where they second guess the parents best interest the terminations for their child especially as here where they're not parent those not have statutory standing as would be the case with grandparents or siblings or great grandparents or even step parents such as for health safety and welfare i whenever this court gave examples of what they have met such as required medical care the birth of a child required immunizations required vision and hearing  or prohibition of child labor but none of that applies here so when the health safety and welfare is not of this you then when there is a parent caring for the child then that best interests parents best interest the terminations should prevail especially where the not parent does not have stage three standing because they do otherwise would put the parent and the non parent an equal footing best interests where there is a historial fit parent because again it just puts the trial judge in the position of second guessing and supplementing or supplanting his best interest to terminations for the terminations over rights even though she disagrees and even though there's been no has found and if such a decision was made would be made it would be subject to strict scrutiny however in this reverse the continue to have jurisdiction to hear claims for custody and visitation and child support brought by persons who lack statutory standing but who have functioned as a child's parent for many years with the consent and encouragement of the child's legal parent forming a close parent child bond the intermediate appellate court correctly found that illinois courts do continue to have that jurisdiction and that she may be able to establish standing through the doctrine of equitable the marriage acts standing provisions are not jurisdictional and in leaving versus women which is the court's most explicit pronouncement on this subject this court committed a case to move forward seeking custody based solely on the quote long standing power of courts of equity to result child custody disputes rather than under the most closely applicable statutory scheme but counsel you don't get here without the heart you're not you're not in this position of being equitable adoption right that's correct equitable adoption is one form of exercise so let's talk about the her case that's near and dear to my hurt i know of no pun intended dart says the claimant must why doesn't that statement in and of itself underscore councils argument why don't hurt at least should never be applied to the straight up context of someone trying to impose himself as a parent on a child but instead should be strictly limited to the inheritance kind contest under the gym's theory it would seem that all it would take to impose a father child relationship would be some statement from the father more than that first of all i think the hardest i wisht a two prong test for equitable adoption the first was its intent to adopt from which your mention which the court described as a term of art which could be satisfied a t least three different ways the statement of intent to adopt was one your honor but also an invalid or unconsummated attempt to adopt would be another means or third representation to the child or community at large that the child is inheritance contest the doctrine really was employed to a stop other areas of the city from denying the child his rightful inheritance and working a great injustice if we were to adopt the to heart employ a second front as well which is established one of the parent child bond so not any person who says i have an intention to adopt would be able to satisfy that act equitable adoption test and a heart there would have to be a familial relationship spouse or person who wants to adopt which are not at all your honor because one of the things that truck soul and with them and all of the cases that we've given to the court in the briefing with respect to the way other court other states have resolved these sorts of claims brought by functional parents the t p s case is another example require some sort of threshold showing that the relationship between the adult and the child was formed with the consent and encouragement of the legal parent and so we come is not implicated the m and d case of this court is another example from two thousand and four where this court said that wickham is not implicated at all when a court enforces a legal parent's agreement to allow a non parent to enjoy visitation over that fit legal parents later objection because that parent made in a ritual determination that a bonded relationship between her child and those other adults was in her child's best interests and so enforcing that agreement is actually giving effect to that parent's original determination about what was in her child's best interest but a legal parent would be stripped away of any right not to go through evaluation of whether their shows whether their events is consent in the record for the development of that bond whether there is a vulture or parent child relationship that was established through the participation of that legal parent so that legal parent has an opportunity to participate in the process when she determines that she's going to bring another adult into the child's life and form a two parent family that is co parent it and that's that's how of severe emotional harm we've got the testimony of the expert psychologist who says that she is in danger never being able to form a long term attachment in adulthood if her relationship to the only father she's ever known is severed and that she's particularly vulnerable because of experience in an orphanage we know from the guardian ad litum that she was at risk of severe emotional harm if her relationship to her father was severed and we know from the visitation facility the silicate or who observed more than fifty visits that she loves her father very much she calls him dad and she asked for those visits to go on longer so we have a lot of evidence showing that there's a very strong bond here and that there would be harm to this child if that bond is severed that's an independent and separate reason why there is no intrusion into early is fundamental right parental autonomy is there any case the you can say disappeared from the hurt that would allow  which raise absolutely your honor i mean there are a number of pieces like lehman of course and and parentage of m j that make clear that statutes are not the exclusive source of jurisdiction for claims that seek to  sure that a child is able to continue a relationship with someone that she has always understood as her parent i mean this is a case where two adults long before they ever got engaged to be married according to the undisputed testimony below started talking together about having a child together so it is inaccurate to suggest that there was any sort of contingent agreement on her his part that this parent child relationship would be for would be formed only contingent upon marriage instead these two adults fell in love and they decided to discuss having a child together and at some point they discovered that maria was not capable of having a biological child when maria was travelling in slovakia they discovered a cd who was living in an orphanage and then jim paid for that adoption undisputed fact all findings below are that he paid for it all he participated in the process he visited slovakia while that process was pending and even before that process was over there are videos in the record that demonstrate that maria was teaching this little girl to say hi daddy i love you in english teaching him teaching the little girl to call