Source: https://familylaw.typepad.com/virginiafamilylawappeals/paternity/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 05:49:04+00:00

Document:
6 months without contact waives adoption consent rights; child's best interests irrelevant; consent statute applies to all kinds of adoption.
In a stepparent adoption case where the other natural parent has not contacted the child for six months without just cause, that parent's consent is not needed, and so, nor is a determination of whether consent is withheld contrary to the child's best interest, the Virginia Court of Appeals says in Graves v. Jones (unpublished, 5/9/17). It was wrong for the trial judge to ask whether an ongoing relationship with the father would be detrimental to the child, it adds.
Code § 63.2-1205 dispenses with consent after six months of unjustified lack of contact. The trial court had held that that this section, which is near the beginning of the Code's adoption chapter, did not apply in a stepparent adoption, which is authorized and governed by Code § 63.2-1241. It does apply, covering adoption generally, the Court of Appeals says.
For another reason, as well, the social services department did not have to investigate the factors that Code § 63.2-1205 lists for determining the "best interests of the child" and whether the father's withholding of consent was contrary to best interests, the Court said. Because the order referring the case to the DSS for an investigation did not specify that they should do so.
Custody bid not focused on kids' needs loses, even by mom against non-bio dad.
Virginia's Court of Appeals in Smith v. Smith (unpublished, 10/27/2015) upheld a decision refusing to transfer primary custody to the mother, from a father who turned out not to be the biological father of two of the three children in a paternity test the mother requested. The children had been in the father's custody for several years, he was on their birth certificates and was the only father they had ever known, and those facts were enough to rebut the presumption in favor of natural parents.
The mother's evidence was not about how the children's "needs were not being met and how she could meet them," it was about her disapproval of the father's girlfriend, which led her to file for custody modification. So she failed to prove that a change was in the children's best interests. A guardian ad litem reported that the children were stable with no changes in their circumstances.
Virginia's Supreme Court upheld the denial of a father's petition to change his out-of-wedlock's child's last name to his own. The child had the mother's maiden name and the mother had married, so that the child's last name was not shared with either parent. The father claimed that this made the standard from Spero v. Heath, 267 Va. 477 (2004) not applicable. However, the Court found that the father complained only of minor inconveniences to himself, not actual detriment to the child, from the child's existing name, and "the controlling standard remains the same - - that the petitioning party must prove by satisfactory evidence that the change is in the child's best interests." McMahon v. Wirick (9/12/14).
SEPARATION AGREEMENTS – PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATION. - Va.Ct.App.
Could a circuit court terminate a mother’s parental rights by incorporating a separation agreement in which she had agreed to that? Of course not. The Court of Appeals, which is perhaps more analytical than you or me, explains it two ways, really, and then ties them up together neatly. First, the trial court had no jurisdiction to do that. When parental rights are terminated, it happens only one way, which is under the applicable statute, §16.1-283, and its procedural and substantive requirements have to be met. None of that was done, so that jurisdiction was not present. Also, an agreement to that is void as against public policy, and unenforceable, so the agreement couldn’t provide a jurisdictional foundation for anything. The mother had sued for visitation, but get this: because her parental rights had been terminated, she didn’t have any legitimate interest in visitation, and thus had no standing, according to the trial court. But the circuit court couldn’t rely on the unlawful termination to make that no-legitimate-interest finding. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded with directions in this case, Layne v. Layne, 61 Va. App. 32, 733 SE2d 139 (10/23/12), inter alia, to reinstate her visitation claim.
Unmarried "illegitimate" fathers' rights protected - Va.S.Ct.
LEGITIMACY & PATERNITY – FATHERS’ RIGHTS – RULING ON ILLEGITIMATE FATHER’S RIGHT TO ESTABLISH PATERNITY AND PARENTHOOD UPHELD. The Court of Appeals holding in Breit v. Mason, 59 Va. App. 322, 718 S.E.2d 482 (2011), was affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court in an opinion by Justice Mims on January 10 as L.F. v. Breit, 285 Va. 163, 736 S.E.2d 711 (2013). The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that the Assisted Conception Statute must not be read to exclude from legal fatherhood an illegitimate father simply because he and the mother did not marry. Though the statute intends to prohibit “sperm donors” from suing to establish parental rights, it cannot properly or constitutionally be interpreted to exclude those who undertake with a willing lady friend a joint project to become unmarried parents in the same household. Moreover, that statute cannot be applied to exclude a father in a case like this, who enters into a binding voluntary contract as to custody and care of the planned child.
Uncle's girlfriend's parents aren't "relatives" in child placement - Va. Ct. App.
PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATION – RELATIVES PLACEMENT ACTION — DEFINITION OF RELATIVE. It’s true that the Virginia statutes require that in termination cases once a child is adjudicated “dependent” the court must consider granting custody to the child’s relatives rather than foster care or adoption. However, the definition of “relative” for these purposes does not include the mother’s brother’s girl friend’s parents. And yes, §16.1-283(A) does require consideration of all “reasonable adoptions for placement with immediate relatives” as a requirement of termination, but remote connections are not relatives of the child “as a matter of law.” The statutes used words that have an established common law meaning, and a court can presume that the Legislature intended that established meaning unless the statute clearly suggests otherwise. Under common law a “relative” means somebody related by blood or marriage. It has not been expanded statutorily to add adoptive relationships, but what was proposed here was honoring an even more tenuous connection. Bagley v. City of Richmond DSS, ___ Va. App. ___, ___S.E.2d ___, 38 FLR 1178 (1/31/12).
