Court Opinion

ID: 9778116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:33:30.525331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:03.926626
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge,
concurring in result.
I fully concur in the proposed disposition of remanding this cause for the hearing of additional evidence. However, in the exercise of the trial court’s discretion I would be less rigid and permit more flexibility as follows:
I note briefly the current fascination with the profound achievement of author Alex Haley in his recorded search for geneologi*767cal roots.1 These sensations of the consciousness of personal history are ample testimonials to the unique anxiety of Americans in discovering our origins; for we are, with rare exception, a nation of uprooted immigrants whose family crests are little more than the remnants of graffiti on the steerage deck walls of a generation of vessels.
All of us need to know our past, not only for a sense of lineage and heritage, but for a fundamental and crucial sense of our very selves: our identity is incomplete and our sense of self retarded without a real personal historical connection.
Is there any reasonable justification for us to prevent, in perpetuity, the geneological self-discovery of those among us who were adopted?
“It is too often forgotten that an adopted child eventually grows up . . . [We need not assume] that what was in an adop-tee’s best interest as a child is also in his best interest as an adult. While confidentiality is [undoubtedly] in the best interest of the child adoptee, it is questionable whether insistence upon confidentiality remains in his best interest after he has reached adulthood . . . Adoptees often suffer from what has been termed ‘geneological bewilderment.’ As a consequence, they become preoccupied with existential concerns and a feeling of isolation and alienation due to the break in the continuity of life through the generations that their adoption represents.” Note, Sealed Records in Adoption, 21 Cath.Law. 211, 217-18 (1975).
For many adoptees, the skeletal trace of background information would be of sufficient scope. Yet others will want and need to explore further, not satisfied by the cold responses of a social agency case worker, and inquire as to the identity of their mother, their father, and the existence, if any, of brothers and sisters. See Note, Discovery Rights of the Adoptee — Privacy Rights of the Natural Parent: A Constitutional Dilemma, 4 San Fernando Valley L.Rev. 65, 68 (1975).
“It is generally assumed that a biological parent who relinquishes a child for adoption wants to forget the entire experience and start a new life. Research indicates, however, that this is often not true. Many biological mothers, for example, periodically inquire about their children’s welfare at the agencies that handled the adoption. In a recent study of the effects of sealed-record adoptions, many biological mothers expressed a desire to share with their children current information about themselves and to receive reports concerning their children’s welfare.” Note, Sealed Records in Adoption, 21 Cath.Law. 211, 226 (1975).
We are presented in these cases with competing interests: those of the adoptee, the natural parents, and the adopted parents. The statute requires a showing of “good cause” as a predicate to the opening of records, and “good cause” can in no sense be understood to be automatic.
I would require the court on good cause shown to release such portions of an adoption proceeding record as it deems necessary to satisfy the needs and interests of the applicant when measured against the interests of the natural and adopted parents. The closing of such records by statute manifests a legislative intent that any opening or disclosure be with caution. The court through its juvenile officer or other functionary under its control would institute a confidential inquiry of those concerning whom the information is sought and so seek a waiver of the confidentiality of the records as to their identity and whereabouts.
The applicable standard would be the following: Such interests as are presented by the natural parents will predominate and be most pronounced in comparison to the interests of the adoptee at the time of the adoption. Thereafter the interest of the adoptee advances, however, in contradistinction to those of the natural and adopted parents, which recede. The adoptee’s interests become of greater import as he or she *768grows, to the point where, as an adult, they predominate over those interests which once had a superior claim.2
This sliding scale would provide the framework for a determinative calculation in the quest of adoptees for their sealed adoption records. No request should be granted automatically; each should compel a careful balancing of what may be extremely sensitive personal interests. There may be cases, for example, wherein the superior interests under the aforementioned sliding scale would nonetheless not prevail for reasons of the strength of a compelling personal objection.
Yet this standard would respect the integrity and maturity of adoptees and not treat them perpetually as children who must be shielded from the truth.
Because this cause is to be remanded for an evidentiary hearing, I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion.

. A. Haley, Roots (1976).

. Our neighboring state of Kansas permits adopted persons of legal age to see the original birth certificate on request or by order of court. K.S.A. 65-2423. This has been the law in Kansas since 1951. I do not believe this statute would have endured this long if its effect were to discourage adoptions.