Court Opinion

ID: 5150349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-02 01:53:08.862306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:01.103464
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(dissenting).
120 What actually happened here is this: The adoptive parents and the grandparents, each of whom had had the care of the child at different times, filed competing adoption petitions. The parties ultimately stipulated to a resolution the trial court found to be in the child's best interest: the adoptive parents would adopt the child and the grandparents would have visitation, a schedule for which was specifically agreed to. Once they got what they wanted-adoption-the adoptive parents reneged on their agreement and withheld visitation. When this bait-and-switch was called to the trial court's attention, the court was understandably concerned about the adoptive parents' failure to adhere to their stipulated obligations and the court's order. This failure is particularly troubling in view of the trial court's explicit finding that, but for the visitation agreement, it would not have granted the adoptive parents' adoption petition. Like any court, the trial court here had jurisdiction, even though a final judgment had been entered, to enforce its prior orders. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-901(1) (Supp.2001).
121 In my view, then, this is not a case about whether conditional adoption is permitted in Utah or about the legal effect of an adoption decree. It is, first and foremost, a case about whether a trial court has the power to enforce an order stipulated to by parties over whom it had jurisdiction and which order was a quid pro quo for the judgment both sides asked it to enter.
(22 Because the trial court clearly has such power and prudently exercised it in this case, I would affirm.