Court Opinion

ID: 9796542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:59:38.03003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:33.958874
License: Public Domain

VOIGT, Chief Justice,
specially concurring, with whom GOLDEN, Justice, joins.
[¶ 21] I concur in the result of this case, but the appeal should have been dismissed as untimely. The appellant should have appealed from the Findings and Conclusions Regarding Adoption Without Consent because, thereafter, he was no longer a party to the case. The adoption statutes clearly envision a bifurcated process. In the first hearing, a determination is made whether a defendant’s parental rights should be terminated or whether the adoption should proceed without his consent. See Matter of Adoption of MSVW, 965 P.2d 1158, 1163-64 (Wyo.1998); Matter of Adoption of JLP, 774 P.2d 624, 627 (Wyo.1989); and Matter of Adoption of RHA, 702 P.2d 1259, 1263-64 (Wyo.1985). The defendant is a party to that proceeding. In the second hearing, a determination is made whether the proposed adoptive parent is appropriate. The defendant is not a party to that proceeding, does not receive notice of the proceeding, and is not served with a copy of the resultant decree. It simply cannot be that the adoption statutes and the amended appellate rules contemplate the defendant taking an appeal from something of which he has no official knowledge.