Court Opinion

ID: 9741238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:52:10.824811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:23.061230
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
concurring.
While I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case, I do so on the basis of the plain wording of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-106.01 (Reissue 1978) which requires written acceptance of responsibility for the child by the agency as well as written relinquishment by the parent in order to result in loss of parental rights. The relinquishment document itself does not operate to terminate parental rights, and the Legislature itself has determined that any time prior to written acceptance by the agency constitutes a reasonable time within which to revoke a relinquishment in favor of an agency. However, the majority is attempting to second-guess the Legislature by its statement that, even in the absence of a signed acceptance by the agency, the parent has only a “reasonable time” within which to validly revoke a relinquishment document. This gratuitous injection of a separate “reasonable time” requirement for revocation is an act not within the power of this court, since “[i]t is not within the province of a court to read a meaning into a statute that is not warranted by legislative language. Neither is it within the province of a court to read anything plain, direct, and unambiguous out of a statute.” City of Lincoln v. Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, ante p. 630, 634, 304 N.W.2d 922, 925 (1981).
Krivosha, C.J., and Clinton, J., join in this concurrence.