Court Opinion

ID: 9698808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:00:22.392735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:43.394233
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that a parent who has voluntarily surrendered a child to another for private-placement adoption is not foreclosed before the judgment of adoption from demonstrad ing that he or she has not forsaken parental obligations. That is the holding of In re Baby M, 109 N.J. 396, 537 A.2d 1227 (1988). Except in the case of approved-agency adoptions, a consent to surrender custody of a child is always revocable.
“[I]n an unsupervised private placement, since there is no statutory obligation to consent, there can be no legal barrier to its retraction.” The only possible relevance of consent in these matters, we noted, was that it might bear on whether there had been an abandonment of the child, or a forsaking of parental obligations. Otherwise, consent in a private placement adoption is not only revocable but, when revoked early enough, irrelevant.
[Id. at 433-34, 537 A.2d 1227 (quoting Sees v. Baber, 74 N.J. 201, 215, 377 A.2d 628 (1977)) (citations omitted).]
*496Because of that, the only basis on which a termination of parental rights may be premised is the familiar four-part standard set forth in In re Guardianship of J.C., 129 N.J. 1, 608 A.2d 1312 (1992).
The first finding is that the child’s health and development have been or will be seriously impaired by the parental relationship. Secondly, the court must conclude that the parents are unable or unwilling to eliminate the harm and that a delay in permanent placement will add to the harm. Third, the court should be convinced that alternatives to terminating parental rights have been thoroughly explored and exhausted, including sufficient efforts made to help the parents cure the problems that led to the placement. Fourth, all of those considerations must inform the determination that termination of parental rights will not do more harm than good.
[Id. at 9, 608 A.2d 1312 (citations omitted).]
That is because although “[t]he statutory descriptions of the conditions required to terminate parental rights differ[,] their interpretation in case law, however, tends to equate them.” Baby M, supra, 109 N.J. at 444, 537 A.2d 1227.
In this case, as in Baby M, “the trial court never found [the birth mother] an unfit mother * * Id. at 445, 537 A.2d 1227. I must, therefore, disagree with the majority that grounds for termination of the birth mother’s parental rights have been demonstrated. All that we have is a confused and hesitant young woman confronted by the eternal riddle posed by Solomon’s test: which of the two, a birth mother or an adopting parent, most loves this child?
Recognizing her own weaknesses, Jeanne, the birth mother, was willing to yield custody of her child to Donna and Steve, the adopting parents, but did not want to give up all contact with her child. Her rights to her child should be decided now on a level playing field. She did not know the rules that governed her conduct when she met with Donna and Steve. How could she possibly have understood the complexities of open adoption outlined by the majority in its opinion or that we would hold that it is not an option for her? But an open adoption is what she wanted and what may turn out. In a private-placement adoption, a mother who wishes to remain in contact with her child cannot *497realistically be shut out of the child’s life. Some day, somehow, they may or will be reunited.
Jeanne was a twenty-year-old single parent of a two-year-old child when she conceived her second child. She received public assistance. Jeanne had only a ninth-grade education. She was living in the home of her father and step-mother. Her parents gave her no emotional support. In fact, her father told her that she would have to move out if she kept the baby. Jeanne thought of an abortion, but she chose life for her child and in January 1990 began to consider adoption as a means of providing for the welfare of her unborn child.
In February 1990, through a friend of Jeanne, Donna communicated with Jeanne about the possible adoption of her child. Jeanne, Donna, and Steve discussed the adoption. Donna convinced Jeanne that her baby would have a better life in her home. Jeanne agreed to give Donna and Steve her baby for adoption provided that she would still have contact with the baby, that the baby would know her as next-of-kin, and that the baby would know his older brother.
On July 27, 1990, five days after delivering her son, Jeanne surrendered her newborn to Donna and Steve for a private adoption. On October 15,1990, with the advice of counsel, Jeanne signed a consent form for that adoption. Jeanne understood she would have six months to a year after surrendering the child to regain custody. She was correct.
