Court Opinion

ID: 9558679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:15:20.817218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:30.795072
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
with whom SIMMS, J., joins, concurring in judgment.
¶ 1 I concur in the court’s judgment but not in its pronouncement. Were I to write separately, I would regard
*1275(a) standing to challenge (or cloud) the unwed sire’s legal interest in his out-of-wedlock child as well as (b) the quantum of putative father’s rights to the claimed offspring
as issues governed by state law rather than by the minima of protection afforded by the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court.1 See 10 O.S.1991 § 1.2; 10 O.S. Supp.1998 §§ 7505-4.1, 7505-4.3, 7506-1.1.

. Norms for ascribing or negating legal paternity — whether through marriage or by extramarital insemination — address one’s personal status or individual condition in society and hence constitute public law. Callison v. Callison, 1984 OK 7, 687 P.2d 106, 112 (Opala, J., dissenting in part); Byers v. Byers, 1980 OK 149, 618 P.2d 930, 932-933; Green v. Green 1957 OK 70, 309 P.2d 276, 278; See Graveson, Status in the Common Law, p.115 (University of London, The Athlone Press 1953). When resolving a public-law controversy the reviewing court is free to change the theory pressed by the parties at nisi prius and to decide the dispute upon any applicable theory dispositive of the case. Russell v. Bd. of County Com’rs., 1997 OK 80, 952 P.2d 492, 497.