Opinion ID: 1473555
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Adoptions By Unmarried Couples: Legislative History

Text: Before 1895, when Congress enacted its first adoption statute, [14] adoptions were unavailable in the District of Columbia because adoption was not possible at common law. [15] The 1895 Act is interesting in that, as originally proposed, the bill simply authorized a petition for adoption by a person. [16] It was amended on the House floor to permit adoption by a person or a husband and wife, in order to remove any doubt as to whether both could join in the petition. [17] Congress repealed the 1895 Act and adopted the first comprehensive adoption statute for the District in 1937. [18] The new statute contained no provision specifying who was entitled to adopt, although it required the petition to state whether the petitioner is married or single and precluded consideration of a petition unless petitioner's spouse join[ed] in the petition or consent[ed] to the adoption. [19] No longer, therefore, were petitioners expressly limited to a person or a husband and wife. The 1937 Act also provided that a final adoption decree would establish the relation of natural parent and natural child for all purposes, provided that an adopted child could not inherit from the parents or collateral relatives of the child's adoptive parents. [20] The statute, however, added an exception to that limitation: in the event that one of the natural parents was the spouse of petitioner, the adoptee would retain the rights of inheritance and succession from that parent, as well as from related grandparents and collateral relatives. [21] Aside from minor exceptions the adoption statute was not amended until 1954, [22] when Congress repealed the 1937 Act with a comprehensive statutory revision. [23] As to the kinds of requirements at issue in this case, there were four noteworthy changes. First, the 1954 statute reinstituted a provision on persons who may adopt (now D.C.Code § 16-302), but, in contrast with enactment of the 1895 statute, Congress used language that is completely neutral: Any person may petition the court for a decree of adoption (emphasis added). Second, the 1954 statute more directly stated (now in D.C.Code § 16-302) that a natural parent married to the petitioner need only consent to, rather than join in, the adoption. Third, in the provision (now D.C.Code § 16-305) that prescribed the requirements for an adoption petition, Congress added another neutral sentence, not found in the 1895 and 1937 statutes, expressly recognizing petitions filed by more than one petitionera retreat even further than in 1937 from the 1895 terminology, husband and wife. Fourth, the provision governing inheritance rights (now D.C.Code § 16-312) was changed. Under the 1954 Act, the adopted child now inherits from grandparents and collateral relatives as though he or she were a child by birth of the adoptive parents. See D.C.Code § 16-312(a). The 1954 Act also confirms that, upon adoption, all rights of inheritance and succession between the child and the natural parents are cut off, except when one of the natural parents is the spouse of the adopting parent. Id. It is important to add that only in connection with the 1895 Act did any member of Congress speak on the record about the scope of the provision governing who is entitled to adopt. Nowhere in any committee report, from either House of Congress, nor in any speech on the House or Senate floor, was there any discussion in 1937 or in 1954 about who is entitled to adopt; the statutory language is left to speak for itself. [24] With that said, however, it is important to reemphasize that in 1895 the statute referred to a person or a husband and wife joining in an adoption, whereas in 1954 the statute was drafted to refer neutrally, in § 16-302, to a petition by [a]ny person, and, in § 16-305, to a petition by more than one petitioner. These substantial language differences between the 1895 and 1954 approaches (separated in time by much less specific language, either way, in the 1937 statute) are significant; they show that Congress can speak precisely about who, as a couple, can adopt, and that Congress chose not to do so in the present statute. See supra notes 11 and 13. What was once plain language no longer is, and thus the indications are that Congress, by selecting neutral language to describe adoption petitioners in general, has now left roomwittingly [25] or unwittingly [26] for an unmarried couple, as well as for a husband and wife, to join in an adoption. [27] This shift away from the 1895 husband and wife approach is all the more important in light of D.C.Code § 49-202, in effect since 1901, which provides that [w]ords importing the singular number shall be held to include the plural unless unreasonable. As indicated earlier, absent an express limitation in § 16-302 to adoptions by couples who are married, § 49-202 presumptively applies, converting § 16-302 to say that any persons  shall be eligible to adopt except when categorically unreasonable. The legislative history in no way suggests that application of this interpretative presumption here would be unreasonable. In sum, the legislative history of the 1954 Act itself adds very little to our understanding, derived from the language of §§ 16-302, -305, and -312, as to whether an unmarried couple is entitled to adopt. From the perspective of statutory evolution, however, we can see that the legislative history of adoption statutes in this jurisdiction, when coupled with the substantive gloss of § 49-202, points toward inclusive application of the statute to unmarried couples. Because, however, the statutory language and the legislative history (as it pertains to specific provisions of the 1954 Act) are inconclusive, we must consider still other interpretive criteria.