Court Opinion

ID: 9943016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-22 16:17:57.103578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:45:50.614724
License: Public Domain

This opinion is subject to revision before final
                     publication in the Pacific Reporter

                                2024 UT 6

                                   IN THE

      SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

             In the matter of the adoption of M.A.
      _______________________________________________

                           MARIANNE TYSON,
                              Appellant.

                           No. 20221097
                      Heard November 8, 2023
                      Filed February 22, 2024

            On Certification from the Court of Appeals

                  Third District, Salt Lake County
                   The Honorable Laura S. Scott
                          No. 223902369

                                 Attorney:
             David Pedrazas, Millcreek, for appellant

   ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE authored the opinion of the
    Court, in which CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, JUSTICE PETERSEN,
          JUSTICE HAGEN, and JUSTICE POHLMAN joined.

   ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE, opinion of the Court:

                          INTRODUCTION
  ¶1 Marianne Tyson wants to see the court records that
memorialized her 1978 adoption. 1 Tyson does not know who her

__________________________________________________________
   1 In juvenile matters, we typically refer to the subject of the case

by their initials. Tyson used her name in the district court briefing
and in the briefing before this court. We acknowledge the
importance of maintaining confidentiality in juvenile cases, but
because Tyson is an adult who uses her full name in court
documents, we do so as well.
                            In re M.A.
                      Opinion of the Court

birth parents are but hopes to learn “health, genetic, or social
information” about them to inform her doctors about any medical
predispositions she may have.
   ¶2 The Utah Legislature has made a number of policy choices
concerning adoption records. “An adoption document and any
other documents filed in connection with a petition for adoption
are sealed” and closed from public view for a century following the
adoption. UTAH CODE § 78B-6-141(2), (3)(e). The Legislature has
also decided that those sealed adoption records can be inspected or
copied when a petitioner has shown “good cause.” See id. § 78B-6-
141(3)(c). The Legislature has not, however, defined good cause.
This court has implemented the Legislature’s “good cause”
directive through Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 107(d). That rule
instructs a court to determine “whether the petitioner has shown
good cause and whether the reasons for disclosure outweigh the
reasons for non-disclosure.” UTAH R. CIV. P. 107(d).
   ¶3 The district court denied Tyson’s petition to examine her
adoption records. The court reasoned that good cause “require[d]
something more than a desire to obtain health or genetic or social
information unrelated to a specific medical condition of [Tyson]”
and that to require less would “severely undermine[]” the
“Legislature’s policy determination that adoption records should
be sealed for 100 years.”
   ¶4 Tyson appeals, arguing in part that the district court
misinterpreted the statute. We agree and remand to permit the
district court to reassess Tyson’s petition under the correct
standard.
                        BACKGROUND
    ¶5 Tyson was less than a year old when she was adopted in
1978. Some four decades later, she petitioned the district court to
unseal her adoption file to discover “health, genetic, or social
information” about her birth parents. Before her petition, Tyson
had requested records from Utah’s voluntary adoption registry,
which could not find a parental match. 2 In her petition, Tyson
claimed that her doctors had requested family medical history
regarding “menopause, high blood pressure and/or stroke” and
__________________________________________________________
   2 The Utah Adoption Registry is a voluntary, mutual-consent

registry that helps adult adoptees born in Utah and their birth
parents and blood-related siblings reunite with one another. See
UTAH CODE § 78B-6-144.
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                        Opinion of the Court

that she could not provide the history because of her lack of access
to her birth parents’ records. Tyson argued that her lack of family
medical history was sufficient good cause to unseal her record
under section 78B-6-141(3)(c). With respect to rule 107’s balancing
requirement, she contended that her desire to understand her
family medical history forty-four years after her adoption
outweighed any interest in keeping the record sealed from her
view.
   ¶6 Before the district court, Tyson admitted she was not
aware that she suffered from any genetic condition for which it
would be beneficial to have a better understanding of her family’s
medical history. The court asked for additional briefing on the
question of how it should interpret good cause. The court noted
that “as I interpret the statute correctly or incorrectly, good cause is
something more than simply the adult adoptee’s desire to have a
general understanding of health or background or ethnicity or who
the parents are.”
   ¶7 At the next hearing, Tyson continued to argue that her
right to know her birth parents and their respective medical
histories outweighed the birth parents’ privacy interests. The
district court denied Tyson’s petition. It recognized that “good
cause” is not defined in the statute nor in rule 107. The court also
noted that there was no controlling precedent to provide a
definition. The court nonetheless concluded that good cause
“require[d] something more than a desire to obtain health or
genetic or social information unrelated to a specific medical
condition of [a] [p]etitioner.” The court reasoned that to require less
would “severely undermine[]” the “Legislature’s policy
determination that adoption records should be sealed for 100
years. ”
    ¶8 The district court acknowledged that Tyson correctly
asserted that “[i]t is the intent and desire of the Legislature that in
every adoption the best [interest] of the child should govern and be
of foremost concern in the court’s determination.” (First
referencing UTAH CODE § 78B-6-102; and then citing In re Adoption
of B.B., 2017 UT 59, ¶ 35, 417 P.3d 1.) But the court also noted that
the Legislature has decided that an unmarried mother is entitled to
privacy regarding her pregnancy and adoption plan and that it
protected this right through the one-hundred-year seal and the
good cause requirement for unsealing. (Citing UTAH CODE § 78B-6-
102(5)(b), (7).) The court refused to use the best interest of the child

