Opinion ID: 2639452
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Conflicts Between the Adoption Code and the UCCJEA

Text: ¶ 51 Similarly, under the UCCJEA, a Utah court has no lacks jurisdiction to terminate Osborne's parental rights. The UCCJEA considers a proceeding regarding paternity or for termination of parental rights to be one in which a child's custody (legal custody, physical custody, or parent-time) is an issue. Utah Code Ann. § 78-45c-102(3),(4). The UCCJEA gives a Utah court jurisdiction to make an initial child custody determination only if (1) Utah is the child's home state on the date the proceeding begins, (2) a court of another state does not have jurisdiction or is not a more appropriate forum, (3) all other courts that might have jurisdiction under the preceding provisions have declined to exercise it, or (4) no state would otherwise have jurisdiction. Id. § 78-45c-201(1). The home state is the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding, or for a child less than six months old, the state in which the child lived from birth with any of the persons mentioned. Id. § 78-45c-102(7). Thus, Utah was not the child's home state when the Adoption Center initiated its proceeding. North Carolina was the child's home state, and North Carolina courts did not refuse to exercise jurisdiction. In fact, a North Carolina court has ruled that it has exclusive jurisdiction over the question of Osborne's parental rights and issued a temporary restraining order against the Adoption Center to prevent it from proceeding with the child's adoption. [3] Osborne v. Baker, No. 02-CvD-478 (N.C. Gen. Ct. of Justice, Dist. Ct. Div. July 1, 2002). ¶ 52 A Utah court could exercise temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse. Utah Code Ann. § 78-45c-204(1). Here, the child may be viewed as abandoned by the mother, although not by Osborne. Even so, any child custody determination made by a Utah court is only in effect until a court of a state having non-emergency jurisdiction under the UCCJEA issues an order regarding the child's custody. Id. § 78-45c-204(2). ¶ 53 The UCCJEA does not govern an adoption proceeding. Id. § 78-45c-103(1). [4] However, the proceeding at issue here was brought under Utah Code Ann. § 78-30-4.24, which allows an interested party to petition the court to determine a father's parental rights at any time prior  to a petition for adoption. (emphasis added). This is not an adoption proceeding, but a separate proceeding that precedes an adoption proceeding. The Oklahoma Supreme Court, considering a similar action brought under Oklahoma state law, held that a pre-adoption proceeding to terminate parental rights is ancillary to an adoption proceeding (even though the trial court had declined jurisdiction over the actual adoption proceeding in favor of the state where the adoptive parents resided), so the UCCJEA did not apply. White v. Adoption of Baby Boy D., 10 P.3d 212, 220-21 (Okla.2000) (holding that the trial court properly exercised emergency jurisdiction over the proceeding). Five Oklahoma justices joined the majority opinion, one concurred in the result, and three dissented. Id. at 223. Two of the dissenting justices argued that the majority's expansive application of emergency jurisdiction effectively eviscerate[s] any subject matter jurisdictional requirements for adoption and termination proceedings. Id. at 225. They continued: A birth mother from any state in the nation may now travel to Oklahoma with prospective adoptive parents and place a child with an agency for adoption in Oklahoma. Because she is deemed to have abandoned her child, the courts of this state may assume emergency jurisdiction and then proceed to terminate the parental rights of the father no matter how attenuated or non-existent his connection with this state. Id. ¶ 54 Here, the majority has not even reached the question of emergency jurisdiction, presumably under the belief that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction under Utah Code sections 78-30-4.24 and 78-33-1 and that the UCCJEA does not apply. However, such an understanding in effect allows one parent and a Utah adoption agency to make an end run around the jurisdictional requirements of the UCCJEA, to the disadvantage of the other parent. If a proceeding to terminate parental rights is considered an indistinguishable part of an adoption proceeding, rather than an independent proceeding governed by the UCCJEA, the underlying purposes of the UCCJEA are defeated. ¶ 55 The UCCJEA has a provision that explicitly governs a situation where two courts in different states have initiated potentially conflicting proceedings regarding a birth parent's parental rights and the custody of a child. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-45c-206. The North Carolina court complied with this provision and determined that, under the UCCJEA, it and not Utah was the appropriate forum for the determination of Osborne's parental rights. This court's failure to address Utah's subject matter jurisdiction over the Adoption Center's action and to interpret Utah Code section 78-30-4.24 in a manner consistent with the UCCJEA will eviscerate the UCCJEA's purpose of preventing the very conflict that now exists between the Utah and North Carolina courts. ¶ 56 Both the Interstate Compact and the UCCJEA have been designed specifically to govern interstate transfers of children and avoid the unfair exercise of jurisdiction over the various parties involved. An interpretation of Utah Code section 78-30-4.24 that allows a Utah adoption agency to terminate the parental rights of a child's putative father when the father may well be entitled to parental rights under the law of his and the child's home state is inconsistent with both the Interstate Compact and the UCCJEA. These conflicts can be avoided simply by recognizing that an action under section 78-30-4.24 for the determination of an out-of-state birth father's rights is a custody determination independent of an adoption proceeding and is governed by the UCCJEA.