Court Opinion

ID: 9664962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:35:32.498876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:11.781738
License: Public Domain

REAVLEY, Justice
(Dissenting).
The question before us is not the wisdom of the Legislature in writing Article 46a, Sec. 6(a), V.C.S., as it did, nor is our question the wisdom of the trial court in deciding that the welfare of the children would be best served by granting the adoption as it did.
Our question is whether this mother, Joan Bauman, has failed to contribute to the support of her children so that her written consent is no longer a necessary prerequisite, under the statute, to their adoption by another.
It is established that the mother has failed to contribute directly to their support, commensurate with her financial ability, for more than two years. But the court holds that by making arrangements for the children, the mother is credited with the contribution of Mr. and Mrs. Heard and excused from any expenditure of her own. She may be morally excused. The children may have been better off where they were. All this would bear on whether the adoption should be permitted. In my view, it does not bear on whether the mother’s written consent is necessary.
The statute makes two separate exceptions to the general rule that natural parents must consent. One exception is abandonment or desertion; the other is failure *720to support for a period of two years. “In either event,” the statute says, “it shall not be necessary to obtain the written consent.” If the parent fails to support the child for two years, her written consent is not needed, even though the arrangement she makes for the child he the antithesis of neglect or desertion.
As I read the statute, while a parent may be fully justified in placing a child with doting grandparents or benevolent millionaires, if the parent allows those others to support the child for over two years and if it should then appear that the welfare of the child would be best served by their adoption, the parent cannot block the adoption by refusing written consent. This provision of the Legislature seems reasonable and, in any event, I think it should be enforced by the courts.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
GREENHILL and STEAKLEY, JJ., join in this dissent.