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                       Opinion of the Court

standard for its inquiry, instead adhering to the good cause
standard it had outlined.
   ¶9 The district court next conducted the balancing that rule
107 contemplates and determined that Tyson’s proffered reasons
for unsealing her adoption records did not outweigh her birth
mother’s privacy interests. The court found this was especially true
“given the confidentiality that the statute afforded [the birth
mother] when she made the decision to place [Tyson] for adoption
over 40 years ago.” The court also noted that “in the absence of
good cause, the court is required to guard the confidentiality of
adoption records consistent with the Utah Legislature’s policy that
such records be sealed.” In accordance with this analysis, the court
determined that Tyson was not entitled to obtain the requested
records and denied her petition.
                    STANDARD OF REVIEW
    ¶10 The Legislature has given district courts discretion to
decide if good cause exists to unseal adoption records. We review
that decision for an abuse of that discretion. But “[w]hen district
courts have discretion to weigh factors[] [or] balance competing
interests, . . . those discretionary determinations must rest upon
sound legal principles.” State v. Boyden, 2019 UT 11, ¶ 21, 441 P.3d
737. A “[m]isapplication of the law constitutes an abuse of
discretion.” Id. ¶ 19. Thus, “when a legal conclusion is embedded
in a district court’s discretionary determination, we peel back the
abuse of discretion standard and look to make sure that the court
applied the correct law.” Id. ¶ 21. We review a lower court’s
statutory interpretation for correctness. Scott v. Benson, 2023 UT 4,
¶ 25, 529 P.3d 319.
                            ANALYSIS
    ¶11 Tyson raises three arguments on appeal. She first claims
that the best interest of the child is the overriding consideration in
all adoption cases. And therefore, Tyson contends, the district court
abused its discretion when it failed to consider whether the
unsealing of her adoption records was in her best interest. Tyson
next argues that the district court abused its discretion when it
concluded that she was not entitled to obtain the records under
Utah Code section 78B-6-141(3)(c). Finally, she contends that the
district court abused its discretion when it held that the interest in

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                        Opinion of the Court

non-disclosure outweighed Tyson’s justifications to unseal the
records under Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 107. 3
 I. THE GOOD CAUSE STANDARD, NOT THE BEST INTEREST
     OF THE CHILD STANDARD, APPLIES TO PETITIONS TO
               UNSEAL ADOPTION RECORDS
    ¶12 Tyson first asserts that the district court erred because it
failed to afford primacy to the “child’s best interest” in its analysis.
Before the district court, Tyson argued that the Legislature has
recognized that “in every adoption the best interest of the child
should govern” and that standard should apply to her petition.
(Quoting UTAH CODE § 78B-6-102(1).) The court refused to apply
that standard and instead analyzed Tyson’s petition using what it
understood to be the good cause standard found in Utah Code
section 78B-6-141(3)(c).
   ¶13 Tyson argues that as an adult who was adopted as a minor,
she maintains the protections that the law affords to adopted
children. 4 Tyson advocates that the Legislature’s mandate—that
“in every adoption the best interest of the child should govern”—
applies to all proceedings related to a child’s adoption, regardless
__________________________________________________________
   3  On appeal, Tyson asserts that “[e]very person has the
constitutional and natural right to know their health, genetic or
social information” and that by denying her that right and refusing
to unseal her adoption records, we are denying her equal protection
under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. But
Tyson has failed to offer any authority or legal basis to support that
argument. Advancing a successful argument requires more than
dangling an interesting soundbite. “A party may not simply point
toward a pile of sand and expect the court to build a castle.” Salt
Lake City v. Kidd, 2019 UT 4, ¶ 35, 435 P.3d 248. Tyson has
inadequately briefed her constitutional argument, and we will
leave the question for a case in which it has been fully briefed.
   4 Tyson cites the District of Columbia high court to support her

proposition that the legal protections afforded to children should
extend to minor adoptees who have become adults. (Citing In re
G.D.L., 223 A.3d 100 (D.C. 2020).) That case is not helpful because
the District of Columbia’s unsealing statute is significantly
different from Utah’s. The D.C. statute provides that adoption
records may only be unsealed “when the court is satisfied that the
welfare of the child will . . . be promoted or protected.” D.C. CODE
§ 16-311.

