Court Opinion

ID: 9715523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:07:42.674024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:35.285133
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.,
dissenting:
¶ 1 We are here asked to decide whether the Adoption Act, 23 Pa.C.S. §§ 2101-2910, bars a defacto father from becoming a second de jure parent to the seven-year-old girl and eight-year-old boy whom he has co-parented since birth. The Majority holds that the children’s legal parent, whose rights the trial court established in a prior adoption proceeding, must now relinquish his parental rights before the court may decree a second adoption, even though he himself has joined in the petition for adoption by the second parent. Because I conclude that the Adoption Act permits an adoption when the children’s only legal parent advocates the adoption, has joined in the petition for adoption, and has retained his parental rights, I must respectfully dissent.
¶ 2 Though the Majority would hold that the Adoption Act must be strictly construed, I conclude that a liberal construction of the Adoption Act is mandatory in cases not implicating the involuntary termination of parental rights.
It is a settled rule that in the construction of statutes an interpretation is never to be adopted that would defeat the purpose of the enactment, if any other reasonable construction can be found which its language will fairly bear.... The general purpose of [legislation prescribing procedures for adoption] is unmistakable. It is the expression of the humane and benevolent sentiments of the Legislature that passed it towards a dependent class of our population, many members of which, by reason of conditions for which they are not responsible, and which, because of infancy they have no power to overcome, are, if not entirely helpless in the struggle of life, so far prejudiced and handicapped by their environment that fair opportunity to develop into virtuous men and women is denied them. It therefore calls for a liberal construction, to the end that it may fairly accomplish the purpose of its enactment.
In re McQuiston’s Adoption, 238 Pa. 304, 309-10, 86 A. 206, 206 (1913) (emphasis added).
*731¶ 3 I respectfully dissent from my distinguished colleagues’ Majority Opinion for three reasons: (1) the Majority’s strict construction of 23 Pa.C.S. § 2711 contravenes the mandate of the Statutory Construction Act, 1 Pa.C.S. §§ 1501-1991, and is incongruous with the legislature’s purpose in enacting section 2711; (2) the Majority erroneously applies principles of law derived from cases involving the involuntary termination of parental rights, and in so doing, it fails to recognize the discretion provided a trial court by 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901 when deciding whether to decree an adoption notwithstanding a parent’s retention of his parental rights; (3) the Majority’s analysis wrongly focuses on the relationship between the petitioners at the expense of attention to the parent-child relationships and the potentially salutary effect that an adoption would have on the children’s interests; and (4) I conclude that In re Adoption of E.M.A, 487 Pa. 152, 409 A.2d 10 (1979), is not controlling in our decision here.
¶ 4 The Statutory Construction Act states that the “rule that statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed, shall have no application to the statutes of this Commonwealth enacted finally after September 1, 1937.” 1 Pa.C.S. § 1928(a). Because the Adoption Act that we are here construing was finally enacted in 1970, the Act must be liberally construed. See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1928(c) (stating that “All other provisions of a statute shall be liberally construed to effect their objects and promote justice”); The Adoption Act of 1970, July 24, P.L. 620, No. 208, § 601(a) (stating that “[t]he act of April 4, 1925 (P.L. 127), entitled ‘An act relating to Adoption,’ is hereby repealed absolutely”); McQuiston’s Adoption, 238 Pa. at 310, 86 A. at 206. See also Theresa Glennon, Binding the Family Ties: A Child Advocacy Perspective on Second-Parent Adoptions, 7 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. L.R. 255, 260-64 (1998) (discussing how a liberal construction of the Adoption Act is mandatory in second-parent adoption eases).
¶ 5 The foundation for the Majority’s holding is 23 Pa.C.S. § 2711. Section 2711(a)(3) requires that parents of an adoptee who is younger than the age of eighteen give their consent to an adoption. 23 Pa.C.S. § 2711(a)(3). Section 2711(d) requires the consent to contain a statement by which the parents permanently relinquish all rights to the child. 23 Pa. C.S. § 2711(d). The Majority holds that compliance with section 2711 is an absolute prerequisite to a successful petition for adoption. Majority Opinion at 727-28. I disagree.
