Court Opinion

ID: 9733968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:21:41.368422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:44.743422
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
A parent may validly withdraw his/her consent to adoption. Matter of Adoption of Everett, 286 N.W.2d 810 (S.D.1979). See also, In re D.D.D., 294 N.W.2d 423, 426 (S.D.1980), wherein this Court remanded the case to the lower court with directions to determine the issue of voluntariness.
This father gave his consent to adoption in 1981 via a petition to voluntarily terminate his rights. However, at that time, he was suffering severely from multiple sclerosis and did not believe that he should continue to have a father-son relationship. The father was never notified of a hearing on adoption proceedings and the adoption proceedings just lingered. In 1984, the mother of the child, Mrs. Frank Mills, suffered a very serious heart attack. She was also a diabetic, extremely ill, blind in one eye, and partially blind in the other. Her heart attack was in February 1984 and the father was approached in March 1984, by Frank Mills’ attorney, concerning the proposed adoption. Father was not asked to consent to the proceedings but was then served with a petition alleging abandonment. Apparently, due to the health of the mother, father did not want to consent to the adoption. He simply had changed his *875mind. Also, his multiple sclerosis had gone into a state of remission. The petition before the trial court was based upon the father’s alleged abandonment of his son and not upon his consent to the adoption. Therefore, the court below erred in concluding that the father had consented. See In re Romero, 73 S.D. 564, 568, 46 N.W.2d 108, 110 (1951):
[W]e are not troubled by the fact that this mother signed a consent to the adoption of her child. In the circumstances at bar, we deem it enough that she changed her mind. We are unfamiliar with any principle of jurisprudence which would render such a naked consent binding on a parent.
A proceeding for voluntary relinquishment, which is the way this case started out, is intended to provide only for the parental relinquishment of unwanted children, not for the relinquishment of children who are genuinely wanted by a parent.
This brings us to the question of the sustainability of the trial court’s decision on abandonment. Under all of the circumstances of this case, having deeply considered the great custody and fundamental rights of a natural parent, In re K.D.E., 87 S.D. 501, 210 N.W.2d 907 (1973), I come to the conclusion that the trial court should be affirmed in its decision on abandonment. For approximately six years, the father did not support, write to, or visit his son. Although he had concern for his son when the adoption arose, and particularly that the son obtain Veteran’s benefits rights, he testified that he “wouldn’t go so far as to say I love him.” He indicated that if Mrs. Frank Mills were to die, he would not want custody of the boy but would leave the boy with Frank Mills. Replete is the record that Frank Mills was a loving father to this boy and had a warm relationship with him. All of the years of care by Frank Mills and the love that he has shown this boy, outweighs the possible loss of financial benefits from the Veteran’s Administration. In all of the years subsequent to the divorce in 1975, there simply does not appear to be an attempt by the natural father to have a meaningful relationship of any kind with his son. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court on the abandonment issue which requires no consent on the natural father’s part. See SDCL 25-6-4(2).