Court Opinion

ID: 9539927
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:11:42.652987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:27.733947
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
dissenting, with whom GOLDEN, Justice, joins.
I join in the dissenting opinion of Justice Golden. I perceive the process approved in this case to be akin to the riddle about whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if no one is there to hear. The riddle is unsolvable and leads nowhere. This is true of a relinquishment and consent to adoption when there is no adoption. A legal limbo results. The relationship of parent and child is effectively severed, but there is no resolution of the status of either. The result is quite different from that described in § U-2-817, W.S.1977 (July 1986 Repl.). Resolution can be attained only by a final decree of adoption, which probably will never occur. For this reason, I add some thoughts of my own.
When DP ASS initiates a proceeding to terminate parental rights, it does so on the premise that the action, even though it interferes with a fundamental liberty interest, is necessary in order to protect the safety and welfare of the child. When DP ASS is pursuing a valid adoption proceeding, the primary concern is the best interest of the child advanced with the concurrence of the natural parent or parents and, in that instance, the necessity of protecting the safety or welfare of the child, which justifies the deprivation of the fundamental liberty interest of the parent, is not an issue. The motivation and justification for these different proceedings are quite disparate. The burden of proof in a termination proceeding is upon DPASS, and clear and convincing evidence is required. Obviously, that burden of proof is very different from simply defending a claim of fraud or duress in a proceeding in which the parent seeks to revoke a relinquishment and consent to adoption. In this *1116latter situation, the burden of proof is upon the natural parent.
It is the obligation of the state agency to decide whether it needs to protect the safety or welfare of the child or whether it is advancing an adoption of the child and then to choose its ground and proceed accordingly. In this instance, DPASS did choose the ground. It chose to proceed with a termination of parental rights. When that was frustrated because of the failure to comply with essential requirements, the state agency offered an executed relinquishment and consent to adoption as an alternative to the termination of parental rights proceeding that it had initiated. It substituted an orange for an apple. This court now permits DPASS to make that shift and to avoid its burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence the necessity for interfering with the fundamental liberty interest of the parent and child. Instead, DPASS is permitted to assert that the burden is on the natural parent to show fraud or undue influence. As Justice Golden astutely points out, the majority imposes this requirement in the absence of the policy that justifies the rulé. There are no adoptive parents whose interests demand that the relinquishment and consent be essentially irrevocable.
By the majority decision, we have approved a tactic of DPASS that never will permit us to determine whether the State could meet its appropriate burden. Agents of DPASS are entitled to assume that, after initiating a termination proceeding, the burden of proof always can be avoided by obtaining a relinquishment and consent for adoption which would be irrevocable. There is a manifest opportunity for, and a strong implication of, duress in such a process. I would avoid that difficult dilemma by a rule that a misrepresentation is present whenever a relinquishment and consent to adoption is obtained by DPASS without a planned adoption. (While styling this situation an artifice may be apt, that word for me falls short of describing the event, which is a fraud.) Absent a pending adoption, DPASS is unable to articulate the proper ground for seeking the relinquishment and consent for adoption. It cannot speak the truth, that it is choosing to avoid proof by clear and convincing evidence of a statutory ground for terminating the rights of the parent. Its silence is very much like the tree falling when there is no one there to hear. I would treat the unsolvable circumstance as fraud as a matter of law unless the record very clearly demonstrated that the parent executing the consent and relinquishment for adoption was apprised of the fact that it was to be used as a substitute for termination of parental rights; that DPASS deliberately chose the alternative; that DPASS was avoiding a difficult burden of proof; and that all the effects of the consent and relinquishment without a planned adoption were clearly presented to the executing parent.
I recognize, in this instance, that there really is nothing likely to happen that will save these children from the foster home process. My concern is the development of a legal principle that will inflict this unfortunate result on unknown numbers of children in the future. Given the prospect of future harm, it is inappropriate to approve this facile maneuver by an agency of the State. I would reverse and remand for resolution of the proceeding to terminate parental rights.