¶ 6 The voluntary relinquishment of parental rights prescribed in section 2711 serves limited purposes. Chief among these purposes is to safeguard a parent’s fundamental liberty interest in the child that is to be adopted. Cf. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982). Because “‘a decree of adoption terminates forever all relations between the child and its natural parents [and] severs [the child] entirely from [his or her] own family tree[,]’” McNamara v. Thomas, 741 A.2d 778, 782 (Pa.Super.1999) (quoting In re Schwab’s Adoption, 355 Pa. 534, 50 A.2d 504, 505 (1947)), a parent’s consent to relinquish his or her parental rights to the adoptee must be intelligent, voluntary and deliberate. See In re Voluntary Temination of Par rental Rights to M.L.O., 490 Pa. 237, 416 A.2d 88, 90 (1980). Section 2711 also serves to ensure finality by extinguishing the right of a legal parent to challenge the petition for adoption or the resulting adoption. See In the Matter of the Adoption of Christopher P., 480 Pa. 79, 389 A.2d 94, 97 (1978); In re Shapiro, 474 Pa. 139, 377 A.2d 153, 155 (1977).
¶ 7 In the instant case, neither of these purposes are served by the Majority’s wooden application of section 2711. Clearly, requiring J.J.G. to relinquish his parental rights to two children he legally adopted does not serve the purpose of safeguarding his fundamental liberty interest as the children’s legal father. Further*732more, because J.J.G. is a party to -the petition for adoption, it would be illogical •to apply against him a statute designed to ensure that parties holding a right to oppose the petition have given up that right. In this regard, the trial cpurt’s concern with ensuring finality should have been satisfied when J.J.G., the only person possessing legal rights to Z.C.G. and C.C.G., joined the petition for adoption. Therefore, construing the statute as a mandatory requirement in this case does not effectuate the purposes of the relinquishment requirement. Moreover, such a construction is unreasonable, and therefore, it contravenes the Statutory Construction Act.. See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1); See also Stollar v. Continental Can Co., 407 Pa. 264, 180 A.2d 71, 74 (1962) (stating that “to give [the provisions of a statute] an unreasonable or absurd construction violates the fundamental rules of statutory construction”). Accordingly, I would hold that on the facts of this case the trial court erred in construing the. relinquishment requirement of section 2711 as mandatory. See McQuiston’s Adoption, 238 Pa. at 309-10, 86 A. at 206.
¶ 8 My conclusion here is buttressed by the fact that the Adoption Act does not prohibit a joint adoption by an unmarried homosexual or heterosexual couple when the adoptee is not related to either petitioner. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2312 (stating that “Mny individual may become an adopting parent”). See also 23 Pa.C.S. § 2701 (Contents of petition for adoption). In such a situation, the consent requirements of section 2711 are not implicated, nor is the “spousal exception” of section 2903. There are no provisions within the Adoption Act that permit differential treatment to homosexual joint petitioners versus heterosexual joint petitioners. Moreover, the Adoption Act does not even permit differential treatment for married joint petitioners versus unmarried joint petitioners. Thus, had J.C.G. been a joint petitioner in J.J.G.’s prior petitions for the adoptions of Z.C.G. and C.C.G., the court could not have dismissed J.C.G.’s petition based upon the purported impediment presented by section 2711 and employed by the Majority in the instant case. In such a case, neither petitioner would have parental rights and, therefore, the relinquishment requirement of section 2711 would have no application. In the absence of the purported barrier presented by section 2711, there is no statutory provision that would proscribe J.C.G. and J.J.G. from jointly adopting the children.
