Court Opinion

ID: 9701485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:20:54.990128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:24.070623
License: Public Domain

J. H. Gillis, P.J.
(concurring). I fully concur in my colleague’s opinion, but must write separately because I sat on the panel which decided In the Matter of Baby Girl Fletcher, 76 Mich App 219; 256 NW2d 444 (1977), and that which decided DeBoer v Child & Family Services of Michigan, Inc, 76 Mich App 641; 257 NW2d 200 (1977).
Judge Maher’s opinion states that:
"To the extent that a conflict exists between DeBoer and Fletcher, we elect to follow Fletcher and hold that the probate court had jurisdiction under § 64(1). Accordingly, if a petition to revoke a release is brought within 20 days of entry of the court’s order, the probate court has discretion to set aside the release. The probate court also has discretion under § 29(9) to set aside a release at any time prior to placement for adoption *294when a petition requesting such relief has been filed by the parent or parents executing the release and acquiesced in by the agency to which the child was released.”
Fletcher stated that, while the probate court lacked jurisdiction under § 29(9) of the adoption code because the agency would not acquiesce in the petition, the court had jurisdiction under § 64(1) because the petition was filed within 20 days of the entry of the release. Fletcher, 76 Mich App 219, 220-221, 222-223. DeBoer concerned an entirely different issue but, in the course of analyzing the question whether the parent had an absolute right to revoke her release if she filed a petition within 20 days, the panel stated that §§ 29(9) and 64(1) must be read together. DeBoer v Child & Family Services of Michigan, Inc, 76 Mich App 641, 645. That case did not measure the parent’s right to petition for revocation in terms of the agency’s acquiescence in such petition. Rather, DeBoer involved the question whether the probate court had any discretion in the matter of granting the revocation where the petition was filed within 20 days. We there held that:
"Although, as plaintiff argues, the statute [§ 29(9)] clearly recognizes the possibility that a release may be revoked so long as the child which is the subject of that release has not yet been 'placed for adoption’, the Legislature did not thereby intend to bestow such a remedy on 'change of heart’ natural parents as a matter of right. Indeed, quite to the contrary, when read in conjunction with §64 (emphasis supplied), it would appear that the authority so conferred to either permit a hearing or to grant a request that a release be set aside was intended to vest the resolution of such questions in the sound discretion of the probate judge before whom the matter is raised. Subsection 64 specifically *295states, 'Upon the filing of a petition in probate court * * *, the judge of probate * * * may modify or set aside the order’. ” (Emphasis in original.) DeBoer, supra, 645-646.
If DeBoer is taken to its extreme, a reading of §29(9) together with §64(1) would result in the conclusion that, even if a petition is filed within 20 days, it must be joined by the Department of Social Services or the child-placing agency. While such an approach made sense with regard to the probate court’s discretion to permit a rehearing or grant a request to revoke a release, it does violence to the "fundamental nature of the parent-child relationship” if § 64(1) cannot also be applied independently of § 29(9) in cases such as the one at bar.
The majority’s conclusion in the instant case, that the parent alone may petition to revoke within 20 days and that later filings require the acquiescence of the agency to which the child was released, is a straightforward interpretation of the two sections which adequately balances the competing interests of the parent, the agency, and, hopefully, the child. It accounts for both sections of the adoption code without rendering either nugatory. Thus, it retains intact that portion of DeBoer which held that the probate court has discretion to permit rehearing or grant a request to revoke a release. The opinion today clarifies that that discretion may be exercised where the parent alone files within 20 days or where both the parent and the agency file before the child has been placed for adoption.
With these comments in mind, I also would reverse and remand for further proceedings.