Court Opinion

ID: 9856188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:40:22.031206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:26:23.347388
License: Public Domain

HlNES, Justice.
This Court granted an interlocutory appeal in this divorce case to determine whether the adult adoption of John Walls by Cathy L. Conner operated to terminate the intervention of his parents in the custody determination concerning his child. Finding that it did not, we reverse.
John Walls, now known as John Conner (“Conner”), was adopted as a minor by Robert and Sherry Walls (the ‘Wallses”) in 1974. In 1998, Conner married Sharon Williams, now Sharon Walls; the marriage produced one minor child. On May 1, 2002, Conner (then still known as John Walls) filed for divorce from Sharon Walls in the Superior Court of Henry County. The elder Wallses moved to intervene in the divorce action, as paternal grandparents under OCGA § 19-7-1 (b.l), seeking temporary and permanent custody of the child. The Wallses alleged that they had been the primary care givers for the child, and had held temporary guardianship over her since 1998.
The motion to intervene was granted, and the trial court awarded the elder Wallses temporary custody on July 9,2002.1 On February 5, 2003, Conner was adopted by his biological mother, Cathy L. Conner, by an adult adoption decree of the Superior Court of Fulton County. See OCGA § 19-8-21.2
John Conner then moved in the divorce court to: (1) set aside the order allowing the Wallses to intervene; (2) set aside the award of temporary custody to the Wallses; and (3) dismiss the Wallses’ complaint for change of custody. Conner argued that the adult adoption decree severed all legal relationships between the Wallses and the child; because the Wallses were no longer his legal parents, they were no longer legally the grandparents of his child. The trial court agreed, and entered an interlocutory order, ruling that the Wallses were no longer the child’s legal grandparents, dismissing their intervention and all associated pleadings in the divorce action, setting aside the award of temporary custody to the Wallses, and awarding temporary custody of the child to Conner. The trial court also issued a certificate of immediate review and this Court granted the Wallses’ application for an interlocutory appeal. See OCGA § 5-6-34 (b).
*207The Wallses intervened in the custody dispute in this divorce action under the authority of OCGA § 19-7-1 (b.l), which allows a court to grant custody of a minor to certain third party non-parents, including the grandparents of that minor.3 Conner argues that the Wallses are no longer the grandparents of his daughter, and therefore can no longer seek custody of her under OCGA§ 19-7-1 (b.l). Herelies upon OCGA§ 19-8-21 (b), which states that OCGA§ 19-8-19 applies to an adult adoption. That Code section provides in part that:
... a decree of adoption terminates all legal relationships between the adopted individual and his relatives, including his parent, so that the adopted individual thereafter is a stranger to his former relatives for all purposes, including inheritance and the interpretation or construction of documents, statutes, and instruments, whether executed before or after the adoption is decreed, which do not expressly include the individual by name or by some designation not based on a parent and child or blood relationship. . . .
OCGA § 19-8-19 (a) (1). Conner contends that under this Code section, not only is the familial link between him and the Wallses broken, but so is the link, through him, between the Wallses and his daughter, as they are not her “grandparents.”4 Thus, he urges, they are not in the list of persons who can intervene under OCGA § 19-7-1 (b.l) in the divorce custody matter.
However, this argument ignores the fact that the intervention, and a court order granting temporary custody, have already occurred. And because of that fact, even if it is assumed that OCGA § 19-8-19 (a) (1) operates so as to affect relationships other than those of the adoptee, the specific statutory language of the Code section would exclude this situation from the operation of that statute. Under OCGA§ 19-8-19 (a) (1), an adoption does not affect those “documents” and “instruments” which “expressly include the individual by name.” Here, the individual at issue, the child,5 is specifically named in the *208petition for intervention under OCGA § 19-7-1 (b.l), and in the court’s interlocutory custody order.6 Thus, Conner’s argument must fail; OCGA § 19-8-19 (a) (1) cannot be read to extinguish the legal status that the Wallses held in this case.7

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Fletcher, C. J., and Hunstein and Corley, JJ., who concur specially.

 The correctness of this ruling is not at issue.

 It does not appear that the Wallses, Sharon Walls, or the child, were joined in, or notified of, the Fulton County adoption proceeding.

 Those third parties are “limited to grandparent, great-grandparent, aunt, uncle, great aunt, great uncle, sibling, or adoptive parent. .. OCGA § 19-7-1 (b.l).

 In advancing this argument, Conner relies upon the definition of “grandparent” found in OCGA § 19-7-3 (a); “the parent of a parent of a minor child, the parent of a minor child’s parent who has died, and the parent of a minor child’s parent whose parental rights have been terminated.” However, OCGA§ 19-7-3 (a) states that this definition of “grandparent” applies as the term is “used in this Code section.” Because of our analysis based upon the language of OCGA § 19-8-19 (a) (1), we need not determine whether the definition found in OCGA § 19-7-3 (a) applies to OCGA§ 19-7-1 (b.l).

 OCGA § 19-8-19 (a) (l)’s language concerning the inclusion of “the individual by name” apparently refers to the adopted individual. But, as Conner attempts to have the statute apply *208with the same effect to his daughter, the policy would remain the same; those relationships that are recognized and memorialized by identifying individuals by name, rather than by reference to a more general relationship, will not be affected by the adoption.

 Because the statute does not operate as to those documents which identify a person by name, the statute’s statement that it affects those documents executed prior to the adoption does not apply in this instance.

 Given our resolution of this case, we need not determine whether OCGA§ 19-8-19 (a) (l)’s statement that all legal relationships between an adopted person are terminated so that he is “thereafter a stranger to his former relatives” will operate, as a general matter, to terminate those relationships that are calculated through the adopted person.