¶ 9 In the absence of a statutory impediment to this adoption posed by sections 2711 or 2903, the Majority’s holding spawns an absurd result in this and every other case in which one of the petitioners has an existing legal relationship to the adoptive child. The necessary implication of the Majority’s holding is that because J.C.G. did not join J.J.G. in the prior petitions for adoption, J.J.G. must now relinquish his parental rights in order for J.C.G. to adopt. The Majority so holds notwithstanding the fact that the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County already placed its -imprimatur on the parent-child relationship between J.J.G. and the children when it decreed the prior adoptions. Were J.J.G. now to relinquish the parental rights that the court bestowed upon him several years earlier, the consent requirements of section 2711 would be satisfied. As a co-petitioner, however, J.J.G. would be simultaneously compelled to turn around and ask the court to restore his parental rights as a new adoptive parent. Such a result can only render our adoption proceedings frivolous, a parody of the very stability in family life the Adoption Act attempts to achieve. See McQuiston’s Adoption, 238 Pa. at 309-10, 86 A. at 206. Quite simply, neither the Adoption Act nor the record before us provide any defensible basis for forcing J.J.G. to take the potentially devastating step of relinquishing his rights to the children to whom he remains committed, only in hopes of regaining his rights to them through a sham adoption proceeding. As I discuss infra, the facts of this case provide a court with *733the epitome of good “cause shown” to exercise its discretion to decree an adoption notwithstanding the fact that a parent has not relinquished his rights. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901.
¶ 10 The second reason for my dissent is that the Majority refuses to recognize the discretion that 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901 bestows upon a trial court in deciding whether to decree an adoption notwithstanding the fact that a parent’s rights to an adoptee have not been terminated. Section 2901 states:
Unless the court for cause shown determines otherwise, no decree of adoption shall be entered unless the natural parent or parents’ rights have been terminated ... and all other legal requirements have been met.
Id. (emphasis added).
¶ 11 I conclude, as a logical corollary to this provision, that if “the court for cause shown determines” that an adoption should be decreed, the court may do so notwithstanding the fact that a parent’s rights have not been terminated. Id. The Majority limits the discretion provided by section 2901 by requiring a petitioner to comply with all the statutory requirements before a court is permitted to consider what cause shown would merit a decree of adoption. Majority Opinion at 729. The Majority asserts that the parental relinquishment provision of section 2711 is one such statutory requirement. Id.
¶ 12 However, the Majority’s construction renders one of the provisions of section 2901 superfluous. If the court is bound by the requirements of section 2711 and is not entitled to exercise discretion to decree an adoption absent termination of existing parental rights, the initial clause of section 2901 would be devoid of legal substance or effect. Section 2901 states that “no decree of adoption shall be entered unless the natural parent or parents’ rights have been terminated.” 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901. However, this clause is preceded with the proviso: “Unless the court for cause shown determines otherwise.” Id. To conclude, as the Majority, that a trial court may not consider reasons why an adoption should be decreed, such as a child’s best interest, absent compliance with the termination provisions of section 2711, elevates the “termination” clause of section 2711 and reads the “cause shown” clause of section 2901 out of existence. Such an analysis, at best, renders the “cause shown” clause of section 2901 superfluous. “The legislature cannot, however, be deemed to intend that language used in a statute shall be superfluous and without import.” Commonwealth v. Mack Bros. Motor Car Co., 359 Pa. 636, 59 A.2d 923, 924 (1948); Commonwealth v. Baumer, 212 Pa.Super. 372, 243 A.2d 472, 474 (1968). See also 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(2) (stating that the General Assembly intends an entire statute to be effective and certain).
¶ 13 More to the point, the ultimate effect of the Majority’s construction is to negate the authority and direction of the General Assembly in enacting section 2901. If the legislature had wished to erect an absolute bar to adoption without giving consideration to a child’s best interest, it would never have provided the discretion so clearly established in section 2901. Thus, we must recognize that section 2901 specifically allows a court to decree an adoption for cause shown where the parent or parents’ rights have not been terminated. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901. Therefore, I conclude that the trial court committed an error of law when it failed to recognize the discretion provided it by section 2901. See Trial Court Opinion at 5 (stating that “the sole exception to the provisions of § 2711 requiring an unqualified consent by the parent is contained in § 2903”).
