Opinion ID: 2576303
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Fundamental Parental Liberty Interest

Text: ¶ 42 Britain asserts the recognition of Carvin as a de facto parent, and granting her rights akin to a biological or adoptive parent violates Britain's constitutionality protected liberty interest to care for and control her child without unwarranted state intervention, in contravention of United States Supreme Court precedent. See Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944). She notes that the law presumes that biological parents are not only fit, but will act in the best interest of their children, Pet. for Review at 7 (citing Troxel, 530 U.S. at 68, 120 S.Ct. 2054), and there is no indication that she is in anyway unfit as a parent. See CP at 312. Carvin counters that common law recognition of de facto parents does not implicate the constitutional infirmities recognized in Troxel and that the first of the four de facto parent standards, that the natural or legal parent consented to and fostered the parent-like relationship, see supra p. 177, incorporates the constitutionally requisite deference to the legal parent. Corr. Suppl. Br. of Resp't at 12-13. We agree with Carvin. [27] ¶ 43 It is well recognized that [t]he liberty interest ... of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children [] is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by [the United States Supreme] Court. Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (plurality opinion) (citing Prince, 321 U.S. at 166, 64 S.Ct. 438; Pierce v. Soc'y of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923)); accord In re Welfare of Sumey, 94 Wash.2d at 762, 621 P.2d 108. Additionally, in In re Custody of Smith, this court applied a strict scrutiny analysis in discerning whether a grandparent's invocation of the visitation statute infringed on the biological parent's fundamental `liberty' interest. 137 Wash.2d at 15, 969 P.2d 21. In doing so, this court stated that state interference is justified only if the state can show that it has a compelling interest and such interference is narrowly drawn to meet only the compelling state interest involved. Id.; see also In re Parentage of C.A.M.A., 154 Wash.2d 52, 57-58, 109 P.3d 405 (2005) (reaffirming Smith 's strict scrutiny analysis). ¶ 44 C.A.M.A. reaffirmed Smith 's holding establishing strict scrutiny analysis as the appropriate analytic framework in reviewing the State's infringement on a parent's fundamental liberty interest. However, like Smith, C.A.M.A. dealt with the competing interests of biological parents and third parties, in both cases grandparents. No case has ever applied a strict scrutiny analysis in cases weighing the competing interests of two parents. Rather, in Washington, courts attempt to discern the best interests of the child. Given the now equivalent parental positions of the parties, no heightened scrutiny is warranted. ¶ 45 Significantly, our holding today regarding the common law status of de facto parents renders the crux of Britain's constitutional arguments moot. Britain's primary argument is that the State, through judicial action, cannot infringe on or materially interfere with her rights as a biological parent in favor of Carvin's rights as a nonparent third party. However, today we hold that our common law recognizes the status of de facto parents and places them in parity with biological and adoptive parents in our state. Thus, if, on remand, Carvin can establish standing as a de facto parent, Britain and Carvin would both have a fundamental liberty interest[] in the care, custody, and control of L.B. Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054. ¶ 46 Additionally, contrary to Britain's assertions, Troxel does not establish that recognition of a de facto parentage right infringes on the liberty interests of a biological or adoptive parent. First, Troxel did not address the issue of state law determinations of parents and families, rather simply disapproved of the grant of visitation in that case, narrowly holding that [t]he problem... is not that the [trial court] intervened but that, when it did so, it gave no special weight at all to the parents' determination regarding the grandparents' visitation. Troxel, 530 U.S. at 69, 120 S.Ct. 2054. Second, addressing the issue of nontraditional families and disputes arising therefrom, Justice Stevens noted that: Even the Court would seem to agree that in many circumstances, it would be constitutionally permissible for a court to award some visitation of a child to a parent or previous caregiver in cases of parental separation or divorce, cases of disputed custody, cases involving temporary foster care or guardianship, and so forth. Id. at 85, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (Stevens, J., dissenting). See also id. at 100-01, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (a fit parent's right vis-à-vis a complete stranger is one thing; her right vis-à-vis another parent or a de facto parent may be another); id. at 70, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (plurality opinion) (listing and implicitly approving of other state's third party visitation statutes); id. at 93, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (taking issue with constitutional doctrine of parental rights in its entirety as not textually based, but noting arguendo that any such constitutional recognition necessarily requires defined gradations of other persons (grandparents ... long-term guardians, etc.) who may have some claim against the wishes of the parents). Thus, Troxel does not imply any constitutional infirmity in our holding today, and importantly, nor does it place any constitutional limitations on the ability of states to legislatively, or through their common law, define a parent or family. Neither the United States Supreme Court nor this court has ever held that family or parents are terms limited in their definition by a strict biological prerequisite. See generally Nancy D. Polikoff, The Impact of Troxel v. Granville on Lesbian and Gay Parents, 32 RUTGERS L.J. 825 (2001); Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hatching the Egg: A Child-Centered Perspective on Parents' Rights, 14 CARDOZO L. REV. 1747 (1993). Our common law recognition of another class of parents eradicates the parent/nonparent dichotomy that was the crux of both the Smith and Troxel opinions. ¶ 47 Finally, in contrast to Britain's fears that teachers, nannies, parents of best friends, ... adult siblings, aunts, [] grandparents, and every third-party ... caregiver will now become de facto parents, Pet. for Review at 12, 15, attaining such recognition should be no easy task. Critical to our constitutional analysis here, a threshold requirement for the status of the de facto parent is a showing that the legal parent consented to and fostered the parent-child relationship. See supra p. 177. The State is not interfering on behalf of a third party in an insular family unit but is enforcing the rights and obligations of parenthood that attach to de facto parents; a status that can be achieved only through the active encouragement of the biological or adoptive parent by affirmatively establishing a family unit with the de facto parent and child or children that accompany the family. [28] In sum, we find that the rights and responsibilities which we recognize as attaching to de facto parents do not infringe on the fundamental liberty interests of the other legal parent in the family unit. ¶ 48 Finding no constitutional infirmities in recognizing de facto parents, we accordingly affirm the Court of Appeals on this issue and remand to the trial court for a determination of whether Carvin is L.B.'s de facto parent and any further appropriate proceedings in accord with this opinion. [29] E