Court Opinion

ID: 9762141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:12:08.630987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:30.718517
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
dissenting:
The respect that I have for the insight of the distinguished author of the majority opinion, my learned colleague, Judge Harry M. Montgomery, is exceeded only by my conviction that appellant should not be permitted to tear this child from the love of the couple — the parents — into whose care she had thrust the child.
*162Appellant was seventeen years old and single when, on April 24,1981, she was delivered of the baby boy who is the subject of this proceeding. Appellant had for some time pursued her desire to place the child for adoption by completion of arrangements through an intermediary and, three weeks before the birth of the baby, on April 2, 1981, appellant appeared before the court, together with her mother and the named intermediary, to testify upon her request that the court order the intermediary to provide for the payment to her of the sum of three thousand dollars ($3,000.00) for recuperative expenses. The court approved the proposed disbursement after full hearing, held in chambers, at which appellant, after being advised of available alternatives to the placement of the child for adoption, declared her intention to place the infant for adoption after birth and agreed that the intermediary should provide for the placement of the child for adoption. It is to be noted that during the hearing, the appellant specifically rejected the alternatives to adoption that the court had carefully detailed and stated her belief that it would be in the best interest of the child if he were to be raised in a family setting and “have a father”, a setting in which he could have a “better life”. The mother of Barbara C. at the hearing on April 2, 1981, not only expressed on the record her approval of the decision to place the child for adoption but also, in her capacity as guardian of her daughter, consented to the proposed adoption.
On April 28, 1981, four days after the birth of the baby, appellant executed an Affidavit of Surrender and Consent to Adoption and surrendered custody of the child through the intermediary into the hands and care of the adoptive couple. The mother of Barbara C. participated in the surrender of the custody of the child to the intermediary on April 28, 1981, by joinder as a witness to the execution by her daughter of the Affidavit of Surrender and Consent to Adoption. Appellees, the adoptive couple, proceeded under § 2531 of the Adoption Act of 1980 to file, on June 8, 1981, a report of intention to adopt the child. Appellant, more *163than three months after she had surrendered custody of the child and had executed the Affidavit of Surrender and Consent to Adoption, filed on August 12, 1981, a petition for writ of habeas corpus to secure the return of the child to her custody. The adoptive couple filed a petition for involuntary termination of the parental rights of the natural mother on October 27, 1981. The court consolidated the actions and after the completion of lengthy and intense hearing proceedings, the trial judge terminated the parental rights of the mother under § 2511(a)(2) of the Adoption Act of 1980, 23 P.S. § 2511(a)(2) (supp. 1982-83)1, and awarded formal custody of the baby to appellees.
The trial court set forth quite a number of findings of fact upon which it based the determination that the parental rights of appellant should be terminated and there was, in my review, abundant competent evidence to support those findings of fact.
The trial judge considered the fact that appellant ran away from home at an early age and was required to be admitted to the Delaware County Childrens’ Cottage as a result of physically abusive behavior directed by her toward her mother. The court further noted that appellant had verbally abused one small child and had admitted to police that she had assaulted a five year old child whom she was *164babysitting, even though appellant herself at the termination hearing denied that she had struck the child.
There was considerable testimony concerning alcohol and drug abuse by appellant that would indicate such abuse was not occasional but was part of a behavior pattern that not only preceded but also followed the commencement of her pregnancy. A substantial basis for this conclusion is demonstrated by the notes of the physician appearing in a hospital emergency room record for September 1, 1980, that appellant is “well known here, with history of drug abuse and psychological problems, also currently pregnant ... ”. These notations were made eighteen months after appellant was admitted to the hospital for drug overdose, after an admitted consumption of alcohol and “angel dust”, and transferred to a mental hospital for treatment of her suicidal ideation, where her condition was diagnosed as “Drug Dependence, Alcohol Dependence [and] Depressive Neurosis”, even though she denied any drug or alcohol problem.
The promiscuous nature of appellant was well demonstrated to the court by the testimony of her girlfriend that appellant generally had sex “with whomever she was going out with” at the time and the information supplied by her own brother that she would have intercourse with different boys even though she had just met them one-half hour earlier.
The court noted that appellant had a violent temper demonstrated not only by her assault upon the five year old child for whom she had been babysitting but also by the physical abuse upon her own mother as well as upon her own friend as a result of which formal charges were filed against appellant before a District Justice. The court concluded appellant was unable to maintain habitable living quarters as a result of testimony from a friend of appellant and from the landlord of appellant that her apartment was filthy, that there was dog feces on the floor of the apartment and that the walls of the apartment were marred with painted obscene words as well as a large hole caused when *165appellant hurled a saxaphone during a dispute with her mother.