¶ 14 The Majority premises its conclusion that a court may not exercise the discretion provided by section 2901 until parental rights have been terminated on a line of cases decided in the context of involuntary termination of parental rights. The substantive focus of those *734cases was dramatically different from our focus here. The Majority cites In Interest of Coast, 385 Pa.Super. 450, 561 A.2d 762 (1989), in support of its assertion that the judicial discretion provided by section 2901 may not be exercised until the natural parents’ rights to their children have been terminated. Consequently, the Majority concludes that a court does not reach the consideration of whether an adoption would be in a child’s best interest where a parent has retained rights to that child. Majority Opinion at 729. For the following reasons, I conclude that the Majority’s reliance on Coast, and the proposition of law it enunciates, is misplaced.
¶ 15 In Coast, the appellant parents appealed a trial court decree that involuntarily terminated their parental rights to their two children. This Court, in reliance upon Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982), and a line of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases, see In re Schwab’s Adoption, 355 Pa. 534, 50 A.2d 504 (1947) and In re Adoption of McAhren, 460 Pa. 63, 331 A.2d 419 (1975), stated that “in the absence of sufficient evidence to satisfy the statutory requirements for involuntary termination, the question of the best interests of the child never arises.” Coast, 561 A.2d at 768 (quoting McAhren, 331 A.2d at 422). The focus of each of these cases was on the involuntary termination of parental rights. In such proceedings, the government seeks to deprive parents of their parental rights because they are no longer fit to care for a child or because they have abandoned their child. 23 Pa.C.S. §§ 2511-2513, 2521. Thus, in determining whether it should involuntarily terminate the parents’ rights, a court must focus on the parents’ fundamental liberty interest in the child. See Santosky, 455 U.S. at 753, 102 S.Ct. 1388. In an adoption case where petitioners seek to add a parent, there is no assertion by the government that the natural parent is unfit to care for the child and, therefore, there is no third party seeking to involuntarily terminate the natural parent’s rights. Consequently, there is no competing fundamental liberty interest for the court to consider. Thus, unless a parent’s rights to his or her child are to be terminated involuntarily, the purpose underlying the decisions in Santosky, Coast, and Schwabb’s Adoption is not present.
¶ 16 Concisely stated, unless the proceeding in question involves depriving a parent of his or her legal rights in a child, section 2901 gives the court the discretion to dispense with the termination requirement of section 2711. Where, as here, the petitioning parties seek to adopt a child, and no involuntary termination is sought, the focus of the court’s inquiry should be upon the children’s best interests. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2724 (stating that the court “shall decide the desirability of an adoption on the basis of the physical, mental, and emotional needs and welfare of the child”); In re Adoption of Hess, 530 Pa. 218, 608 A.2d 10, 13 (1992) (stating that the Adoption Act “clearly focuses on the needs of the child, reflecting the policies expressed at common law”). Thus, because the requirements of section 2711 are intended to protect natural parents’ fundamental liberty interests in their children and are not mandatory where the parties seek to add a parent by adoption, I conclude that a court, acting though the discretion provided it by section 2901, may grant an adoption' where a parent’s rights have not been terminated. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901. Cf. In re Adoption of Stickley, 432 Pa.Super. 354, 638 A.2d 976, 980 (1994) (stating that “we will not terminate parental rights upon a petition to confirm consent to adoption where the statutory requirements have not been satisfied”).
¶ 17 The third reason for my dissent is that the Majority’s analysis wrongly focuses on the relationship between the petitioners at the expense of attention to the parent-child relationship and the potentially salutary effect that an adoption would have on the children’s interests.
