Opinion ID: 1149593
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Resolution of Present Case

Text: Pursuant to the order of this Court, the juvenile court conducted a best interest hearing and made findings of fact and conclusions of law. The court found that R.S. and V.L. are the biological parents of B.G.S. and that each is fit to be the child's parent; that B.G.S., who was three months old, had not developed a psychological bond with either prospective adoptive parent; and that it is in the best interests of the child for her father, V.L., to have custody. The juvenile court recognized in its written reasons that V.L. had legitimated the child by marrying her mother, but the court concluded that it could not find that it was in the best interests of the child for her mother to share custody because R.S. had surrendered the child for adoption and had failed to timely revoke her consent. The prospective adoptive parents argue, by the same token, that she did not acquire the rights or the responsibilities that normally flow to a person who legitimates her child by marriage because she had terminated all such rights by surrendering the child for adoption. We disagree with this argument and, in this respect, with the juvenile court's judgment. In all other respects, however, the evidence supports the juvenile court's conclusions. We conclude that V.L. was deprived of his protected parental interest in and right to his child in violation of the federal and state due process guarantees. When V.L. demonstrated by virtue of his biological link, fitness and parental commitment that he had a constitutionally protected interest in his relationship with B.G.S. of which he had been deprived without due process, he was entitled to have the surrender declared invalid and the adoption proceedings dismissed. Consequently, the surrender could not have its normal effects of transferring custody and terminating parental rights pursuant to an adoption proceeding. Although the surrender might have allowed the court to consider withholding custody from the surrendering mother if she had been unfit or if the father had been unwilling to share custody with her, happily neither is the case here. Therefore, in this case the surrender and the adoption proceedings shall be vacated and shall have no effect on the parental rights of R.S. or V.L. whatsoever. That being the case, there was, of course, no impediment to the legitimation of B.G.S. by the marriage of her parents and their acknowledgment of her as their child. La.C.C. art. 198.