Court Opinion

ID: 9785444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:44:59.177253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:24.162160
License: Public Domain

NEHRING, Justice,
concurring:
T35 I concur in the opinion of Justice Durrant. I write separately to make clear that we do not today decide that the Uniform Parentage Act, Utah Code Ann. § 78B-15-101 to -902 (2008), is irrelevant to this case. The parties elected to adjudicate Mr. Tha-nog's claim to 'standing under the common law, and I am content with a ruling that confines itself to an application of the common law standards announced in Schoolcroft. In re J.W.F. (Schoolcraft), 799 P.2d 710 (Utah 1990). Like the Chief Justice, I believe that the Act and Schooleraft occupy much of the same legal terrain. I believe it unwise, however, to examine in this case whether they can occupy their common space in harmony. The Chief Justice says that they cannot, that their respective policy aims and rationales conflict, and that we should defer to the legislative pronouncements on parentage as expressed in the Act. She may be right on both counts. It is with some regret, then, that I conclude that we should not, as the court of last resort, be the first forum to consider whether the Act and not Schooleraft controls the fate of Mr. Thanog's quest for standing.
I 36 We have, in my judgment, raised dramatically the bar that a person in Mr. Tha-nos's position must surmount to gain standing by expanding the range of activities that *360potentially subvert the Schoolcraft policy of "preserving the stability of the marriage." Id. at 713. Were the Act not part of Utah law, I would not be troubled by our heightened sensitivity to the importance of this goal. With the Act in place, however, we are in this case endorsing a significant development in the common law that may endure only long enough for litigants to properly stage a showdown between the common law and statutory approaches to determining standing in parentage cases.
I 37 While I express no opinion concerning whether the preclusive effect of this ruling would prohibit Mr. Thanos from being one of those litigants, I note that Z.P. might have standing as a litigant. This is because the Act both grants standing to a child in parentage adjudications and binds him or her by a determination of parentage made in a divorce action only if the issue of paternity is adjudicated under the provisions of the Act. Utah Code Ann. § 78B-15-623. Thus, for better or for worse, we may not have seen the last of this matter.