*735Although courts have gone to great lengths to provide every child with precisely one mother and one father, the realities of family formation and parenting are considerably more complex. [Same-sex parent] families are but one alternative to the presumed form. In resolving disputes about the custody of children, the court system should recognize the reality of children’s lives, however unusual or complex. Courts should design rules to serve children’s best interests. By failing to do so, they perpetuate the fiction of family homogeneity at the expense of the children whose reality does not fit this form.
Blew v. Verta, 420 Pa.Super. 528, 617 A.2d 31, 36 (1992) (quoting Nancy D. Polikoff, This Child Does Have Two Mothers: Redefining Parenthood to Meet the Needs of Children in Lesbian-Mother and Other Nontraditional Families, 78 Geo. L.J. 461, 469 (1990)).
¶ 18 In cases such as the one before us, the reality is that two men are parenting the children. The Appellants assert that they have lived together in a committed relationship for eighteen years. J.J.G, the party seeking to become the legally recognized second parent, is a social worker. J.C.G., the children’s legal father, is a cosmetologist and an artist who co-owns a business. J.J.G. and J.C.G. are Caucasian, and the children are bi-racial. All four of them are Catholic. Although our decision here will have a direct affect on J.J.G.’s legal rights to the children, it is doubtful that a decision here will operate to terminate the de facto parent/child relationship between J.J.G. and the children. Clearly, however, our decision here does affect the children’s interests. Regrettably, the Majority turns a blind eye to the children’s interests by choosing to ignore the reality of this non-traditional family.
¶ 19 Indeed, the Majority goes so far as to denigrate the family before us, stating: “Appellants’ attempts at establishing a de facto family, which would qualify for adoption under Section 2903, is unavailing.” Majority Opinion at 728. The Majority makes this statement despite the Appellants’ acknowledgment that Section 2903 is not applicable to the facts of this case. Brief for Appellants at 38 (stating that “Section 2903 is not at issue in this case”). Section 2903 provides that: “[wjhenever a parent consents to the adoption of his child by his spouse, the parent-child relationship between him and his child shall remain.” 23 Pa.C.S. § 2903. The term “spouse” refers only to one’s husband or wife and, therefore, only legally married couples can avail themselves of section 2903. See E.M.A., 409 A.2d at 11 n. 4.
¶ 20 I am confounded by the Majority’s erroneous assertion that Appellants have sought to avail themselves of section 2903. Moreover, I discern no import in the Majority’s discussion of legally recognized marriages within our Commonwealth. The Majority has concluded that because same-sex marriages are not recognized in Pennsylvania, neither should second-parent adoptions. Majority Opinion at 728. The Majority’s focus is misguided and its analysis ill-founded.
¶ 21 In discussing the spousal exception of section 2903, the Majority has failed to acknowledge the genesis of this statute. The official comment to this section states that the section “is declaratory of existing law.” 23 Pa.C.S. § 2903 (Official Comment 1970). Therefore, section 2903 was purely a codification of the common procedure employed by trial judges in decreeing step-parent adoptions. We have before us eleven attorney amici who assert that they have represented clients in ninety-six successful second-parent adoptions spanning twelve counties in our Commonwealth. See Brief for Amici Curiae Women’s Law Project, Appendix. Undoubtedly, these courts decreed the adoptions based on their findings that adoption would be in the children’s best interests. See In re Adoption of E.O.G., 28 Pa.D. & C. 4th 262 (Pa.Com.Pl. 1993). There cannot be a more eminently reasonable procedure to follow. Our legislature, in enacting section *7362903, has already recognized that the trial judges who are on the front lines of these adoption proceedings are best situated to determine an appropriate procedure to follow in cases where there is a void of authority in the Adoption Act. The Adoption Act does not prohibit same-sex couples from adopting, nor does it require that joint petitioners be married. Because there is no proscription against the adoption sought in the instant case, the trial court had the discretion under section 2901 to decree an adoption.
