Court Opinion

ID: 9538723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:40:41.243684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:07.220695
License: Public Domain

Olson, J.
(dissenting)—I regret that I feel obliged to dissent in this case because I, too, am sympathetic with this *724grandmother. The consistent interest she has shown in her grandchild is commendable. Many grandparents more fortunate than she in health and financial condition, have not responded nearly so well or at all.
Her entire situation was patiently and considerately heard by the court, and a conclusion reached which the majority would affirm on the merits. This hearing was held by the juvenile court after it had acquired jurisdiction of the child as a dependent child, that is, after the child had become a ward of the juvenile court. It was the duty of that court to provide for its ward, consistent with his best interests and welfare, according to the evidence before it. If the majority opinion means that a grandparent, despite such a hearing and proper conclusion, has a right, arising out of a natural guardianship or otherwise, to have the custody of that ward, it creates a new right which neither the legislature nor any previous decision of this court has recognized.
Relator is not the legal guardian of the child. Her designation as his natural guardian can have no determinative significance in the creation of her legal right to his custody, or bring her within the statute quoted by the majority. RCW 13.04.010 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 1987-1],
The opinion of the majority may be taken to mean that, in the future, whenever the juvenile court has to provide for the custody of its ward, notice must be served upon the ward’s grandparents. This must be so, if they have a preference right to the ward’s custody. A preference right must mean a legal right. A legal right must be a right which cannot be foreclosed, except by the traditional requirements of notice and hearing. The legislature, in the juvenile court law or elsewhere, has not intimated such a requirement for grandparents, or for any other relative or next of kin of a ward of the juvenile court, over whom it has jurisdiction as it did in this case.
Relator is the maternal grandmother of this child. His paternal grandparents have not been mentioned, and we know nothing about them. They have made no voluntary *725appearance in this proceeding. Whether or not they will so appear may be a matter of speculation, but, under the majority opinion, their right to do so is not. Further, and of greater concern, is the doubt now cast upon the validity of any order entered until they either have appeared voluntarily or have had their right to the custody of the child foreclosed at a hearing of which they have notice.
A further question is posed by the creation of this new right, that is, when and how is that right terminated? This is an important inquiry because, in many cases, the welfare of the child requires that final permanent orders must be entered. This was not accomplished at the previous hearings in this case. Will it be by a further consideration of relator’s fitness to have the custody of this child? If she is now no more capable in this regard than she was at the time of the first hearings, can she again successfully assert that, despite proper reconsideration of her fitness, she has a right to a further hearing? Her position after later hearings should be as sound as it was after the first hearings, if the conclusion of the majority opinion is based upon her right, rather than her fitness to have custody of the child.
A further inquiry suggested by the creation of this new right, is whether or not its possessor may be a necessary party to an adoption proceeding involving such a ward of the juvenile court. If the right exists, it will bear assertion in adoption cases because they involve the custody of the ward. This possibility is not beyond the requirements of the adoption statutes, any more than the right conferred upon the grandmother in this case is beyond the requirements of the juvenile court law. If this court can create it in one instance, it can in the other.
Consideration of these, and other, ramifications of the majority opinion is not idle. It indicates the broad and wide departure from previously accepted practice inherent in the new requirements imposed by the opinion, before effective action can be taken by the juvenile court. Whether or not such requirements are necessary or proper for the acquisition or exercise of its jurisdiction is, in any event, a problem for the legislature and not one for this court.
*726It might be well to be able to say that no child can be found to be a dependent child until all of his relatives have been foreclosed. It also might be well if such relatives could be held to have reciprocal obligations for a dependent child which could be enforced. But I am unable to see how either these rights or obligations can presently be asserted as sound legal propositions.
The answer seems inescapable that the trial court did all that it well could or should have done at the first hearings in this case. To require a rehearing merely because of the claimed failure of the court to express, inferentially or otherwise, that it recognized a preference right which had not then been created, and, consequently, could not have been within the knowledge of the trial court, does not solve the basic problem in this case, or point to its ultimate solution at any determinable time.
It may be that relator can now show an improvement in her health and situation, so that the court can find that an order placing her grandson in her custody will be in his best interests. I hope she can. If she cannot, then the court will have canvassed her situation a second time, and, if her rights then can be said to be terminated, it will have to exercise its best judgment again, in the performance of its most serious duty, the permanent care of one of its wards. It is to be hoped that, if his grandmother cannot have his custody, whatever is done will be done before the ward reaches the age when the incidence of adoption will scar him too deeply, or interfere with his full response to the love and affection an adoptive home can afford him.
Schwellenbach, C. J., Finley, and Weaver, JJ., concur with Olson, J.