Where a surrender [of a child] is given to one other than an approved agency, the effectiveness of the surrender is even more open to question. There is no statutory authority for honoring such a surrender, and the language of the adoption statute makes it quite clear that such surrender has no per se legal effect. The surrender may serve as some evidence of the intent of a parent to surrender his or her parental rights, so that a child may be adopted, or of the failure of the parent to meet the standards for objecting to an adoption, but it does not, in and of itself, provide a basis for the termination of parental rights. The court must, in the course of the preliminary hearing in an adoption action, confirm the failure of the parents to meet the standards for objecting to the adoption or determine that the parents have lost their rights to the child under the standards set forth in the statute.
*498[James B. Boskey, Adoption, The Termination Of Parental Rights And Baby M, 18 Seton Hall L.Rev. 866, 869-70 (1988) (footnotes omitted).]
Certainly, the idea of an “abandonment” of Jeanne’s child on the basis of her surrender is “open to question.”
As the trial court found and the majority states, “The parties agreed that Jeanne H. would receive pictures of the child and would be able to visit him.” Ante at 478, 641 A.2d at 237. Jeanne believed that even though she had no physical custody of her baby, she would still be “a big part of the baby’s life,” and was not totally abandoning her child. Jeanne testified that after surrendering the child, she made numerous telephone calls to Donna and Steve requesting pictures of the child and permission to see him. Donna denies receiving such requests but states she provided pictures and a videotape of the child to Jeanne.
During the months after surrendering her child and before Donna and Steve filed their complaint for adoption, Jeanne had second thoughts about giving up her child, and wanted her child back. Jeanne never told this to Donna and Steve because she wanted “to keep [her] end of the deal.” In early 1991, however, she communicated with the attorney who advised her when she first considered allowing Donna and Steve to adopt her child. She requested the attorney’s assistance to revoke her consent to the adoption and gain custody of her child, but the attorney refused to. continue representation. She communicated with other attorneys; however, she had no money with which to hire a lawyer. On learning that she might be eligible to obtain the assistance of Legal Services, she immediately communicated with that office.
Within months of the complaint for adoption, Jeanne sent a letter to the Atlantic County Surrogate objecting to the adoption. Through the assistance of Legal Services, Jeanne filed a complaint for custody on July 22,1991. Subsequently, she filed a motion for visitation.
Jeanne had always tried to maintain communication with her child. She continuously talked with Donna and Steve by telephone concerning the health, welfare, and development of the *499child. She had dinner with Donna and Steve in January 1991. As the majority notes, Jeanne stated that she asked to see the child “every other week” from the time of surrendering her child. However, not until the day before the child’s first birthday did Donna and Steve permit Jeanne to see her son.
Although Jeanne surrendered physical custody of her child, she never “abandoned” him and had not “forsaken [her] parental obligations” when she placed her child in a home with people whom she believed performed “the natural and regular obligations of care and support of [her] child.” N.J.S.A. 9:2—13(d). Nothing in this record indicates that Jeanne seriously impaired or will seriously impair her child’s health and development. Is she to be condemned because she sought, without full knowledge of the law, to provide a better place for her child to grow up? This record contains no evidence of harm to the child from exposure to his mother Jeanne. In short, no basis exists to .terminate Jeanne’s parental rights under the J.C. standards, except for the possible harm due to psychological bonding.
Because this child has lived with Donna and Steve for his entire life of four years, he might suffer irreparable injury if taken from them. If that be so and the court makes such a finding, then the law will have been fulfilled. But that finding cannot be made on this record. Jeanne must be given a chance to present her case on the issue of whether bonding with Donna and Steve is so strong that it could be broken now. I would remand the matter to the trial court for a hearing pursuant to Sorentino v. Family & Children’s Society of Elizabeth, 72 N.J. 127, 367 A.2d 1168 (1976), to determine if a “probability of serious harm to the child” would occur if the baby were reunited with his birth mother. Id. at 133, 367 A.2d 1168.
For affirmance—Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER, POLLOCK, GARIBALDI and STEIN—6.
Concurring in part; dissenting in part—Justice O’HERN—1.