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                        Opinion of the Court

of when the proceedings occur. Tyson further argues that because
“the best interests of the child are paramount[,] . . . [w]hen the
interests of a child and an adult are in conflict, the conflict must be
resolved in favor of the child.” (Citing In re Adoption of B.B., 2017
UT 59, ¶ 35 n.14, 417 P.3d 1.) Tyson contends we should
categorically consider her interest, “as the adult adoptee, over the
interest of her birth parents.”
    ¶14 Even assuming, without deciding, that the child’s best
interest standard would otherwise apply to this proceeding, a basic
canon of statutory interpretation defeats Tyson’s argument. “When
we interpret a statute, we start with the plain language of the
provision, reading it in harmony with other statutes in the same
chapter and related chapters.” Buck v. Utah State Tax Comm’n, 2022
UT 11, ¶ 27, 506 P.3d 584 (cleaned up). “And where there is an
inconsistency between related statutory provisions, the specific
provision controls over the general.” Latham v. Off. of Recovery
Servs., 2019 UT 51, ¶ 35, 448 P.3d 1241.
    ¶15 Here, Tyson wants us to promote the general over the
specific. Section 78B-6-102(1) speaks about the “intent and desire of
the Legislature” generally regarding adoptions, in that “in every
adoption the best interest of the child should govern.” Section 78B-
6-141(3)(c) speaks directly to the issue presented here—what a
petitioner must show to unseal adoption records. We presume that
the Legislature intended the more specific provision to control over
the general statement. Therefore, the district court did not err when
it applied the good cause standard instead of examining what was
in Tyson’s best interest.
 II. THE DISTRICT COURT ERRED WHEN IT RELIED ON THE
        LEGISLATURE’S DECISION TO SEAL ADOPTION
     RECORDS FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS TO DERIVE THE
                MEANING OF “GOOD CAUSE”
    ¶16 The district court concluded that a desire to obtain health
information “unrelated to a specific medical condition” was
categorically insufficient to make a good cause showing under
section 78B-6-141(3)(c). The court relied on what it perceived as the
Legislature’s strong emphasis on privacy in adoption statutes to
reach that conclusion. Tyson’s desire to provide family medical
history to her doctors regarding “menopause, high blood pressure
and/or stroke” did not, in the court’s eyes, constitute good cause
to unseal her adoption records.

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    ¶17 Tyson challenges the district court’s definition of good
cause. She argues that the privacy concerns the Legislature
addresses lose their potency over time. Tyson claims her birth
mother has enjoyed over forty years of privacy and that affording
her further confidentiality cannot outweigh Tyson’s desire to know
her family medical history. Specifically, Tyson states that the only
reason the Legislature protects a birth mother’s privacy is to assure
“the permanence of an adoptive placement.” (Quoting UTAH CODE
§ 78B-6-102(5)(b).) Tyson argues that “once the Adoptee is an adult,
there is no other interest in protecting the privacy of the mother
and/or adoptee” because permanence has been achieved. In other
words, “once the adoptee has become an adult, the legislative
intent has been met and satisfied.” So, according to Tyson, “[t]he
interest of Adult Adoptee[s] [like Tyson] should outweigh
whatever interest the [S]tate has in protecting . . . [the] privacy of
the mother from an Adult Adoptee.”
    ¶18 Utah Code section 78B-6-141(3)(c) states that an adoption
petition and all other documents filed in connection with a petition
for adoption “may only be open to inspection and copying . . . upon
order of the court expressly permitting inspection or copying, after
good cause has been shown.” When it applied this provision to
Tyson’s petition, the district court stated that good cause required
Tyson to show “something more than a desire to obtain health or
genetic or social information unrelated to a specific medical
condition.” The court further reasoned that “if this was all that was
required to show good cause, the Utah Legislature’s policy
determination that adoption records should be sealed for 100 years
would be severely undermined.” In essence, the court concluded
that a desire to see one’s medical record unrelated to a specific
medical condition could not constitute good cause as a matter of
law because it would weaken the privacy protections the statute
affords to birth parents.
    ¶19 The Legislature did not define good cause in the context of
section 78B-6-141(3)(c). This stands in contrast to other statutory
provisions where the Legislature makes clear what it intends good
cause to mean. For example, in Utah Code section 32B-14-102(3),
the Legislature tells us that good cause equates to “the material
failure by a supplier or a wholesaler to comply with an essential,
reasonable, and lawful requirement imposed by a distributorship
agreement if the failure occurs after the supplier or wholesaler
acting in good faith provides notice of deficiency and an
opportunity to correct.”

