Opinion ID: 2585478
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Waiver of Statutory Rights

Text: In Bickel v. City of Piedmont, supra, 16 Cal.4th 1040, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427 ( Bickel ), we held that a party benefited by a statutory provision may waive that benefit if the statute does not prohibit waiver ( id. at p. 1049, fn. 4, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427), the statute's public benefit ... is merely incidental to [its] primary purpose ( id. at p. 1049, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427), and waiver does not seriously compromise any public purpose that [the statute was] intended to serve ( id. at p. 1050, 68 Cal. Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427). (See also Civ. Code, § 3513 [anyone may waive the advantage of a law intended solely for his benefit].) The principles underlying Bickel are well established. As we have recognized for over a century, the law will not compel a man to insist upon any benefit or advantage secured to him individually. ( Knarston v. Manhattan Life Ins. Co. (1903) 140 Cal. 57, 63, 73 P. 740.) Accordingly, a party may waive compliance with statutory conditions intended for his or her benefit, so long as the Legislature has not made those conditions mandatory. ( Murdock v. Brooks (1869) 38 Cal. 596, 602; see also Wells, Fargo & Co. v. Enright (1900) 127 Cal. 669, 674, 60 P. 439.) Applying these established principles to determine whether in this case [section 8617] bars application of the waiver doctrine, we must ascertain (1) whether [the statute's provisions] are for the benefit of [the parties to an adoption petition] or are instead for a public purpose, and (2) whether there is any language in [the statute] prohibiting a waiver. ( Bickel, supra, 16 Cal.4th at pp. 1048-1049, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427.) Addressing the latter point first, we immediately observe that section 8617 contains no language prohibiting the parties to an independent adoption from agreeing to waive its provisions. Rather, section 8617 contains a single sentence: The birth parents of an adopted child are, from the time of the adoption, relieved of all parental duties towards, and all responsibility for, the adopted child, and have no right over the child. Nor need we move beyond the statute's plain language in order to discern its primary purpose. By its terms, section 8617 exists to relieve[] birth parents of duties towards and all responsibility for, the adopted child and to assure adoptive parents of exclusive parental control by ending birth parents' right over the child from the time of the adoption. Section 8617 thus affords all the parties to the ordinary adoption an incentive for concluding it. But nothing therein, or in any other statutory provision, prohibits the parties to an independent adoption from waiving the benefits of section 8617 when a birth parent intends and desires to coparent with another adult who has agreed to adopt the child and share parental responsibilities. Since section 8617's provisions are for the benefit of the parties to an adoption petition and the section contains no language prohibiting a waiver ( Bickel, supra, 16 Cal.4th at pp. 1048-1049, 68 Cal. Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427), we conclude that section 8617 declares a legal consequence of the usual adoption, waivable by the parties thereto, rather than a mandatory prerequisite to every valid adoption. ( Bickel, supra, at p. 1048, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427.) [6] Such a conclusion accords with our previous pronouncements respecting the essential elements of an adoption. The adoption laws always have made a fundamental distinction between the ordinary legal consequences of an adoption and what provisions of the law are essential and therefore mandatory. ( In re Johnson (1893) 98 Cal. 531, 536, 33 P. 460.) In Johnson, for example, we held that Civil Code former section 227's provision for the examination of a child under the age of consent by the judge before the child is adopted should not be deemed indispensable to the validity of the adoption proceeding. ( In re Johnson, supra, at p. 539, 33 P. 460.) In so holding, we noted it is necessary that there should be a substantial compliance with all of the essential requirements of the law under which the right [of adoption] is claimed; but, in determining what provisions of the law are essential and therefore mandatory, the statute is to receive a sensible construction, and its intention is to be ascertained, not from the literal meaning of any particular word or section, but from a consideration of the entire statute, its spirit and purpose. ( Id. at p. 536, 33 P. 460.) Of course, one who claims that an act of adoption has been accomplished must show that