The court found the behavior of the appellant during the trial itself revealed “a marked tendency to filter out the truth of her past behavior.” That conclusion is certainly exemplified by the indication of appellant that she would return to school and also secure employment but would be able to care for the child as a result of financial aid from her grandmother and public assistance as well as the help of her grandmother in the actual care of the child. That plan of appellant belied the fact that the grandmother would have been unable to provide such care by reason of a disabling nerve disease compounded by chronic back problems and ignored the inability of appellant to maintain passing grades in high school as well as her eventual decision to leave school entirely. As much as these findings reflect the character and parental incapacity of appellant, they also form a sufficient basis for the finding of the court that appellant did not have a realistic plan for the care of the child were she to be awarded custody of the child.
The determination of the court that appellant could not be a capable parent for the child would seem to be the only possible conclusion that could be drawn from a consideration of the behavior of appellant as well as of the conclusions reached by the psychiatric experts, Leo C. Freeman, M.D. and Herman D. Staples, M.D., both of whom had examined appellant shortly before the trial and had had the benefit of a psychological evaluation by Bruce E. Mapes, Ph.D., whose report forms a part of the record. Dr. Freeman concluded that “she was in no position at this time to assume the responsibility of an infant”; that she “presents a serious mental illness which makes her unable to parent”; that “the baby would be endangered if he were placed with the mother [B.C.] in her present marked emotional instability, with little tolerance to frustration and capacity for mature judgment”; and that to place the child in the custody of appellant “would be detrimental to his welfare and expose him to psychological damage.” Dr. Staples, a *166specialist in child psychiatry, testified that he diagnosed appellant as having a “severe personality disorder of the histrionic type”, that symptoms of such a personality disorder include depression and attempts at suicide as well as psychotic breaks with reality, and that individuals with such a disorder have poor relationships with other individuals and are very self-centered, egocentric and demanding of attention. He concluded that the disorder “would have a very unfortunate effect” upon her potential role as parent of an infant child and that she “would not be able, because of her emotional condition, to be a désirable, effective parent”. He further observed that there was an unfavorable prognosis concerning the benefit to appellant of some form of psychotherapy. While the demonstrated behavior of appellant and the medical testimony form a more than full basis for the conclusion of the court that the parental incapacity of appellant was irremediable, that conclusion becomes insurmountable upon consideration of the statement of the father of appellant, with whom she had had the better parental relationship, that she “lacks the capacity to be a mother for a child at this time because she is not caring, mature responsible and not ready to assume the obligations of a mother. I don’t feel that that child would be fed properly or clothed properly.”
The distinguished President Judge Francis J. Catania in expressing his decision declared:
This court finds that from the evidence adduced at the trial [the natural mother] has demonstrated a repeated and continued emotional pattern throughout her life, of emotional instability which has been manifested by her involvement with drugs and alcohol, her domestic problems, including her temporary commitments to Haverford State Hospital and the Delaware County Children’s Cottage, her sexual promiscuity, her inability to handle her financial affairs in a responsible fashion, and her difficulty in relating and maintaining interpersonal relations.
*167[Barbara C., the natural mother,] has shown a repeated and continued incapacity to parent, and the causes of said abuse have not been remedied within the meaning of the Adoption Act, 23 Pa.C.S.A., § 2511(a)(2).
Due to the psychiatric and psychological testimony presented and the record of [the natural mother’s] history this court does not believe the causes will be remedied.
The provision of the Adoption Act of 1980 which is the subject of our scrutiny in this appeal, namely, § 2511(a)(2), declares:
(a) General Rule — The rights of a parent in regard to a child may be terminated after a petition filed on any of the following grounds:
(2) The repeated and continued incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal of the parent has caused the child to be without essential parental care, control or subsistence necessary for his physical or mental well-being and the conditions and causes of the incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal cannot or will not be remedied by the parent.
23 P.S. § 2511 (supp.1982-83).
This provision of the Adoption Act of 1980 is identical to § 311(2) of the Adoption Act of 1970. The Supreme Court, in In Re: William L., 477 Pa. 322, 383 A.2d 1228 (1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 880, 99 S.Ct. 216, 58 L.Ed.2d 192 (1979), upheld § 311(2), the predecessor to § 2511(a)(2), in the face of constitutional challenge and construed the enactment to require proof of three elements before parental rights may be involuntarily terminated: “(1) repeated and continued incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal; (2) such incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal has caused the child to be without essential parental care, control or subsistence necessary for his physical or mental well-being; and (3) the causes of the incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal cannot or will not be remedied.” Id., 477 Pa. at 345, 383 A.2d at 1239, citing, In Re: Geiger, 459 Pa. 636, 639, 331 A.2d 172, 174 (1975).