him daddy this is indisputably a two parent family from the very beginning and while the record doesn't make clear why this family deteriorated and why the relationship between jim and maria fell apart the record does tell us and it's undisputed that this little girl grew to love her father and to understand that she had her she had a father and that she is at risk of severe emotional injury for the rest of her like if her relationship with her father is torn apart could adopt her he he could have your honor but only with and the testimony below is that he did bring it up and excuse me he did bring it up and that maria expressed the desire to work with us the vacuum attorney and it never happened the two were very focused on  this girl's integration into life in the united states she had some pretty severe academic difficulties at first and she still is experiencing some challenges in that regard she had some very strong difficulties sleeping the testimony is that they were really focused on got to this country if we if we adapt your you we need to be concerned about do you not at all your honor because circuit courts are well equipped to figure out when there is when there are these three necessary elements the consent and encouragement of a legal parent to the formation of a parent child relationship of significant duration i mean those are really the things that courts have looked at in the past there have been a number of intermediate course appellate decisions here in illinois that have permitted claims for custody and visitation to go forward on principles of equity but there are a great number of cases in other states across courts as well including recent ones from twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen i think i could kansas and oklahoma but some of the most leading cases with respect to equitable parent doctrines are the c case from new jersey is also a chest speech k from wisconsin rubano is another case where where a lot of these issues have been examined but another way that this court can look at it which could give this court some comfort that it won't be under litigation is to frame it as justice mclaren did in his dissent and concurrence below which is to look at it as application of equitable stoppel and of course the equitable adoption doctrine is a form of most of the custody disputes that come up here involve unwilling opponents of some sort i mean the m m t case for example from two thousand and four was a case in which there was a parent disputing with non parents and the parent had originally agreed to a visitation agreement and then the question was whether the court could enforce that in light of welcoming troxel and the fit parent objected what a court has to determine once the court makes a threshold determination at the trial court level that a legal parent agreed to create a parent child relationship and that parent child relationship does in fact exist is then what's in the best interest of the child in terms of allocation of custody stoppel the lower courts error was to suggest that there was a requirement for some sort of factual or fraudulent misrepresentation in order for to stop a claim to move forward that has never been the case in illinois law the ge from seeking fees because he had made a promise that he would not seek peace in the future and the court found that he could not even though there was no evidence of fraud it was no evidence of bad faith on his part on the court found that he could not go back on his word with respect to his representations because that would harm another party and we reasoned it would result in unfairness so this case could be seen as an exercise i mean one of the things that we think was with respect to the equitable parent claim i also just want to refer to the court quickly to the l i principles that we cited in the reply brief the a on line principles refer to equitable equitable parent doctrine as parenthood biased awful and the principals use those same three elements consent by the lead legal party and then a bonded relationship and the adults mutually intention from the start to create a two parent family and their conduct in consistently holding out the child  their own with respect to that the child support the oral agreement on claim promissory estoppel and so on these actually depend on gym status as a parent the courts should not have dismissed them  agreement to adopt a child with a legal parent has conferred the full benefits of fatherhood upon the person who agrees to function as the child's father and relinquish some of her control of the child we think it obvious that mutual consideration exists and out of state cases to look at for court just a few points in this case the lower courts never found any agreement to co parent scarlet the only agreement in as counsel said maria met scarlett is lucky while visiting family she then stayed in slovakia for the entire year that the adoption proceedings were pending she lived with scarlet jim during that year he visited them five times once at the beginning once at the end and three times in between but it was during that year better part of a bond was established between maria  in terms of the heart the heart did not establish the parent child relationship the heart gave an equitable remedy to an adult child to achieve property rights even in the case which did not find the application of equitable adoption in that case even though the children and or the child in that case referred to the fords as mom and dad for most of his life simple close relationship is not sufficient it also has to be an enduring relationship and the record shows in this case that after that your line option process when maria brought scarlett back to the united states they certainly had a honeymoon period you know they went on vacations different places but even according to jim by two thousand and five he was already questioning whether he should marry maria and why two thousand and six according to jim they were not having sexual relations much by two thousand and seven not at all so this narrative th jim tries to portray in terms of this cohesive family unit for many years is simply not what the record shows case which talked about common law marriage and the property rights of people who cohabitate but there this court needs to step back and look beyond the encourage informal cohabitation agreements and informal adoptions without the statutory protections and the courts will have to deal with that all the while it will weaken the institution of marriage and the foundation upon which our family base society so whether change is needed in this area of parent like relationships involves evaluations of sociological data and alternatives that is best suited for the legislature to address they are the ones who have the sapir ear investigative  finding facilities is the legislature's job to declare the public policy in the area family law and springfield has not been stagnant or legislature knows the issues they've been active so just as common law marriages are invalid so should be informal adoptions and i'm not you know i'm not saying that there is no sympathy to be extended toward him he obviously loves starland and obviously had a relationship i went over once he chose not to marry maria not to have got scarlet so all of this talk about you know severe sites of psychological harm that's jim's words no psychologist mention those words the guardian ad litum did not mention those words what scarlett has gone through is what every child of a divorce or broken relationship goes through course but the issues in this case involve complex public policy