Court Opinion

ID: 9757479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:42:30.946016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.800589
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting in part). In the paragraph just before the rescript, the opinion appears to indicate that an appeal from a probate decree upon an adoption matter requires the Superior Court to hold a trial de novo in the broadest sense in which that expression is used. If the paragraph is intended to give approval to that procedure, I must register a dissent, although I am in accord with the opinion as it determines the substantive law of the case.
The statute gives to the Court of Probate exclusive jurisdiction over proposed adoptions. General Statutes § 6866. Jurisdiction is acquired through the action of one or both of the parties in filing an appli*604cation seeking approval of the previously executed adoption agreement. § 6867. The statute further provides that at the hearing subsequently held thereon the Court of Probate may (1) deny the application, or (2) enter a final decree.approving the adoption if it is satisfied that the adoption is for the best interest of the child, or (3) enter an interlocutory decree approving the adoption for a limited period of time and ordering another hearing at the end of such period for the purpose of giving final approval to the agreement or of disapproving it, or (4) adjourn the hearing after ordering a further investigation and a report thereon. It is difficult to visualize any clearer language which the legislature might have used in delegating such a wide discretion to a court to which exclusive jurisdiction of the subject matter was also granted.
Since the primary jurisdiction over adoption has been reposed in the Court of Probate, it cannot be usurped by the Superior Court. Home Trust Co. v. Beard, 116 Conn. 396, 400, 165 A. 208. Nor can the latter exercise a discretion vested in the former. Reiley v. Healey, 122 Conn. 64, 79, 187 A. 661. The Superior Court can go no further than to review the action of the Court of Probate in an effort to determine whether its discretion has been reasonably and legally exercised. Gwynn v. Tierney, 138 Conn. 425, 428, 85 A. 2d 250.
The remand in the case at bar goes too far. It should impose upon the Superior Court the limitation of determining no more than whether the Court of Probate acted illegally, or arbitrarily, or so unreasonably as to have abused its discretion.