Opinion ID: 2258923
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Question 2: Right To Revoke Deemed Consent

Text: The argument actually articulated by Clemy P. in the circuit court, which was accepted by that court, founders on the erroneous assumption that underlies its major premise. Section 5-322(d) does not incorporate within it the provisions of § 5-317(e). A deemed consent under § 5-322(d) may not be revoked, for it is not a volitional consent but one arising by operation of law. If the parent fails to file a timely objection, no further notices need be given to the parent, prior to or upon the entry of a judgment of guardianship. This conclusion is clear from both the structure and the history of the relevant statutes and rules. Before considering in further detail the current text of the statutes, we note that we have examined closely the legislative development of those statutes and of the rules implementing them. We have reviewed the 1982 general revision of the adoption and guardianship laws (1982 Md. Laws, ch. 514), the revision of the subtitle D Rules in 1983 and 1986, the amendments to § 5-322(d) made in 1987 (1987 Md. Laws, ch. 282), the amendments made to § 5-317(e) adopted in 1992 and 1994 (1992 Md. Laws, ch. 511; 1994 Md. Laws. ch. 234), and the most recent revision to the adoption and guardianship rules adopted by this Court in June, 1996, which took effect January 1, 1997. It is not necessary to prolong this opinion with a complete recitation of those various enactments and promulgations. It will suffice, to demonstrate the point, to focus on 1987 Md. Laws, ch. 282 amending § 5-322(d) and 1992 Md. Laws, ch. 511 and 1994 Md. Laws, ch. 234, amending § 5-317(e). Until 1986, § 5-322(d), as supplemented by Md. Rule D 76, required a parent who wished to object to a DSS petition for guardianship to file a formal petition to intervene in the case and, if that petition was granted, to file an answer to the petition. In the 94th Report of this Court's Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, filed in January, 1986, the Committee recommended, and this Court later adopted, rules that replaced the intervention scheme with a simple notice of objection and required the show cause order to give clear advice as to the necessity and manner of filing an objection and as to the consequence of failing to do so. Apart from that change, the Rules Committee raised in its 94th Report the very issue underlying the questions presented here, pointing out that it was unclear from the existing statutes what the effect was of a parent refusing to consent but failing to object to a DSS petition. At the time, § 5-322(c) provided that, if a parent failed to intervene within the time specified, the court shall consider the requirement of consent by that person to have been waived. Even with the other changes recommended by it, the Committee urged in its Report that the failure to object not be treated as the effective equivalent of consent. In light of substantial opposition to that approach by various groups and certain other ambiguities in the statute, however, the Committee asked the Court to defer action on that recommendation, which we did. The issue raised by the Rules Committee was presented squarely to the Legislature in its 1987 session through the introduction of HB 590, which was enacted as ch. 282. The bill was introduced at the behest of the Governor's Task Force To Study Adoption Procedures in Maryland. In its 1987 Report, the Task Force noted the increasing number of children drifting in foster care without any permanent home or family attachment. It pointed out that there were then 5,300 children in Maryland in the DSS foster care program, about 3,200 of whom had been in foster care for more than two years. GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE TO STUDY ADOPTION PROCEDURES IN MARYLAND, GROWING UP ALONE: CHILDREN WAITING FOR FAMILIES vii (1987). DSS statistics showed that, State-wide, it took an average of 5.1 years for a child in foster care to be adopted. The delay in Baltimore City was even worsean average of 7.4 years. Id. at viii. The Task Force recommended 54 measures to speed up the process, one of which Recommendation 6was that, if a parent who was duly notified failed to file a timely objection to a DSS petition, the petition shall be treated as one in which consent has been granted. Id. at 4. The consequence of failing to file a timely objection was thus to be changed from a waiver of the requirement of consent to a statutorily deemed consent. That recommendation was supported by the State Department of Human Resources as a clarification of legislative intent. In its written statement to the General Assembly, the Department observed that many parents, though recognizing that adoption would be in their child's best interest, were nonetheless unable to bring themselves to sign a consent to a termination of their parental rights but chose instead to simply take no action when served with the show cause orderin effect, to `allow their child to be taken from them.' The Department expressed concern about continuing to treat such cases as contested, requiring full evidentiary hearings and delaying the termination process. The bill was also supported by several foster care review boards, which expressed similar concern over the delay in achieving permanence for children in foster care. From this legislative history, it is evident that, in enacting HB 590, the General Assembly intended to eliminate any uncertainty over the effect of a parent's failure, after proper notice, to file a timely objection. The sole purpose of regarding such a lapse as a statutory consent imposed by operation of law and directing the court to proceed accordingly was to treat the case thereafter as though it were uncontestedto avoid the need for further notice and hearing and thus to speed up the judicial component of the permanency planning process. That same purpose is equally clear in the 1992 and 1994 amendments to § 5-317(e). Until 1992, a parent who consented to a guardianship could revoke the consent at any time before judgment was entered. In 1992, the Legislature attempted to shorten that period by limiting the revocation period to the earlier of entry of judgment or 30 days after the consent was filed in court. 