every essential requirement of the statute has been strictly complied with ( Estate of Sharon, supra, 179 Cal. at p. 454, 177 P. 283), but Sharon points to no California decision stating or even implying that termination of birth parental rights and responsibilities under section 8617 is among these essential requirements. While California's adoption statutes nowhere concisely define adoption, they do state the essential elements of a valid adoption. [A]fter careful consideration of the question as to what requirements are essential, the conclusion was stated [in In re Johnson, supra, 98 Cal. 531, 33 P. 460] as follows: `The proceeding is essentially one of contract between the parties whose consent is required. It is a contract of a very solemn nature, and for this reason the law has wisely thrown around its creation certain safeguards, by requiring, not only that it shall be entered into in the presence of a judge, but also that it shall receive his sanction, which is not to be given until he has satisfied himself of these three things: 1. That the person adopting is ten years older than the child. 2. That all the parties whose consent is required do consent, fully and freely, to the making of such contract. 3. That the adoption contemplated by the contract will be for the best interest of the child adopted.' These requirements are there held to be jurisdictional. Unless they coexist, the proceeding for adoption is insufficient, the attempted contract is invalid, the judge is without power to approve it, and there is no lawful adoption. ( Estate of Sharon, supra, 179 Cal. at p. 454,177 P. 283, citing several cases.) Thus, in current statutory terms, the essential elements of every valid adoption are: a voluntary and informed parental consent to the adoption except where the parent has surrendered or has been judicially deprived of parental control (§§ 8604-8606); a suitable adoptive parent at least 10 years older than, or in a specified preexisting family relationship with, the child (see §§ 8601, 8717, 8801, 8811-8811.5); and a judicial determination that the interest of the child will be promoted by the adoption (§ 8612). When these essential elements are present, the objective of the adoption statutes to protect the interests of both the natural or legal parents) and the child through the consent and best interests requirements is not frustrated when statutory provisions like section 8617 are treated as nonmandatory. (Patt, Second Parent Adoption: When Crossing the Marital Barrier Is in a Child's Best Interests (1987-1988) 3 Berkeley Women's L.J. 96, 117, discussing Civ. Code former § 229.) The Court of Appeal majority failed to recognize this distinction between essential elements and ordinary legal consequences, asserting that the statutes governing independent adoptions require a relinquishment of parental rights and mandate that the parental rights of the birth parent be terminated. In fact, the statutes contain no such mandates. `Independent Adoption' means the adoption of a child in which neither the department nor an agency licensed by the department is a party to, or joins in, the adoption petition. (§ 8524.) In addition to the essential elements of all adoptions set out above, the independent adoption statutes require parental consent after notice and advisement (§§ 8800, 8801.3, 8814, 8821), opportunities under specified conditions timely to revoke consent (§ 8814.5) or with court approval to withdraw it (§ 8815), selection of the adoptive parent or parents by the birth parent or parents personally (§ 8801), advice to the birth parent of his or her rights by an adoption service provider or licensed out-of-state agency (§ 8801.5), execution of an adoption placement agreement satisfying specified requirements on a form prescribed by CDSS (§ 8801.3), administrative investigation by CDSS or its delegate (§§ 8806-8811, 8817), an appropriate petition filed with the superior court, usually in the county in which the petitioner resides (§ 8802), and an appearance before the court by the prospective adoptive parents and the child (§§ 8612, 8613, 8823). Nowhere does any mandate or requirement of relinquishment of a birth parent's rights and responsibilities appear. Most people who place their children with unrelated adoptive parents presumably desire to be relieved of all parental duties towards, and all responsibility for, the adopted child, as section 8617 declares, once the adoption is final. But, as noted, section 8617 neither prohibits a birth parent and another qualified adult from jointly waiving application of the statute in order to coparent an adoptable child, nor prohibits a court under such circumstances from ordering an otherwise valid adoption. (See Bickel, supra, 16 Cal.4th at pp. 1048-1049, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 758, 946 P.2d 427.) [7]