Opinion ID: 2639452
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conflicts Between the Adoption Code and the Interstate Compact

Text: ¶ 46 Under the Interstate Compact, a child is not supposed to be sent or brought into another state for placement until the sending agency, here, the mother, [2] notifies the public authorities in the receiving state of the identity of the child and parents, the agency to which the child will be brought, and the reasons for this action, and the authorities then notify the sending agency, in writing, to the effect that the proposed placement does not appear to be contrary to the interests of the child. Utah Code Ann. § 62A-4a-701(Article III)(2)(f); In Re Adoption of R.N.L., 913 P.2d 761, 764 (Utah Ct.App.1996) (The purpose of the Interstate Compact is to inform state authorities of the proposed adoption so they can protect the child's interest by ascertaining and evaluating the circumstances of the proposed placement.). Under the Adoption Code, if a child was born in another state, the petition for adoption must affirm compliance with the requirements of the Interstate Compact. Utah Code Ann. § 78-30-15.1. Here, however, this requirement was avoided because the child was born in Utah, after the mother flew here apparently intending to give the child up for adoption at birth and a doctor induced labor (on August 6, 2001). The Interstate Compact still applies, however, because the mother returned to North Carolina with the infant after spending only one day in Utah and did not return to Utah with the five-month-old child until January 2002, again with the intention of giving the child up for adoption. ¶ 47 One purpose of the Interstate Compact is to promote [a]ppropriate jurisdictional arrangements for the care of the children who cross state lines in the course of interstate adoptions or relinquishments. Id. § 62A-4a-701(Article I)(4). Under the Interstate Compact, the sending agency retain[s] jurisdiction over the child sufficient to determine all matters in relation to the custody, supervision, care, treatment, and disposition of the child which it would have had if the child had remained in the sending agency's state, until the child is adopted.... Such jurisdiction shall also include the power to effect or cause the return of the child or its transfer to another location and custody pursuant to law. Id. § 62A-4a-01 (Article V)(1). ¶ 48 Here, the sending agency is the child's mother, who relinquished the child to the Adoption Center and, under the terms of the relinquishment contract, terminated all [her] rights to the custody of the child. Assuming that such a contract would be valid in North Carolina, the mother's relinquishment of custody likely would entail termination of jurisdiction over her under the Interstate Compact if the terms of the Interstate Compact had otherwise been met. Since the requirements of the Interstate Compact were not otherwise met, however, the mother's attempt to transfer jurisdiction to Utah as a receiving state is flawed. Jurisdiction over the child thus still follows the mother, not the Adoption Center, and Osborne should be entitled to sue the mother in North Carolina for custody or a parental rights determination since both he and the mother are North Carolina residents. ¶ 49 Under the Adoption Code, the adoption agency has the right to the custody and control of the child, once the child has been relinquished to the agency. Id. § 78-30-4.22(2). However, this provision must be read together with the provisions of the Interstate Compact when an interstate transfer of the child is involved. The adoption agency is not entitled to custody unless there has been compliance with the Interstate Compact. Otherwise the Interstate Compact can simply be bypassed, and its purposes defeated, by relying on conflicting state law. ¶ 50 Under a reading consistent with the Interstate Compact, then, the Adoption Center has no interest in the child that would allow it to bring an action to terminate Osborne's parental rights under Utah Code Ann. § 78-30-4.24.