Court Opinion

ID: 9577488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:35:23.429778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:40.709468
License: Public Domain

Felton, Chief Judge,
dissenting. I dissent from the judgment of reversal and from all of the rulings of the majority except the ruling in division 1 of the opinion.
The contract between the mother and the adopting parents is void as being against public policy. I do not agree that the contract was made by the mother primarily for the benefit of the child. I think the exact opposite is true and to me it is too obvious to require debate. The consideration in Savannah Bank & Trust Co. v. Hanley, 208 Ga. 34 (65 S. E. 2d 26) flowed to the mother. Monetary consideration to a mother, or its equivalent, which forms the basis of an adoption contract, vitiates the agreement. Once the door is open to this kind of an agreement the floodgates of racketeering and fraud will soon be wide open. The best thing the courts can do is to stop this kind of a trend in its starting tracks. Neither the case here, nor the Hanley case, supra, is similar to Savannah Bank & Trust Co. v. Wolff, 191 Ga. 111 (11 S. E. 2d 766) cited by the majority.
The majority opinion at least implies that the mother cannot withdraw her consent because of the binding contract. Adoption contracts are not custody contracts, and stand on a different footing. Assuming that the contract is not void as against public policy, an adoption proceeding is not a vehicle *794of the law for its enforcement. It was made in contemplation of adoption and when an application for adoption is filed the applicants submit themselves to the full jurisdiction of the adoption laws and procedures, and a contract to adopt is relevant only on the question of consent. Allen v. Morgan, 75 Ga. App. 738 (44 S. E. 2d 500). The fact of a valid consideration is no bar to the right of a party to withdraw consent so far as the adoption proceeding is concerned. Even since the 1957 amendment parents may still withdraw consent for good cause and all parties to a contract to adopt are charged with such knowledge. The law would not regard a parent who had cause to withdraw consent as a defaulting party so' as to estop him or her from withdrawing consent. We are not here dealing with a custody contract on a habeas corpus or other kind of proceeding nor a case where specific performance of a contract to adopt is involved.
I think the majority has consciously or unconsciously delved into a phase of this case that is in no wise involved in this appeal, to wit, the question of the best interests of the child. Where there is no parental consent or where it is withdrawn for good cause, the question of the welfare of the child is never reached. The court in this case dismissed the proceedings at the interlocutory hearing. This can mean but one thing and that is that the court found that the mother had good cause to withdraw her consent. Otherwise the proceeding would have been permitted to pursue its regular course to the final hearing where all matters, including the welfare of the child, would have been determined. We cannot decide this case correctly unless we isolate the one issue and decide it. The only issue here is whether the mother had good cause to withdraw her consent. She admits that she originally gave her consent freely and voluntarily but she showed a change of circumstances which authorized a withdrawal of the consent. And I repeat, the welfare of the child can play no part in the decision on that issue. An unwed mother has as much right to her child as a wedded mother and we have to accept that fact without regard to anything else except the right to withdraw consent. The evidence showed that the mother signed the contract and entered into one consent *795four months before the birth of the child and that she signed the last consent two days after the birth of the child without having seen it. The evidence showed that the mother and father of Sarah Hunter lived on a farm in a small country town; that her father was 67 years old and a pastor in a church; that she had four sisters and brothers, most of whom were married and none of whom had ever been in trouble before; that she did not wish her parents to know about her predicament and be hurt and embarrassed by reason thereof; that she was worried and upset emotionally and returned to Alabama immediately upon the birth of the child and refused to stay in Atlanta with the Hendrixes because she knew she would want to see the baby if she stayed; that her mother and father had already found out about her trouble and were willing to provide the child a home. Miss Hunter testified as follows: “Mother and them did come to me and tell me if I didn’t want to make my home with them they would give the baby a home. I told Mother and Daddy, I said, ‘well, I figure if I can get him back to love myself, I would rather have him there where I work at to love. You don’t know what love is until you have one and lose as much sleep over it as I have.’ Time after time I have wanted to get close to him, bring him up beside me and tell him I am his mother; I have done wrong I admit I done the wrong thing. I was trying to keep Mother and Daddy from being hurt. I figured I was big enough to wear it off myself . . .” Considering the above evidence with the nature of the contract, the condition of the mother before the birth of the child and shortly thereafter and the fact that she agreed to the adoption before the birth of the child and without having seen it, I am of the opinion that the court was authorized to find that the mother had sufficient cause to withdraw her consent. Keheley v. Koonce, 85 Ga. App. 893, 897 (70 S. E. 2d 522). Since the court was authorized to dismiss the proceedings because the mother had the right to withdraw her consent under the circumstances, the judgment dismissing the proceeding should be affirmed. Murray v. Woodford, 86 Ga. App. 273 (71 S. E. 2d 275).
The question of free and voluntary consent was not in this case. That was admitted by the mother. Without free *796and voluntary consent the new 1957 law has no- application. In my judgment the 1957 law does not take away from a parent completely the right to withdraw consent. Otherwise it would have so provided. The fact that consent was given before the birth of the child and before the mother saw the child might not in and of itself be against public policy, but that fact can certainly be taken into consideration by a court in determining whether the withdrawal of consent is authorized. Such a practice is forbidden by some welfare agencies which fact in itself is a matter for a court’s consideration. The quotation from In Re Adoption of a Minor, supra, contained in the majority opinion was not written by the court on the question of the welfare of an illegitimate child. It was written to explain the District of Columbia Act on adoption concerning the sole question whether a parent could withdraw consent as a matter of right. The recommendations of agencies and doctors to the trial judge were based on the opinion that the parent could withdraw consent as a matter of right and the trial judge’s ruling was based on that hypothesis. All the appellate court did was to rule that the parent could not withdraw consent as a matter of right, by a mere change of mind without good reason. In that case the parent offered no- good reason, and the trial judge’s judgment was reversed.
Assuming the validity and binding force of the contract as one for adoption and consent thereto, an adoption proceeding is all-inclusive and is more comprehensive than a simple custody question, and when a married couple seeks to adopt a child under the circumstances such as we have in this case, they lay all of their fortunes in the judgment of the judge deciding the questions raised by the adoption petition, and one of these fortunes is the disposition of the child’s person. The custody of the child in this case was taken from the mother not under a custody agreement but under a contract for adoption, and such a custody was based on a consent which was binding at the time, which the plaintiffs in error were charged with knowing might be revoked for good cause at a later date. To say now that the court in this case could not restore the child to its mother would rob- the court of its power to render a valid and *797binding judgment after hearing the case and would render his efforts to do justice absolutely futile and no more than an empty gesture. We think that under the circumstances whatever rights to custody the plaintiffs in error had they surrendered to the court in submitting to it their petition for adoption and agreed that his judgment in the case would finally conclude all questions properly and legally decided, including the custody of the child.

Carlisle, J., concurs in the foregoing dissent.