¶ 22 The Majority states that it does not “base its decision on Appellants’ sexual orientation.” Majority Opinion at 727. Their analysis compels the opposite conclusion. The Majority states that it “is for the legislature to decide whether to expand the Adoption Act to cover same-sex partners.” Id. at 728. However, the Majority’s conclusion that the Adoption Act somehow proscribes same-sex partners from adopting is wholly without statutory authority. The only legislatively enacted provision that the Majority has to rely upon is section 2711 (consents necessary for an adoption). But this provision does not purport to establish a proscription on who may adopt and it does not even mention sexual orientation or marriage. The Majority does not even attempt to argue that the purpose of the legislature’s enactment of section 2711 was to prevent second parent adoptions; nor can they, for such an argument is wholly without any authoritative legal support. Thus, the Majority has superimposed upon the Adoption Act a judicial gloss that favors adoptions by heterosexual married couples over homosexual unmarried couples.
¶ 23 My fourth and final reason for dissenting is my disagreement with the Majority’s refusal to acknowledge the diminished authoritative value of In re Adoption of E.M.A., 487 Pa. 152, 409 A.2d 10 (1979), in light of the subsequent enactment of section 2901. The Majority relies on E.M.A. for the proposition that we cannot create a judicial exception to the Adoption Act. However, in order to have an exception, there must be a rule. I reiterate that the Adoption Act contains no rule proscribing same-sex partners from adopting. Thus, the conclusion I reach does not usurp the powers of the legislature. To the contrary, it serves our legislature’s purpose in enacting the Adoption Act because it permits courts to decree an adoption when it would be in a child’s best interest to have two parents rather than one. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 2724; McQuiston’s Adoption, 238 Pa. at 309-10, 86 A. at 206; Hess, 608 A.2d at 14.
¶ 24 E.M.A. is distinguishable from the instant case because the sole issue raised by the appellants in E.M.A. was whether an unmarried couple could avail themselves of section 2903’s spousal exception. See 409 A.2d at 11. As stated above, the Appellants in the instant case have not sought to avail themselves of section 2903. Rather, they have sought to avail themselves of section 2901. Moreover, the language of section 2901 that grants a trial court the discretion to decree an adoption even when a parent’s rights to an adoptee have not been terminated was enacted in 1982, three years after the E.M.A. decision. See Act of 1982, June 23, P.L. 617, No. 174, § 8. Thus, E.M.A. is not controlling of our decision here.
¶25 For all the foregoing reasons, I conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in not granting the Appellants the evidentiary hearing requested in their Petition for Adoption. The Adoption Act “directs the court, upon a hearing on a Petition for Adoption, to take testimony and, if necessary, to order an investigation to decide whether the granting of the Petition suits ‘the physical, mental, and emotional needs and welfare of the child.’ ” Hess, 608 A.2d at 14 (quoting 23 Pa.C.S. § 2724(b)). In the instant case, the Appellants requested a hearing on their Petition for Adoption. The trial court denied a hearing and dismissed the Appellants’ Petition for Adoption. Trial Court Order, 6/18/99. In so doing, the trial court com*737mitted reversible error by failing to consider the best interests of the children and denying the Appellants an opportunity to show the court cause as to why it should decree an adoption notwithstanding J.J.G.’s retention of his parental rights.
¶ 26 Our decision here must be guided by our duty to promote sound public policy. In the current state of our society, we should interpret the laws of our Commonwealth in such a way that adheres to the mandates of our legislature and promotes the placement of children in stable families who can provide nurturing and supportive homes. Our legislature has yet to find the occasion to speak on the rights of homosexuals to adopt. When and if it does, our duty will be to implement the law accordingly. Until then, our legislature, in enacting section 2901, has given our courts the discretion to decree an adoption in cases such as the one before us. Ultimately, such adoptions must be decreed on the basis of the best interests of the children involved.
¶27 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent and would reverse the order and remand for an evidentiary hearing consistent with this dissent.
¶ 28 Judge KELLY and Judge TODD join this dissenting opinion.