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                              In re M.A.
                        Opinion of the Court

    ¶20 At times, the Legislature has granted courts broad
discretion by not defining good cause, only to add a definition after
it sees how the courts have applied the standard. We noted in State
v. Ruiz that, under a prior version of the plea withdrawal statute,
judges “had broad discretion to determine the scope of
circumstances that constituted ‘good cause’ and warranted
withdrawal of a plea.” 2012 UT 29, ¶ 31, 282 P.3d 998. But we also
noted that the Legislature had amended the statute so that “judges
may now grant a motion to withdraw only when they determine
that a defendant’s plea was not knowingly and voluntarily
entered.” Id. ¶ 32.
   ¶21 When a court deals with an undefined good cause
standard, it has discretion to look to the facts and arguments
presented to decide the question. Although it deals with a rule and
not a statute, Reisbeck v. HCA Health Services of Utah, Inc. is
instructive. See 2000 UT 48, ¶¶ 5–15, 2 P.3d 447. The appellant in
Reisbeck failed to file her notice of appeal within the thirty days that
Utah Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a) requires and sought a
discretionary extension from the trial court for “good cause” under
Utah Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(e). Id. ¶¶ 5, 7. We refused to
“establish any specific criteria for determining good cause” because
“the assessment of the justifications offered by a moving party will
remain highly fact-intensive, and because any given justification
may entail aspects both within and beyond the moving party’s
control.” Id. ¶¶ 14–15 (cleaned up). That is, an undefined good
cause standard provides courts with discretion to consider the
merits of individual cases.
    ¶22 Here, the district court attempted to breathe a more
specific meaning into the phrase “good cause.” Although it is
understandable that the court would want more guidance than the
statute provides, it interpreted the statute in a fashion that rewrote
the law. The district court opined that good cause must mean
“something more than a desire to obtain health or genetic or social
information unrelated to a specific medical condition of [Tyson].”
The court reasoned that to require less would “severely
undermine[]” the “Legislature’s policy determination that
adoption records should be sealed for 100 years.”
   ¶23 But the statute already balances the policy determination
that records be sealed for one hundred years against a petitioner’s
desire to see those records. The Legislature resolved the question
of when a petitioner can have access to those records by stating that
a petitioner can unseal those records whenever she can show a

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court that good cause exists to do so. To impose additional
requirements—such as more than a general desire to know one’s
medical history—is inconsistent with the statute’s language. Stated
differently, if the Legislature had wanted to impose a requirement
that a petitioner point to something more than wanting to know her
medical history, it could have put that in the statute. It did not, and
it was error for the court to do so.
     III. THE DISTRICT COURT DID NOT CONSIDER THE
               REASONS FOR DISCLOSURE IN ITS
                  RULE 107 DETERMINATION
   ¶24 The district court not only concluded that Tyson had failed
to establish good cause under section 78B-6-141(3)(c), it also
determined that she could not meet the showing Utah Rule of Civil
Procedure 107(d) requires.
    ¶25 Rule 107 provides, in relevant part, that: (i) a petition to
open adoption records “shall identify the type of information
sought and shall state good cause for access”; (ii) if seeking “health,
genetic or social information, the petition shall state why the health
history, genetic history or social history of the Bureau of Vital
Statistics is insufficient for the purpose“; and (iii) in its resolution
of the petition, “[t]he court shall determine whether the petitioner
has shown good cause and whether the reasons for disclosure
outweigh the reasons for non-disclosure.” 5 UTAH R. CIV. P. 107(b),
(d).
    ¶26 Here, the district court ruled that Tyson’s “reasons for
wanting access to the adoption records” did not “outweigh her
birth mother’s interest in privacy.” But instead of balancing both
interests under rule 107, the court focused solely on the birth
mother’s privacy interests. The court did not consider the reasons
for disclosure. This is likely because the court had already
discounted Tyson’s desire to see her adoption records when it
interpreted “good cause.” In other words, once the court
determined that Tyson could not show good cause under section
__________________________________________________________
   5 At first blush, Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 107 appears to

smear some extra-textual gloss on the statute when it requires a
petitioner to state why she cannot get medical information from the
Bureau of Vital Statistics, and when it instructs a court to assess
whether the “reasons for disclosure outweigh the reasons for non-
disclosure.” Tyson does not challenge rule 107 and we will leave
that question for another case.

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                       Opinion of the Court

78B-6-141(3)(c), it may have concluded that it had nothing to put on
the disclosure side of the scale when the court balanced disclosure
against non-disclosure.
    ¶27 We remand to permit the district court to evaluate Tyson’s
petition under a correct interpretation of section 78B-6-141(3)(c)
and to conduct a rule 107 balancing that gives weight to both the
birth mother’s privacy interests and Tyson’s reasons for wanting to
see her adoption records.

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