Opinion ID: 2075762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Distinguishing Lehr v. Robertson

Text: Before evaluating whether H.R. can be said to have grasped his opportunity interest sufficiently to warrant constitutional protection, we must understand how Lehr where the father was deemed to have abandoned that interestdiffers from the present case in several important respects. In the first place, there are substantial factual differences. This case concerns the rights of a natural father when (1) the natural mother relinquishes her rights to custody of her child at birth, and (2) the petition for adoption is filed by strangers when the child is still an infant. Lehr, in contrast, concerned a stepfather's adoption of a child who, at the time the petition for adoption was filed, had lived for two years in an existing family unit with her natural mother and adoptive father, as in Quilloin. This factual difference has two important implications. First, the Lehr opinion made much of Lehr's failure to have developed a father-daughter relationship with his two-year-old child by the time the adoption petition was filed (even though the mother had taken steps to prevent that relationship). It is impossible, however, to find a failed parental relationship under the facts of the present case. Here, when H.R. finally learned that L.C. had continued her pregnancy to term and given birth to Baby Boy C., the state had already placed the child in an adoptive home, cutting off any possibility for H.R. to establish a parental, custodial, or financial relationship with his child until the official adoption proceedings were resolved. Second, the Supreme Court was unwilling to grant Lehr a constitutionally protected interest because recognition of the natural father's interest at the time the adoption petition was filed would have meant disrupting an existing family relationship among the natural mother, stepfather, and child. Again, in contrast, there were no established family relations in place when the Barker Foundation placed one-month-old Baby Boy C. with the O. family and the adoption petition was filed. Recognition that fathers of newborn infants have a substantial liberty interest in developing parental relations with their children does not disrupt established family relations. See Quilloin, 434 U.S. at 255, 98 S.Ct. at 554 (upholding step-parent adoption resulting in full recognition [of] a family unit already in existence and implying outcome would have been different if proposed adoption had placed the child with a new set of parents with whom the child had never before lived). As Elizabeth Buchanan notes: [W]hen a natural mother formally consents to the adoption of her child by strangers, whether the child is an infant or an older child, the effect of her consent is legal authorization of the placement of the child was a new set of parent figures, not the validation of an already existing parent-child relationship.... Protection of the father's opportunity interest in such circumstances would not run afoul of the public value in early permanence and stability because there would be no present permanence and stability. Protection of the father's opportunity interest, on the other hand, assuming his willingness to take on all of the parental responsibilities, including providing a home for the child, would assure permanence and stability for the future. Buchanan, Constitutional Rights, at 366-67. There is a second major difference between Lehr and this case. In Lehr, private action alone denied the establishment of parental ties between Lehr and his daughter by the time the adoption petition was filed. In the present case, however, state intervention cut off H.R.'s ability to establish parent-child relations with Baby Boy C. Under District of Columbia law, child placement agencies are delegated the government function of accepting the relinquishment of parental rights from natural parents and locating suitable adoptive homes, as well as investigating and reporting to the court about the suitability of the placement and consenting to the adoption. See D.C.Code § 32-1007 (1989); D.C.Code §§ 16-304(d), -307, -309 (1989). Before the adoption petition was filed in this case, the Barker Foundation, a District-licensed child placement agency, was permitted to seek the termination of H.R.'s parental rights before Baby Boy C. had even been born; to accept L.C.'s relinquishment of her parental rights; and to place the baby with the O. family without H.R.'s prior consent or a judicial determination that the placement was suitable for the child. [24] These acts taken by Barker, as well as the proceedings in the Superior Court, constituted state action under the due process clause. See Swayne v. L.D.S. Social Servs., 670 F.Supp. 1537, 1543-44 (D.Utah 1987) (private adoption agencies initiating adoption, and thus terminating parental rights, deemed state actor for purposes of challenging statute); Scott v. Family Ministries, 65 Cal.App.3d 492, 506-07, 135 Cal. Rptr. 430, 434 (1976) (private licensed adoption agencies held state actors in context of establishment clause); see also Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 937, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2753, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982) (state action when deprivation is caused by exercise of right or privilege created by state and party causing deprivation may fairly be called state actor). As Elizabeth Buchanan suggests: [r]ecognition of an opportunity interest in unwed fathers requires a conclusion that if the two elements of a constitutionally protected parent-child relationship are the biological link and commitment to and exercise of custodial responsibility, the state may not deny biological parents the opportunity to establish a protected custodial relationship. Buchanan, Constitutional Rights, at 351 (footnotes omitted). When state action blocks the opportunity for development of a parental relationship between the natural father and child and creates an environment for the development of parental ties between strangers and that child, the state may not then lawfully deny the father his opportunity interest on the basis that the child has developed family relations with prospective adoptive parents before the adoption petition is filed or between the time of the filing and the hearing on the petition. See Lathrop, 2 Kan.App.2d at 95, 575 P.2d at 898 (putative father, who had been prevented from bestowing parental care on child from time of its birth by adoptive parents, cannot be faulted, nor can his parental rights be lessened, by virtue of failing to perform parental responsibilities). The third major distinction between this case and Lehr is that District of Columbia law provides for immediate notice to a natural father upon the filing of a petition for adoption, D.C.Code § 16-306(a) (1989), whereas the New York statute at issue in Lehr provided for notice only to certain classes of putative fathers. As elaborated above, the Supreme Court found Lehr's failure to use the available statutory protection fatal to his constitutional claim. Lehr's failure to register had rendered him, under New York law, a nonparty to the adoption proceeding. H.R., however, unlike Lehr, was guaranteed a right to immediate notice of the filing of the adoption petition under District of Columbia law. D.C.Code § 16-306(a) (1989). By statute, the required initiative is on the government or its designated agent, not on the putative father. The Supreme Court's deference in Lehr to state legislative schemes for protecting natural fathers' rights, therefore, must result in a corresponding deference here: judicial recognition of H.R.'s statutory right to immediate notice in evaluating whether he grasped his opportunity interest. The onus placed on Lehr under the New York statute in no way can be used to diminish H.R.'s right to rely on placement of the burden elsewhere under our local law: the burden rests on the District of Columbia. In short, Lehr, while recognizing an unwed father's opportunity interest, reaffirms the Stanley-Caban-Quilloin concern about disturbing existing family relationships and the Quilloin concern about the failure of the father to assert his interest in timely, committed fashion. Whereas Lehr therefore clarifies the burden the unwed father must carrytimely, continual assertion of his opportunity interest Lehr does not deal with the issue of what happens when unlawful state action both interferes with assertion of the opportunity interest and facilitates creation of a prospective adoptive family intended to take the child from the father. We should not hesitate to conclude, however, that in such circumstances a natural father cannot be held to have abandoned his opportunity interest. See Eason, 257 Ga. at 296, 358 S.E.2d at 463 (unwed father has a constitutionally protected interest which cannot be denied him through state action). There may be other reasons why he should not be entitled to custody but not this one.