Court Opinion

ID: 9794213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:01:22.442302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:59.460328
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
concurring,
I agree with the result the court reaches, but do not agree with its reasoning. In my view, the Indian Child Welfare Act (Act), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901-1963 (1983) does not apply to UJ’s action to set aside the decree of adoption. Since UJ cannot avail herself of the Act’s protections, we have to look no farther than AS 25.23.140(b) to resolve the case.
Through United States Const, art. I, § 8, cl. 3 and other constitutional authority, the United States reserved to Congress the power to regulate commerce with Indian tribes, and plenary power over Indian affairs. The Indian Child Welfare Act is grounded in this special relationship between the United States and Indian tribes and their members, and Federal responsibility to Indian people. The import of the Act’s congressional findings, 25 U.S.C. § 1901, and declaration of congressional policy, 25 U.S.C. § 1902, is a concern for Indian culture, Indian tribes, Indian tribal members, Indian families, and Indian children. The purpose of the Act is to protect the universe of Indian people by protecting discrete segments of that universe. The principal malefactor is the non-Indian and non-Indian agency, public or private.
I join with the court in rejecting the so-called “Indian family” exception to the plain language of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Such an exception could lead too easily to chicanery which would defeat the very purpose of the Act. I do not agree with the court, however, that the non-Indian in this case, UJ, may avail herself of the protections of the Act to further purposes which have nothing to do with furtherance of Indian welfare, so emphatically determined by Congress to be in need of protection. /
According to affidavits filed on behalf of SAF and BFF, there came a point after the birth of TNF when her biological mother, UJ, began to regret her surrogate parent role and resent other family members, including her parents and her sisters, one of whom, SAF, had become the adoptive mother of the child. Following an apparent suicide attempt, UJ began collecting material regarding surrogate parenthood. She sent packets of anti-surrogacy material to her mother and another sister, including *983press clippings regarding her own case and the efforts being made by the National Coalition Against Surrogacy to assist her. Apparently she testified in support of an anti-surrogacy bill before a legislative body, and appeared on television programs in both Seattle and Los Angeles, during which she espoused her anti-surrogacy views. UJ’s mother opines that UJ may be attempting to obtain remuneration by creating publicity regarding her case.
It is within this context that UJ seeks to avail herself of the protections of the Act. Regardless of the merits of her anti-surrogacy views, or other personal reasons she may have for wanting to set aside the decree of adoption, nothing UJ has advanced furthers the cause of Indian welfare. Although she has provided an affidavit in which she states that it is not her present intention to obtain custody of TNF, she is seeking significant visitation rights to further both her desire to have the best maternal relationship with TNF that circumstances permit and her desire that TNF and her other other children get to know one another. While these goals may be born of the best intentions, I submit that the Act is not the appropriate vehicle to achieve them. As the trial judge correctly noted, UJ’s legal position would defeat the very purpose the Act was enacted to serve.
The Supreme Court of New Jersey had occasion to discuss the Act at length in Matter of Adoption of a Child of Indian Heritage, 111 N.J. 155, 543 A.2d 925 (N.J. 1988). In that case, the unwed Indian mother took her baby from her home in a town bordering the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation to New Jersey for adoptive placement. She and the putative father already had one child, and allegedly she told the putative father that he was the father of this baby. At about the time of birth of the baby, the putative father returned to his family home in a nearby town, where he remained until approximately a month after birth. When he returned and began again to live with the mother, he learned that the baby had been placed for adoption. He did nothing for approximately 21 months, at which time he filed suit to set aside the adoption. The suit was filed one day before the expiration of the relevant statute of limitations. He never sought to establish paternity by either a court proceeding, written acknowl-edgement of paternity or holding out the baby as his own. It was on this basis that the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected the putative father’s argument, since 25 U.S.C. § 1903(9) excludes an unwed father from the definition of “parent” under the Indian Child Welfare Act where paternity has not been acknowledged or established. Since only a parent or Indian custodian can invalidate an action for termination of parental rights, 25 U.S.C. § 1914, the putative father in this case could not prevail.
The case is of interest in several respects. First, it rejected the “Indian family” exception, just as does this court today. I find its reasoning persuasive. Additionally, it rejected a related argument that since the child was never in the putative father’s custody, the child was not “removed” from the putative father’s custody and thus the putative father had no standing under 25 U.S.C. § 1914 to challenge- the adoption. Again, I find the court’s reasoning persuasive. However, it is clear throughout the opinion that the court assumes that the “parent” referred to in the Act is an Indian parent, not a non-Indian parent. Furthermore, as the court develops extensively, the entire thrust of the Indian Child Welfare Act is the protection of Indian people. The clear implication is that the Indian Child Welfare Act should not be applied where its application is inconsistent with that purpose.
In concluding its decision, the court observes:
The Act provides Indian parents the right to challenge even a final judgment of adoption in situations where a non-Indian would have no right to complain; it is only [the putative father’s] unexcused delay in establishing his right as a parent that prevents him from taking advantage of the benefits provided by the Act.
Child of Indian Heritage, 543 A.2d at 943. (Emphasis added).
*984Whether UJ is sincere in her declaration that she does not intend to gain custody of TNF is not significant. What is significant is the principle she seeks to establish; a non-Indian may avail himself or herself of the protections of the Act, even when the result would be to stand the Act on its head.1 UJ was not without rights and remedies, for she had both under state law. In my view what she does not have are rights and remedies created especially for Indian people, when the principal she is seeking to establish inevitably would lead to results which would defeat the purposes of the Act.
I recognize that my construction of “parent” to include only a biological Indian parent may be open to the same criticism that has been leveled against the “Indian family” exception or the related “custody” exception derived from 25 U.S.C. § 1914. However, it is clear that “parent” does not necessarily include all biological parents, and further that it does not include a non-Indian person who has adopted an Indian child. Taken in context, I do not believe that a construction of the term “parent” that excludes non-Indian biological parents is an unreasonable one.

. The court acknowledges how unlikely it is that Congress had a situation such as TNF’s in mind when the Act was adopted (Op. at 14) and yet it proceeds to apply the Act. Although the "plain meaning” of the Act speaks to the court’s result, it is a general rule of construction that “a thing which is within the letter of the statute is not within the statute unless it be within the intention of the makers." Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197, 212, 23 S.Ct. 787, 788, 47 L.Ed. 1016 (1902). See also, People v. Hannon, 5 Cal.3d 330, 96 Cal.Rptr. 35, 486 P.2d 1235, 1238 (1971) (literal interpretation of a statute is not necessarily controlling and will be rejected if it leads to an absurdity); Allen v. Multnomah County, 179 Or. 548, 173 P.2d 475, 478 (1946) (in arriving at the legislative intention, it is proper for the court to take into consideration the policy and purposes of the act, and to consider, in that connection, whether or not such policy and purposes will be attached by a literal interpretation of the language used).