Court Opinion

ID: 9928389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-31 17:08:55.586813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:02.148012
License: Public Domain

[Cite as In re Adoption of M.E.W., 2024-Ohio-234.]

STATE OF OHIO                    )                        IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
                                 )ss:                     NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
COUNTY OF SUMMIT                 )

IN RE: ADOPTION OF M.E.W.                                 C.A. No.   30787

                                                          APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT
                                                          ENTERED IN THE
                                                          COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
                                                          COUNTY OF SUMMIT, OHIO
                                                          CASE No.   2022 AD 021

                                DECISION AND JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated: January 24, 2024

        FLAGG LANZINGER, Judge.

        {¶1}    Appellant Mother appeals the judgment of the Summit County Court of Common

Pleas, Probate Division, that found that her consent to adoption of her biological child was not

required. This Court reverses and remands.

                                                     I.

        {¶2}    Mother and Father are the biological parents of M.E.W., born January 19, 2009.

The parents were never married. In 2012, the Summit County Juvenile Court awarded Father legal

custody of the child and granted Mother parenting time pursuant to the juvenile court’s standard

order of visitation.

        {¶3}    Father later married Appellee (“Petitioner” or “Stepmother”). On February 23,

2022, Stepmother filed a petition for adoption of M.E.W. Father consented to the adoption.

Petitioner alleged that Mother’s consent was not required because she had failed both to have more
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than de minimis contact with the child and to provide support and maintenance for the child

without justifiable cause during the statutory one-year lookback period.

       {¶4}    The probate court sent Mother a notice of hearing on the petition for adoption. The

parties agree that Mother was served with the notice on March 29, 2022. An attorney from the

Legal Defender’s Office filed a notice of appearance and objection to the adoption petition on

Mother’s behalf on June 16, 2022. Mother moved to continue the hearing, and the trial court

granted a continuance. The probate court continued the hearing a second time for reasons not clear

from the scheduling order.

       {¶5}    On October 13, 2022, the magistrate held a hearing to determine whether Mother’s

consent to adoption was required. Petitioner and Mother each presented two witnesses during their

cases in chief. On April 6, 2023, the magistrate issued his decision. He addressed the substantive

merits of whether Mother had, without justifiable cause, failed to provide support and maintenance

for the child and/or failed to have more than de minimis contact with the child during the relevant

time period, and found that she had failed in both regards. The magistrate also sua sponte

addressed the timing of Mother’s filing of her objection to the petition for adoption and found that

she had untimely filed it in violation of R.C. 3107.07(K). Accordingly, the magistrate based his

finding that Mother’s consent to adoption was not required on both substantive and procedural

grounds.

       {¶6}    Mother filed a timely objection to the magistrate’s decision, preserving leave to

supplement after the transcript had been filed. Her preliminary objection asserted that the

magistrate erred in finding that her consent was not necessary. Mother’s supplemental objection

challenged both the sufficiency of Petitioner’s evidence relating to contact, support, and justifiable

cause; and the constitutionality of the 14-day time limit in R.C. 3107.07(K) to object to the
                                                  3

adoption petition. The supplemental objection developed a multi-page argument that the statutory

time limit violates due process.     Petitioner responded in opposition to Mother’s objection,

addressing both the evidentiary challenges and the constitutional argument.

        {¶7}    The probate court issued a judgment overruling Mother’s objection. The trial court

found that Mother’s consent to adoption was not required solely because she had failed to file a

timely objection to the petition for adoption in violation of R.C. 3107.07(K). The probate court

did not address Mother’s evidentiary challenges and expressly declined to address the

constitutionality of the statute, asserting that the issue had not been “raised below.” Mother timely

appealed, raising three assignments of error for review. This Court consolidates the assignments

of error to facilitate review.

                                                 II.

                                  ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR I

        PETITIONER’S PROCEDURAL FAILURE TO STRICTLY COMPLY WITH
        R.C. 3107.07(K) RESULTS IN A DENIAL OF DUE PROCESS[.]

