Opinion ID: 1958447
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Heading: The Second Issue.

Text: Since the appearance of governmental and licensed child-placing agencies and societies, many states have enacted provisions for the surrender by parents and by unmarried mothers of their parental rights including the right to consent to the adoption of their children. The statutes substitute the consent of the agency to the adoption of the child for the consent of the parent. The purpose is to improve the Agency's position in the selection of suitable adopting parents, to avoid personal contact between natural and adopting parents which might later hinder the child's adjustment and to give assurance to the prospective adoptive parents in the earlier stages of their undertaking. Although variation in statutory procedures makes generalization difficult, examination of the decisions of other jurisdictions reveals to us three principal types of treatment of the issue of revocation by the courts. The statutes of some states make provision for a surrender in the form of a contract between parent and agency under judicial supervision. The language of a New York Court appears to express the attitude of such jurisdictions. The consent by a parent to the change of guardianship and custody to an authorized agency for the purpose of adoption or care is expressly sanctioned by law (Social Welfare Law, § 384) and is a valid contract by which the agency undertakes to become responsible for the care and maintenance of the child unless the child is thereafter adopted. People ex rel. Anonymous v. Rebecca Talbot Perkins Adoption Society, Inc., 271 App.Div. 672, 68 N.Y.S.2d 238. But until there has been an actual adoption, it is a contract the continuance of which remains under judicial supervision; and it is clear that the Supreme Court retains power to direct a change of custody from the authorized agency back to the parent notwithstanding the formal document of surrender. (Social Welfare Law, § 383). As Botein, J., noted in People ex rel. Grament v. Free Synagogue Child Adoption Committee, 194 Misc. 332, 85 N.Y.S. 2d 541, the surrender document is a contract bearing statutory sanction and approval which materially alters and diminishes the rights of a parent `seeking to regain custody but it may not accomplish an irrevocable commitment of custody and guardianship before actual adoption. 194 Misc. at page 335, 85 N.Y.S.2d at page 543. Application of Handler, 6 A.D.2d 977, 176 N.Y.S.2d 689, at page 691. Some courts have recognized the necessity for permanency in the act of surrender and denied the mother the power to revoke her surrender but have considered that the Court has an equitable discretion to set aside the surrender if it finds that the surrender would act to the detriment of the child. Ex parte Schultz, 64 Nev. 264, 181 P.2d 585 (1947); In re Brennan, 270 Minn. 455, 134 N.W.2d 126 (1965); In re Surrender of Minor Children, 344 Mass. 230, 181 N.E.2d 836 (1962). Other courts consider the surrender to be a completed irrevocable act terminating permanently the parently rights. Petition of Gonzales, supra; In re Adoption of D___, 122 Utah 525, 252 P.2d 223 (1953). Our own statutes contain no provision for a contract of surrender or for revocation of a surrender which has been completed. Maine is one of the minority of states whose statutes require judicial participation in the surrender and a judicial determination of the correctitude of the surrender. Our statutes provide no appeal from the determination. The reasoning that the mother may revoke her surrender at any time before the adoption has been decreed is fallacious here in view of our statute's treatment of the surrender-release as a completed judicial proceeding rather than as merely a tentative informal preliminary agreement. Our reasoning is not an abandonment of the position that our primary concern is the best interests of the child, which we have before expressed in other matters involving a child's custody. Merchant v. Bussell, 139 Me. 118, 27 A.2d 816 (1942). The conclusion of some courts that the Court must possess power to set aside a surrender which it finds to be detrimental to the child's welfare does not follow here where our statute has required a determination as to the child's welfare by the Judge of Probate before the surrender is complete. (This reasoning would not leave the child without hope of rescue in the event of subsequent cruelty or neglect on the part of the adoptive parents. The Legislature, in enacting 22 M.R.S.A. Chapter 1055 has empowered the courts to act in relief of all grossly mistreated children.) We conclude that the execution of the surrender-release is, when all statutory requirements have been met, a completed act of solemn import, irrevocable by the mother, which can be set aside only by judicial action on the basis of fraud, duress, mistake or incapacity. (In view of the statute's recital that the surrender is for the purpose of enabling such    society to have such child adopted by some suitable person we reserve judgment on the issue  not now before us  which might arise if for some reason the society becomes unable to place the child for adoption.) We arrive at this conclusion fully aware of the probability that some mothers, experiencing the pain of actual separation from their children, may regret their surrender even though it was arrived at after careful deliberation. However, it can easily be realized that child-placing societies will be frustrated in their efforts to find suitable adoptive parents if the child which the adoptive parents have had in their home and which they have come to love as their own may be taken from them in the period between surrender and adoption because of a change of heart on the part of the mother. Appeal sustained. The Writ of Habeas Corpus is ordered dismissed. TAPLEY, J., sat at argument but retired before the opinion was adopted.