Court Opinion

ID: 9762716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:29:51.201528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.880642
License: Public Domain

ORIE MELVIN, J.,
concurring and dissenting:
¶ 1 I concur in the result but disagree with the dispositive reasoning of the Majority. The instant facts are unique from those presented in either Kellogg2 or MacDonald3 in that the party now seeking visitation has voluntarily relinquished her parental rights, which includes visitation. Therefore, I disagree with the Majority’s bestowing of third party rights upon the instant Appellant. Moreover, on these facts I view the Appellee’s status as consonant with that of an adoptive parent.
¶ 2 Of particular importance, Kellogg and MacDonald did not discuss what effect the fact that the party seeking custody/visitation has already relinquished their *782parental rights would have on the status to be accorded that person. The Majority finds that this fact is unimportant because the adoptive parent is dead and thus considers Appellant as any other third party in a custody dispute. The right to visit with her biological child is one of the group of rights that were voluntarily relinquished and extinguished by the adoption and are not revived by the adoptive parent’s subsequent death. Thus, we should not ignore the extinguishment of her parental rights when examining her standing.
¶ 3 In general, the relevant focus in deciding the standing of a party is an analysis of that party’s interest in the subject matter of the dispute, not a weighing of his or her interest compared with another party. See generally Wm. Penn Parking Garage, Inc. v. City of Pittsburgh, 464 Pa. 168, 346 A.2d 269 (1975) (indicating standing focuses on nature of party’s interest in connection with challenged action). “The law of standing provides that one cannot evoke the jurisdiction of the court to enforce private rights or to maintain a civil action for the enforcement of such rights, unless he or she has, in an individual or representative capacity, some real interest in the cause of action, or a legal right, title or interest in the subject matter or controversy.” Jackson v. Garland, 424 Pa.Super. 378, 622 A.2d 969, 971 (1993). “[Wjhat is necessary to render a person aggrieved is that the party has a substantial, direct and immediate interest in the claim sought to be litigated.” Kuropatwa v. State Farm Insurance Company, 554 Pa. 456, 460, 721 A.2d 1067, 1069 (1998) (citing William Penn Parking Garage, supra).
¶ 4 Presently, when Appellant voluntarily relinquished her parental rights and consented to the paternal grandfather’s subsequent adoption of the child, her parental rights were lost forever.4 See 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(a) (stating “the parent or parents of the child may petition the court for permission to relinquish forever all parental rights to their child.”). Upon the death of the adoptive parent these rights do not revert to the biological parent. Such a result would run contrary to the effect given to adoptions. A necessary consequence of our adoption laws is to sever a child from its own family tree. As stated in Harvey Adoption Case, 375 Pa. 1, 3, 99 A.2d 276, 277 (1953), “a decree of adoption terminates forever all relations between the child and its natural parents, severs it entirely from its own family tree and engrafts it upon that of its new parentage: Schwab Adoption Case, 355 Pa. 534, 536, 50 A.2d 504, 505 (1947).” (Emphasis added). Accord Chambers Appeal, 452 Pa. 149, 154, 305 A.2d 360, 363 (1973).
Moreover, this statutorily created and judicially decreed relationship between adoptive parents and the child must be given ‘such finality as will abolish the fear that in the years ahead something will occur to extinguish the parent-child status and force [the adoptive parent] to relinquish the [child he has] adopted and upon whom [he has] lavished care and affection.’
In Re Adoption of Christopher P., 480 Pa. 79, 86, 389 A.2d 94, 97-98 (1978) (quoting List Adoption Case, 418 Pa. 503, 517, 211 A.2d 870, 877 (1965)).
¶ 5 The rationale therefore was aptly described in Faust v. Messinger, 345 Pa.Super. 155, 497 A.2d 1351 (1985), appeal dismissed, 514 Pa. 286, 523 A.2d 741 (1987):
The entire body of law pertaining to adoption harmonizes in order to place an adopted child in the shoes of a natural child in all legal respects, failing only to alter the biological makeup of the child. The intention and result of the law is to *783enfold an adopted child in his new family so as to be indistinguishable from his new siblings in every possible respect. Rights of inheritance are changed; parental and filial rights and duties are altered; birth records are substituted; adoption records are impounded. In every possible respect, all family relationships are thus reestablished within the adopting family and all ties with the natural family are eradicated.
Id. 497 A.2d at 1353.
¶ 6 Accordingly, I would find Appellant has no interest whatsoever let alone a “substantial, direct and immediate interest in the claim sought to be litigated.” Kuropatwa, 554 Pa. at 460, 721 A.2d at 1069. To accept, as the Majority does, that the Appellant has third party rights would circumvent the legal effect of adoption decrees by opening the door to the reassertion of rights long since forfeited. Moreover, to permit standing to Appellant would subvert the wishes of the adoptive parent who duly appointed Appellee as guardian of this child. I believe that the finality granted an adoptive parent by the adoption decree should be likewise extended to that adoptive parent’s statutorily prescribed choice of guardian. Since Appellee is now charged with the personal care of this child she should be permitted to select, as would be the adoptive parent’s right, the persons with whom the child will now associate in order to effectuate the child’s best interests. Hence, although the trial court and the Majority inappropriately applied the Kellogg standard, they nevertheless properly determined Appellant lacked standing.5 I, therefore, can only concur in the result.

. In Kellogg, the first wife sought custody of her former husband’s children from his second marriage following his murder at the hands of his second wife.

. In MacDonald, a cousin sought visitation of a child in the custody of the maternal grandmother.

. In a 1982 amendment to the Adoption Act, the legislature clarified the contents of the written consent. Section 2711(d) of the Adoption Act provides that the consent in-elude the language, "I understand that by signing this consent I indicate my intent to permanently give up all rights to this child.”

. It is well settled that where the result is correct, an appellate court may affirm a trial court’s decision on any ground. Boyer v. Walker, 714 A.2d 458, 463 n. 10 (Pa.Super.1998).