Opinion ID: 4550285
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Quilloin v. Walcott

Text: ¶167 The putative father in Quilloin had “never married . . . or established a home” with the mother of his child. 434 U.S. at 247. Soon after the child’s birth, the mother married another man and consented to adoption of the child by her husband. Id. Mr. Quilloin “attempted to block the adoption and to secure visitation rights, but he did not seek custody or object to the child’s continuing to live with [the mother and her husband].” Id. The Georgia court terminated his rights upon a finding that adoption of the child by the mother’s husband “was in the ‘best interests of [the] child.’” Id. at 251 (alteration in original). There was no determination of the putative father’s unfitness. Id. at 252. And the putative father asserted that his substantive due process rights were infringed because the state lacked sufficient justification for terminating his parental rights. Id. ¶168 The Quilloin court ruled against Mr. Quilloin. It did so on the basis of some core differences between the substantive interest established by Mr. Quilloin and that presented by the putative father in a prior parental rights case—Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645. The father in Stanley had lived with his children and their mother for many years. Id. at 646. And he had thereby established a commitment and connection by which his parental rights were deemed to be perfected. Id. at 652. With this in mind, the Stanley court struck down an Illinois statute as an infringement of the 76 Cite as: 2020 UT 51 Lee, A.C.J., dissenting father’s substantive due process rights. Id. at 659. The Illinois statute established a conclusive presumption that unwed fathers were unfit as parents as a matter of law. Id. at 649. And the Stanley court held that the statute infringed Mr. Stanley’s fundamental parental rights because the state did not have a sufficiently compelling interest to terminate the rights of unwed fathers by operation of a legal presumption. Id. at 652–53. ¶169 The Quilloin case was different. This was “not a case in which the unwed father at any time had, or sought, actual or legal custody of his child.” 434 US at 255. And that fact was sufficient to substantially alter the balance at issue in the case—whether the state had a sufficient reason to justify terminating Mr. Quilloin’s parental rights without proof of unfitness. ¶170 The Court expressed “little doubt” that it would violate a right of substantive due process for the state “to force the breakup of a natural family, over the objections of the parents and their children, without some showing of unfitness and for the sole reason that to do so was thought to be in the children’s best interest.” Id. But the Court found that Mr. Quilloin’s substantive interests were outweighed by the state’s in these circumstances. It thus upheld the substantive authority of the state to terminate Mr. Quilloin’s parental rights as a matter of law—explaining that it could not “say that the State was required in this situation to find anything more than that the adoption, and denial of legitimation, were in the ‘best interests of the child.’” Id. ¶171 Georgia law, as the Court noted, afforded to putative fathers a procedural mechanism for perfecting their parental rights. That mechanism was the filing of a “legitimation petition.” Id. at 253. Such a petition would have given Mr. Quilloin the same right to veto an adoption petition that a mother (or married father) had. See id. at 249. If Mr. Quilloin had filed such a petition, he could have objected to the adoption of his child, precluding the termination of his parental rights except upon a finding of unfitness. Id. Yet he failed to do so. The Georgia court concluded that Mr. Quilloin lacked standing to challenge the adoption on that basis. And the Supreme Court ultimately reversed the judgment of the Georgia court on substantive due process grounds. But the Quilloin court was not holding that the father’s procedural default or forfeiture could be excused on substantive due process grounds. It stopped far short of establishing a substantive due process right for a parent to retain parental rights “regardless of a failure to comply with any state-prescribed procedure.” Supra ¶ 37. 77 IN RE K.T.B. Lee, A.C.J., dissenting ¶172 The Quilloin majority begins by noting an argument made by the adoptive parents (an argument that aligns precisely with the approach I am proposing in this case)—the notion that “due process was not violated, regardless of the standard applied by the trial court, since any constitutionally protected interest appellant might have had was lost by his failure to petition for legitimation during the 11 years prior to [the] filing” of the adoption petition. 434 U.S. at 254. This is a straightforward forfeiture argument. It is the idea that the father’s substantive due process argument is foreclosed because the State afforded the father a right to assert his interests and he failed to avail himself of that procedure. It says that “regardless” of the substantive standard applied for balancing the putative father’s interests against the state’s, the putative father loses because he stands in default or forfeiture by not having availed himself of a preservation procedure for asserting his interests. ¶173 The Quilloin court expressly avoided this basis for disposition. And it did so in a way that undermines the majority’s assertion that the Quilloin line of cases sustains the substantive due process right that the court establishes today. After noting the adoptive parents’ argument, the court expressed concern about resting its judgment on this basis. It concluded that it didn’t need to address the forfeiture argument “since under the circumstances of th[e] case [Mr. Quilloin’s] substantive rights were not violated by application of a ‘best interests of the child’ standard.” Id. The Court’s point was that it didn’t matter whether Mr. Quilloin might lose on forfeiture grounds because his substantive argument failed in any event. See id. (noting “hesitat[ion]” regarding “rest[ing] [a] decision on this ground, in light of evidence in the record that appellant was not aware of the legitimation procedure until after the adoption petition was filed”). ¶174 This makes clear that the Quilloin court was not saying that a substantive due process defect can cure a party’s procedural default or forfeiture. It was saying it didn’t need to address the procedural default because the substantive due process claim failed on its merits in any event. This highlights a key shortcoming of the majority opinion. It clarifies that the United States Supreme Court has never recognized a substantive due process right for a parent to preserve her parental rights despite a prior procedural default.