Court Opinion

ID: 9712113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:46:42.013082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:10.063657
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(concurring). I write separately only to express and explain my disagreement with the court’s conclusion that the findings in a care and protection proceeding, although not preclusive, properly may be introduced in evidence in a subsequent trial of a petition to dispense with consent to adoption. My disagreement has little bearing on this case since the findings here were probably harmless and the mother neither objected to the introduction of such findings at trial nor argues before this court that the findings should not have been admitted. However, for future cases, I oppose a rule that findings made in a care and protection proceeding may be used against a *13parent in a subsequent proceeding to dispense with consent to adoption. All the reasons that the court articulates to support the proposition that care and protection findings should not result in issue preclusion argue with equal force against the admissibility of such findings. If issue preclusion would be unfair to the parent, as I agree that it would, treating the care and protection findings as evidence would be unfair as well. Furthermore, except where issue preclusion applies, I know of no instance in which the findings in one proceeding may be admitted in evidence in a different proceeding as proof of the facts found. The court’s announcement today introduces an unwarranted innovation to our procedure.
As the court so appropriately recognizes, there is a world of difference between the impact on a parent of a determination that the parent requires temporary help in caring for his or her child, and the impact of a final involuntary severance of the parent-child relationship which results from the allowance of a petition to dispense with consent to adoption. It is unfair to allow facts determined at a hearing that may well be nonadversary, a hearing that is ostensibly held only to determine whether there is a temporary need for care and protection, to be used subsequently in an adversary context forever to terminate a family relationship.
The rule announced today is not only unfair. In addition, it is predictable that in many cases the rule will be counter-productive to the goals of the care and protection statute. Ideally, in a care and protection proceeding, the concerns of the parents, the child, the social agency, and the court “should be identical: strengthening the family in order to provide a safe and healthful environment for the child. When the Department of Social Services, a private welfare agency, or an individual petitions a court under G. L. c. 210, § 3, to dispense with the natural parent’s consent to adoption, the cooperative effort between the parent and the intervening agency or individual necessarily ceases, and the relationship between the parent and the government acquires an adversary character.” Petition of the Catholic Charitable Bureau to Dispense with Consent to Adoption, 392 *14Mass. 738, 743 (1984). The court should encourage the parents’ cooperation in connection with care and protection proceedings. Instead, the court’s message today is that, at a care and protection hearing, a parent must battle every inch of the way because the findings made in that proceeding will be available for use against him or her in the crucial involuntary adoption proceeding yet to come.
The announced rule will not enhance judicial efficiency. It is true that hearings on petitions to dispense with consent to adoption may on occasion be somewhat expedited by the availability to the judge of the earlier findings of another judge, but that possible benefit is surely outweighed by converting nonadversary care and protection proceedings into adversary ones. In any event, claims of judicial efficiency surely do not justify the unfairness and counter-productivity involved in using care and protection findings in a later proceeding to dispense with a parent’s consent to the adoption of his or her child.