Court Opinion

ID: 9743835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:46:17.879649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:36.965271
License: Public Domain

*424Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
The writ should be denied in this case for the following reasons:
1. The trial court obtained personal jurisdiction over the State Board of Health and its Division of Vital Statistics, when the local health officer appeared on August 3, 1973, in the trial court by his lawyer. This lawyer participated in a hearing on the petition to compel disclosure. This hearing resulted in the first order of the trial court directed to the local health officer, requiring him to permit inspection of the subject birth record. The health officer is the district registrar of the Division of Vital Statistics and his office is the district office of the Division.1 The local health officer maintains copies of birth records for his county. These records are identical to those in the custody of the State Board of Health. The trial court is authorized by statutes to order production of birth records in the custody of either the local health officer or the State Board of Health, or both.2 Under these statutes, and for these purposes, the local health officers should be considered an agent for the State Board of Health, and therefore *425the jurisdiction of the trial court over the district officer resulted in jurisdiction over the State Board of Health such as would support the issuance of this disclosure order. How many layers of administrative authority must one grapple with and overcome prior to obtaining information equally accessible to each layer? I would say one suffices.
2. The petitioners have failed in their burden of demonstrating that the trial court order was void when issued for lack of personal jurisdiction over petitioners. There is no constitutional or statutory command that the trial court serve notice upon the State Board of Health as a condition precedent to issuing it his order to produce information in its custody. Procedural due process, if required in this situation, was granted petitioners when the trial court afforded them' a hearing on their motion to expunge the order to disclose. This hearing'was held subsequent to receipt by them of the order to disclose. The order of the trial court denying this motion to expunge stands appealable but unappealed.
3. The Legislature in these statutes did not consider the proceeding to be held by a trial court to be adversary in nature. Judges are assigned as the custodians of all illegitimate birth records. The State Board of Health is .merely the physical custodian of illegitimate birth records. No interest of the State in non-disclosure of such records after court ordered *426production is specifically stated or implied in the statutes. No prior notice is required to be given to the physical custodian of the records. Clearly the State of Indiana would have included the requirement of prior notice in the statute if it had deemed a formal proceeding necessary to the interests intended to be protected by this statute. These statutes require nothing more than an informed decision by a trial court, upon whose wisdom, experience and knowledge of the law and vital interests involved, the Legislature obviously intended to rely in these matters. In this regard, the proceeding contemplated in these statutes should be summary and inexpensive. It should be even less formally structured than the hearing held by a circuit judge or mayor who seeks to remove a member of a local welfare board under the authority of IC 1971, 12-1-3-2, being Burns § 52-1118, recently considered by the Court in State ex rel. Sedam v. Ripley Circuit Court (1973), 301 N. E. 2d 185.
Note. — Reported in 304 N. E. 2d 777.

. Indiana Code 1971, 16-1-15-4, being Burns §35-1704: “The employee in charge of the division of the state board administering the system of vital statistics shall be known as the ‘state registrar’ and shall have charge of the files and records pertaining to vital statistics and perform the duties prescribed by the state board.”
Indiana Code 1971, 16-1-15-3, being Burns § 35-1703: “Each local health jurisdiction is a registration district for vital statistics and the local health officer shall be the local registrar.”

. Indiana Code 1971, 16-1-16-6, being Burns §35-1806: “The local health officer from such birth certificate shall make a permanent record of the name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, name and birthplace of parents, and the date of filing of the certificate of birth which record shall be open to public inspection. Provided, however, that records of the birth of children born illegitimately shall be kept in a separate record and shall not be open to public inspection. Disclosure of illegitimacy of birth or of information from which it can be ascertained may be made only upon order of a court or the judge thereof.”
Indiana Code 1971, 16-1-19-3, being Burns §35-2103: “The records and files of the division of the state board of health concerning vital statistics are subject to the provisions of this act and regulations of the state board; data therein contained may be disclosed only as follows:
*425“1. Disclosure of illegitimacy of birth or of information from which it can be ascertained, may be made only upon order of a court or the judge thereof.
“2. The state registrar shall permit inspection of the records or issue a certified copy of a certificate or part thereof if he is satisfied’ that the applicant therefore has a direct interest in the matter recorded and that the information therein contained is necessary for the determination of personal or property rights. His decision shall be subject, however, to review by the board or a court under the limitations of this section.
“3. The board may permit the use of data contained in vital statistical records for research purposes only, but no identifying use thereof shall be made.
“4. In an extraordinary case wherein the state registrar has satisfied himself that a direct tangible and legitimate public interest is sub-served.”