Court Opinion

ID: 9678454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:20:13.678298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:04.709757
License: Public Domain

*479HUGHES, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent to the reversal of the judgment of the trial court in this matter and would affirm its action for the following reasons:
1. A suit for adoption of a child may not be filed or prosecuted by any individual who is not a “person with an interest in the child” within the meaning of Tex. Family Code Ann. § 11.03 (1975).
2. The paternal grandparents of an illegitimate child who has not been legitimated by the child’s biological father are not by virtue of their blood relationship alone “person(s) with an interest in the child” within the meaning of Tex. Family Code Ann. § 1103 (1975).
3. A grandparent may not seek access to his or her grandchild pursuant to Tex. Family Code Ann. § 14.03(d) (Supp. 1978-79), after the parent-child relationship between the child’s last surviving parent and the child has been terminated by judicial decree appointing as the child’s managing conservator a licensed child-placing agency and authorizing placement of the child for adoption by that agency.
4. Blood relatives of a child who have not established a court-ordered relationship with the child prior to rendition of judgment terminating the parent-child relationship between the child and the child’s living parents are not by virtue of their blood relationship alone “person(s) with an interest in the child” within the meaning of Tex. Family Code Ann. § 11.03 (1975).
5. Persons who are not “person(s) with an interest in the child” within the meaning of Tex. Family Code Ann. § 11.03 (1975), do not have standing to request a court to order placement of the child in their home by a licensed child-placing agency or to seek judicial review of a decision by the agency not to place such child in their home.
I view the holding in Lutheran Social Service, Inc. v. Farris, 483 S.W.2d 693 (Tex.Civ.App. — Austin 1972, writ ref’d n. r. e.) as the proper authority in this case and feel that the preservation of the integrity of the agency adoption process should be paramount.