Unwed father in In Vitro Fertilization isn't mere "sperm donor" - Va. Ct. App.
PARENTS’ RIGHTS – RIGHTS OF FATHER WHEN IN VITRO FERTILIZATION OCCURS DURING AN UNMARRIED COHABITATION RELATIONSHIP – RIGHT TO KNOW PARENTAGE – SPERM-DONOR STATUTE. An inexcusable attempt to apply the commercial sperm-donor statute to a very, very different sort of illegitimate-birth case was the subject of Breit v. Mason & L.F., 59 Va. App. 322, 718 S.E.2d 482 (12/28/11). Long story short the trial court went along with it, relying on unambiguous wording of an inapplicable statute, but the Court of Appeals did not.
On July 13th little L.F. was born, and they both signed the acknowledgment of paternity, giving L.F. a hyphenated surname and naming them both as her parents on the birth certificate. They mailed birth announcements to friends and family naming themselves as L.F.’s parents, and continued to cohabit for months afterward. It was only in August of the next year when the little girl was just over a year old that the mother unilaterally ended all contact between father and daughter. When the father filed in JDR court a custody petition under two sperm-donor statutes §20-158(A)(3) and 32.-§257(D), notwithstanding all the above, mother argued that §20-158(A)(3) says that a donor is not a parent unless he is the husband of the mother and under §32.1-257(D) “donors of sperm or ova shall not have any parental rights....” The JDR Court dismissed “without prejudice,” and father appealed it to circuit court and filed a “Petition to Determine Parentage and Establish Custody and Visitation.” He argued that the paternity acknowledgment document executed the day after the child was born created a final and binding parent-child relationship with him. The circuit court consolidated the appeal and the petition, appointed the mother’s attorney as the guardian ad litem, and dismissed it all on a plea in bar. The judge admitted that there is “a strong argument” for construing the statutes the way the father wanted, but he felt it would make both statutes meaningless. He also denied the father’s motion for genetic testing, dismissing without prejudice the father’s Petition to Determine Parentage and to award him custody and visitation as a person with a legitimate interest.
To the Court of Appeals, using the sperm donor statute against a natural father who the mother had acknowledged as such under oath was absurd. Because this presented a question of law involving the trial court’s interpretation and application of the statutes, the Court of Appeals was able to review its judgment de novo. It began by pointing out that §20-49.1 says that upon a sworn petition a child, a person claiming parentage, or even a person standing in loco parentis or a person having legal custody, can sue to determine parentage, and that when he or she does that determination will be governed by §§20-49.1 through .10. Section 20-49.1(B)(2) provides that a parent-child relationship between a child and a man can be established by a voluntary written statement by the father and mother made under oath acknowledging his paternity, and it can’t be rescinded after 60 days and shall have the same legal effect as a judgment unless fraud, duress or material mistake of fact are later found. The “Children of Assisted Conception” statute, §20-156 through -165, does provide that in determining the parentage of a child conceived through assisted conception the donor is not the parent unless married to the mother (§20-158(A)(3)), which mother argued was conclusive here. She said that made the statutorily executed Acknowledgment of Paternity void ab initio as violating the General Assembly’s express intent to divest sperm donors of parental rights. Father argued that all the statutes must be construed together to effectuate the real legislative intent, which is to assist infertile couples to use surrogate donors and keep anonymous sperm donors anonymous, and that the Legislature had no intention to divest fathers like him of parental rights, relationships or the right to establish parentage. The Legislature never intended to nullify parentage by a father like himself. The Court of Appeals is not supposed to presume that the General Assembly intended to enact a “manifest absurdity,” and it should interpret statutes to avoid inconsistent results. Section 20-158(A)(3) must be read in conjunction with §20-49.1(B)(2). Both the statutes, the Court of Appeals says, had as their primary purpose insuring legal parentage of a child by a known mother and known father, and neither statute intended to permanently bar a parentage action by a donor such as Mr. Breit. That, it said, would be a manifest absurdity. The intent of the Legislature to ensure that all children born in Virginia have a known legal mother and legal father was obvious to the Court of Appeals. These statutes were primarily also concerned with ensuring that infertile marital couples would not be threatened with parentage claims from anonymous sperm and egg donors, and it intended that a chosen, unmarried donor, known by the unmarried natural mother, and intended to be the father of the resulting child, should never be placed in a position of being permanently barred from assuming parental rights and responsibilities simply because of his unmarried state at the time of conception.
Martin v. Howard: PATERNITY AND CHILD SUPPORT LIABILITY – BEYOND THE GRAVE – EXHUMATION FOR DNA TESTING – ILLEGITIMATE CHILD’S RIGHT TO PROVE DESCENT FOR CLAIM AGAINST ESTATE.
The Supreme Court admits that a 1997 statute, §32.1-286(C), was passed for the express purpose of reversing its holding in Garrett v. Majied, 252 Va. 46 (1996), that courts had no jurisdiction to order bodies dug up so an illegitimate child could prove paternity. Since the statute is there, it mandates exhumation when the illegitimate child or mother of same demands it. The trial court thought that it had discretion to deny such orders, but there is no such discretion in the statute. The petitioner is a “party attempting to prove” parentage for §64.1-5.1 and 5.2 inheritance purposes, that is all there is to it. Thus a woman who sued for exhumation of her supposed father’s body so as to seek a share of his estate had an absolute right to get that result. 21 VLW 1449 (4/20/07).

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