1992 Md. Laws, ch. 511. That was the law in effect when the petition was filed in Clemy P.'s case. In adopting that approach, the Legislature evidently believed that DSS would routinely file its petition almost immediately after obtaining the consent, that the consent would be filed with the petition, that the judicial action would proceed apace, and that the deadline for revoking the consent would therefore expire approximately 30 days after the consent was signed, if not sooner upon the entry of judgment. That assumption, however, turned out to be unwarranted, and thus the statutory scheme carried within it a serious deficiency. Evidence presented to the Rules Committee showed that, for a variety of reasons, DSS did not routinely file its petition immediately upon obtaining a consent. In many cases, there was a delay in obtaining the consent of the second parent, or that parent could not be located or would not consent. In some instances, there were simply bureaucratic delays. Whatever the reason, even the mere prospect that the petition would not be filed contemporaneously with the obtention of a consent made it impossible to inform the consenting parent, at the time he or she signed the consent, when the revocation period would expire. At the urging of the Rules Committee, the General Assembly amended the statute in 1994 to fix the revocation period, in all cases, to 30 days after the consent was signed. 1994 Md. Laws, ch. 234. That change created a fixed, ascertainable expiration dateone that would allow DSS, the court, and all other interested parties to rely on the consent once the 30-day period expired. In light of this history, it is evident that any construction of § 5-317(e) or § 5-322(d) that would have the effect of engendering further delays or imposing additional impediments to achieving permanent and stable family settings for children placed in foster care, usually as the result of a CINA proceeding, would be flatly inconsistent with and antithetical to the clear legislative purpose, and is to be avoided unless absolutely required. As noted, § 5-317(e) permits a parent to revoke an actual, written consent at any time up to 30 days after the consent is signed. The right to revoke ends upon the expiration of that period. Unless the parent, in the consent, has expressly reserved the right to notice, he or she is not entitled to any notice of the petition or of any proceedings on it, including entry of a judgment, for the consent has made the case an uncontested one with respect to that parent. The only further notice to which such a parent is entitled, unless it too has been waived, is that provided for in § 5-319(b)that a placement for adoption has not been made within nine months after the judgment of guardianship, that a placement made within the nine months has been disrupted, as defined in the statute, or that a judgment of adoption has not been entered within two years after a placement. The revocation period allowed under § 5-317(e), as it now reads, is clear, fixed, and easily ascertained. The certainty of the period is essential for DSS and the court to know what, if any, right to notice and participation the parent retains. That certainty would not exist if a right to revoke is attached to the deemed consent under § 5-322. Under the theory espoused by Clemy P., the right to revoke the statutory consent would continue until the entry of judgment, which is an approach expressly rejected by the Legislature in 1992 and 1994 with respect to consents under § 5-317(e). It would also have the effect of giving a defaulting parent greater rights than one who affirmatively consents, and no rational justification for that has been proposed. We can find nothing in the legislative history of the 1987 enactment, which put § 5-322(d) into its present form, suggesting an intent to attach a right to revoke to the statutory consent. As we indicated, the evident purpose for that approach was narrow and restrictive rather than expansiveto cut off the right of a parent who fails to file a timely objection to any further notice and any right to participate in the action. Indeed, that parent has fewer, not greater, rights than the parent who signs a written consent, for the latter is expressly authorized to retain the right at least to notice of further proceedings, though not the right to participate in them. [8] Adoption of Clemy P.'s view would render § 5-322(d) essentially meaningless, for, if the parent is allowed to ignore the plain advice and warnings in the show cause order and proceed to challenge the DSS petition at any time up to the entry of judgment (and perhaps even during the 30-day post-judgment period when the court retains full discretion under Md. Rule 2-535(a) to vacate the judgment), prudence would dictate that every case not based on actual consents obtained under § 5-317 be treated as contested. As a matter of statutory construction, therefore, we conclude that there is no right to revoke a statutory consent arising under § 5-322(d). That is a consent, as we have said, arising by operation of law, not by volition, and it is not within the power of the parent to revoke it.