Court Opinion

ID: 9766302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:40:30.936249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.122967
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
The Court today holds that the doctrine of estoppel may bar a mother from seeking to terminate involuntarily the parental rights of her former husband on the ground of non-paternity. Act of July 24, 1970, P.L. 620, § 311(3), 1 P.S. § 311(3) (Supp.1976-77). Because I believe that the doctrine of estoppel should not be applied in involuntary terminations proceedings, I dissent.
The doctrine of estoppel is applied “to prevent a party from assuming a position or asserting a right to another’s disadvantage inconsistent with a position previously taken.” Blofson v. Cutaiar, 460 Pa. 411, 417, 333 A.2d 841, 843 (1975); see also Sabino v. Junio, 441 Pa. 222, 272 A.2d 508 (1971); In re Estate of Tallarico, 425 Pa. 280, 228 A.2d 736 (1967). The doctrine is rooted in concepts of justice and fairness and serves to prevent a party from asserting a claim of self-interest on the basis of a fact which he had previously misrepresented. Were the instant action one which involved solely the vindication of a personal interest of Mrs. Goodling, I would agree that her actions towards her former husband were of the sort which ought to give rise to an estoppel. But an involuntary termination proceeding is not such an action, and I cannot subscribe to its application here.
*155A court may decree an involuntary termination of parental rights only when non-paternity, parental abandonment, neglect or abuse is demonstrated and when it is deemed in the best interest of the child to do so. In re Adoption of R. I., 468 Pa. 287, 299 n. 12, 361 A.2d 294, 300 n. 12 (1976). Conceptually, an involuntary termination proceeding concerns not only the self-interest of the parent, but important interests of the child as well. As this court has recently noted:
“In termination proceedings, unlike delinquency proceedings, the child’s interest is usually represented by the contending parties. His interest is, of course, to be provided adequate parental care and subsistence. He has a right to remain with a natural parent who is providing that care and who wishes to continue the parent-child relationship. In such a case, the parent represents the child.” Matter of Kapcsos, 468 Pa. 50, 58, 360 A.2d 174, 178 (1976).
By sealing the lips of Mrs. Goodling in this case the Court, in my view, silences a voice necessary for the complete representation of the child’s interests. The consequence of doing so is to deprive the child of a judicial inquiry into whether grounds exist for the judicial involuntary termination of his presumed father’s rights as a parent on the ground of non-paternity, and whether or not, in the light of the evidence which would otherwise be adduced, it is in the best interests of the child that termination be ordered. The Court suggests that there exists a childlike unquestioning assumption of Robert Dale that the appellee is in truth his natural father which should not be disturbed, and that the child should be able to maintain faith in and gather strength from that important relationship. Aside from being conjecture, this is only a part of the total picture; a court cannot make an informed and intelligent evaluation of all relevant factors bearing on termination if it deliberately eschews knowledge of a factor which the legislature has expressly made a permissible ground for termination.
*156The provisions of the involuntary termination statute were enacted to protect the children of this Commonwealth. By foreclosing consideration of possible grounds for involuntary termination on the basis of one parent’s past transgressions the Court today in a real sense visits the sins of the parent (here, the mother) upon the child.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.