Court Opinion

ID: 9648549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:26:18.150919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:26.721979
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(dissenting).
KRS 199.600(5) specifies the persons who may institute an action to terminate parental rights under KRS 199.600(1), and the majority opinion correctly holds that plaintiffs are excluded from those named in the first-mentioned subsection and therefore could not maintain' the action in this respect. The inevitable result is that the parental rights of the mother, defendant below, were not and have not been severed as to the child. However, the opinion proceeds to hold that plaintiffs may nevertheless adopt the child and this can only mean that the adoption is approved by this Court with the natural parent still retaining all of the *259rights of parenthood in and to the child. Such a result is repugnant to the plain requirements of KRS 199.600, which control the procedure in this case, and, more than that, the letter and spirit of the statutory provisions controlling adoptions under the Division of Child Welfare of the Kentucky Children’s Bureau have 'been summarily brushed aside. See KRS 199.470 to 199.-630, inclusive.
For the reasons given I dissent.