                                 ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR II

        PETITIONER DID NOT PROVE BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE
        THAT [MOTHER] FAILED TO HAVE REQUISITE CONTACT WITHOUT
        JUSTIFIABLE CAUSE.

                                 ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR III

        PETITIONER DID NOT PROVE BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE
        THAT [MOTHER] FAILED TO PROVIDE REQUISITE SUPPORT WITHOUT
        JUSTIFIABLE CAUSE.

        {¶8}    Mother argues that the probate court erred by finding that her consent to the child’s

adoption was not required.

        {¶9}    It is well settled that “‘[t]his Court need not reach constitutional challenges that

were not timely raised before the trial court.’” In re Adoption of M.L.M., 9th Dist. Summit No.
                                                   4

30512, 2023-Ohio-1876, ¶ 16, quoting In re N.L., 9th Dist. Summit No. 27784, 2015-Ohio-4165,

¶ 51. In this case, however, Mother challenged the constitutionality of R.C. 3107.07(K) after the

magistrate relied on it, in part, to find that her consent to adoption was not necessary. Because

Mother “properly developed [her] constitutional challenges below, this Court [is] compelled to

remand to the probate court for consideration of those issues.” In re Adoption of M.L.M. at ¶ 16,

citing State v. Holler, 9th Dist. Wayne No. 21AP0013, 2021-Ohio-4599, ¶ 15-16 (declining to

address in the first instance issues “specifically argued” by the defendant below but not addressed

by the trial court so as not to usurp the role of the lower court).

       {¶10} Moreover, we decline to address Mother’s arguments that Petitioner failed to meet

her burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that Mother had failed without justifiable

cause to provide support or have more than de minimis contact with the child during the requisite

time period. The probate court did not address the adequacy of Petitioner’s evidence which “puts

this Court in the position of having to determine the merits of [Mother’s] arguments in the first

instance, which this Court will not do.” S.C. v. T.H., 9th Dist. Summit No. 29594, 2020-Ohio-

2698, ¶ 10, citing Catalanotto v. Byrd, 9th Dist. Summit No. 27824, 2016-Ohio-2815, ¶ 12 (“Due

to our role as a reviewing court, we cannot make a determination regarding the merits of an

argument in the first instance.”).

       {¶11} Because the probate court failed to consider the three issues Mother raises on

appeal, and which she properly raised below, we must reverse and remand for the trial court to

render a determination in the first instance. Mother’s three assignments of error are sustained on

that basis. See S.C. at ¶ 10.

       {¶12} This Court takes no position here regarding the propriety of the trial court’s raising

sua sponte the issue of Respondent-Mother’s failure to file a timely objection to the petition for
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adoption. Neither do we consider in this appeal whether a petitioner can validly waive the statutory

time limit in which a respondent must file an objection to the petition. We reverse and remand for

the probate court to render a judgment on the issues Mother raised in her objections to the

magistrate’s decision which found that her consent to adoption was not required.

                                                III.

       {¶13} Mother’s assignments of error are sustained. The judgment of the Summit County

Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, is reversed and the cause remanded for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                                               Judgment reversed,
                                                                              and cause remanded.

       There were reasonable grounds for this appeal.

       We order that a special mandate issue out of this Court, directing the Court of Common

Pleas, County of Summit, State of Ohio, to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy

of this journal entry shall constitute the mandate, pursuant to App.R. 27.

       Immediately upon the filing hereof, this document shall constitute the journal entry of

judgment, and it shall be file stamped by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals at which time the period

for review shall begin to run. App.R. 22(C). The Clerk of the Court of Appeals is instructed to

mail a notice of entry of this judgment to the parties and to make a notation of the mailing in the

docket, pursuant to App.R. 30.

       Costs taxed to Appellee.

                                                       JILL FLAGG LANZINGER
                                                       FOR THE COURT
                                                6

SUTTON, P. J.
STEVENSON, J.
CONCUR.

APPEARANCES:

JILL C. CABE, Attorney at Law, for Appellant.

CORINNE HOOVER SIX, Attorney at Law, for Appellee.