Court Opinion

ID: 9782069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:56:24.133295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:46.803080
License: Public Domain

*636WILKINS, Associate Chief Justice,
dissenting:
T50 I respectfully differ with my colleagues. It appears clear that the Legislature intended to give an unmarried biological father a strictly limited but adequate period of time within which to take the legal steps necessary to assert any claim he intends to make as a legal father. The period begins at the moment of conception and ends at the time the biological mother executes her consent to adoption. If he fails to act promptly, his claim to the child ends with the mother's. The usual biological processes result in a window of at least eight or nine months within which the unmarried biological father is at liberty to file the necessary legal action and notice. The only obstacle to successful preservation of this right is totally within the control of the father: delay.
151 The limitation placed by statute on the legally effective consent to adoption by the biological mother is not linked to, nor does it appear to be intended to limit, action by the unmarried biological father. The father has until the mother consents to the adoption of the child. The mother is prohibited from consenting to the adoption for a period of 24 hours after the birth of her child. Although these two limitations are interrelated factually, they are independent legally. No direct reference to the "additional 24 hours, or one business day" relied upon by my colleagues appears in the statute relating to the father's limitations.
152 No predictable cut-off date for the father's filing is discernible in advance. It is subject to calculation only in retrospect, and only when and if the mother gives her consent to adoption of the child. As a result, Rule 6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure (extending to the next business day an act required by a designated date) has no application. An unmarried biological father cannot possibly rely on Rule 6 in waiting until Monday. Only after it is too late can he even know that the deadline has arrived.
153 This result, harsh as it may at times appear, is in keeping with the policy set by the Legislature. Those who elect to father a child without benefit of marriage must take steps to assert their legal relationship with the child, or they risk losing it altogether. The policy of the law is to give the greatest benefit to the child, the innocent party in the overall situation, by encouraging either responsible parenting or prompt and early adoption. A father who waits the full gestation period before taking the necessary action to ensure his continued legal relationship with his child, does so at his own risk. The law acts to cut him off, in favor of his child, when prompt and legal adoption is the alternative.
1 54 I find no constitutional impediment to the statutory process established by the Legislature in this regard. I would affirm the decision of the trial court.