*168The majority focuses upon the second of these requirements and concludes that however delinquent and irresponsible appellant may be, § 2511(a)(2) requires that a parental incapacity be demonstrated vis-a-vis the very child who is the subject of the proceeding:
However inappropriate such behavior might be, we believe that such behavior alone, without a showing of the effect on the child, is an insufficient basis on which to terminate parental rights. (Maj. Opinion at 9.) (emphasis supplied)
This, despite the demonstration by the mother during the period prior to the birth and thereafter of those same characteristics which prove her parental incapacity — an incapacity of such a nature and so deeply seated that, according to the psychiatric prognosis provided to the hearing court, it cannot be remedied. I cannot accept the majority opinion. Rather, I share the view of the hearing judge, when he declared:
The [appellant] has made much of the argument that § 2511(a)(2) should not have been applied in this case as the [appellant] did not have physical custody of the child, and therefore, did not continuously and repeatedly abuse, neglect or refuse to care for the child. In Re Howard, 468 Pa. 71, 360 A.2d 184 (1976), and In Re Folcarelli, 457 A.2d 130, 19 D & C 3d 407 (1982). Basically, [appellant’s] argument would require the child [to] suffer some type of physical, emotional or mental impairment before a parent’s rights could be terminated under this section, even in situations where it is clear that the mental or emotional make-up of the parent is such that there is no possibility that harm to the child would not ensue. The Court does not believe that the legislature ever intended such a harsh and unthinking result. From a careful reading of the Howard case, supra, it appears that while an argument can be made that § 2511(a)(1) & (2) are not interchangeable, the real key to the case is that the incapacity cannot or will not be remedied, (emphasis in original).
*169The interpretation of the majority that the parental incapacity must be demonstrated vis-a-vis the very child who is the subject of the proceeding will always preclude the hearing court from the entry of a decree of involuntary termination of parental rights in every situation where the natural mother, who has formally consented to an adoption and has surrendered actual custody of the child to the adoptive parents immediately after birth, changes her mind — despite abundant and even overwhelming evidence of her continued incapacity. While a narrative reading of § 2511(a)(2) might permit such an interpretation, the consequences of such a construction are so anomalous that the legislature could not have imposed such a requirement, since such a requirement would compel, despite clear and convincing evidence that the parental capacity cannot be remedied, the return of a child to a parent to await demonstration by the parent upon the child of such incapacity. Could the legislature have possibly intended to place children in such peril? And because Providence may spare a few of such children from a permanent, irreparable harm as a result of such parental incapacity or abuse and neglect, can it be said the legislature would engage in a type of Russian roulette with all of said children?
It is not necessary to respond to such entreaties to conclude the legislature did not intend to impose such a requirement since the legislature itself, in the immediately following sub-section of the Adoption Act, 23 P.S. § 2511(b), provided, inter alia, the following mandate:
The court in terminating the rights of a parent shall give primary consideration to the needs and welfare of the child, (emphasis supplied).
I consider so clear and certain a directive as determinative of this issue.
The majority hearkens to traditional variations in the standards applicable to visitation, custody and termination cases but the legislature precluded such further liberty in termination cases when it proclaimed that “the needs and welfare of the child” were to be the primary considerations *170in termination cases. Nor does it seem fit or appropriate to apply the standard for cases of neglectful parents to a biological parent who abandoned — in every de facto sense— her child. Whether the description by the majority of the sacred right of parenthood is viewed as a deft rationale or an inspirational declaration, that description but serves to distract from the command of the statute that such rights are subordinate to the needs and welfare of the child and to divert from the clear and certain conclusion that the behavioral history of appellant hardly summons the vision of an individual to whom the responsibility of parenthood is sacred. However fervently lawyers may address and however carefully judges may analyze the difference between visitation, custody and termination cases and proceed to separately define “the best interests of the child” and “the needs and welfare of the child”, can it be doubted that the layman will not accept such claims of distinction but would insist that this child should be permitted to remain with the adoptive parents? I too so insist. And would so rule.

. The putative father's rights were terminated under § 2511(a)(1), which provides:
§ 2511. Grounds for involuntary termination
(a) General rule. — The rights of a parent in regard to a child may be terminated after a petition filed on any of the following grounds:
(1) the parent by conduct continuing for a period of at least six months either has evidenced a settled purpose of relinquishing parental claim to a child or has refused or failed to perform parental duties.
The putative father has never contested this determination, and is not involved in this appeal. The petition for termination of the parental rights of the natural mother also raised § 2511(a)(1) with respect to her, but appellees abandoned this claim after pleading it in the petition, presumably as a result of the expression by the natural mother of the revocation of her consent to the adoption of the child within six months after custody was surrendered to the adoptive parents.