The Utah Court of Appeals announced a decision today against a birth father seeking to intervene in an adoption of his child.
In this case, a love triangle went very wrong when the mother, who is married to another man, became pregnant. It is undisputed that the husband is not the father of the baby. The birth father initiated paternity action in September 2009 and served the mother with that action. The husband then filed a petition to adopt the child, identified the father as the father (thus overcoming the presumption that he is the father), and sought to have birth father's rights terminated. However, the birth father was not notified of this action nor named in the adoption proceeding.
On December 10, 2009, the Judge Hadley, a Judge in Ogden Utah, terminated the birth father's rights and entered a Decree of Adoption.
The birth father filed an appeal from the adoption proceeding. It makes sense that a father - who everyone admits is the father and who has done everything right according to statute - should be able to appeal a decision that terminates his rights, right? Not according to the Utah Court of Appeals.
Although neither party argued this point, the Utah Court of Appeals sua sponte analyzed whether the birth father had "standing" to bring the appeal. Standing is a legal doctrine that determines who can come before the court and argue a grievance. Standing is the doctrine that stops me from suing Toyota for faulty accelerators when I have never owned a Toyota.
The Court of Appeals held that because the father was not part of the action in the District Court, he did not have standing to appeal the decision. Accordingly, the Court upheld the District Court's decision to terminate the father's rights. Importantly, the case cited by the Court of Appeals says that "generally" an appellant must be a party to appeal - which means to me that sometimes, a person can appeal without being a party in the district court.
One interesting legal issue is what happens with the birth father's paternity action. With an order in place that says the birth father's rights are terminated, that is presumably a decision that would be binding in the paternity action. Further, once a father's rights are terminated, he has no ability to even establish paternity.
Another interesting question is what should the birth father have done? Utah law says that by initiating a paternity action and filing notice of the action with the state, notice of a paternity action was required to be served upon him. This may not have happened. (More likely, however, it did happen, but the father denied actually receiving the notice and was therefore a question of whether the service was sufficient - just a guess). A party has the right to intervene in an action if its rights are affected, and the Court of Appeals felt that the father should have done that here. If not, I would think if ever an appeal could be initiated by a non-party it would be in this case.
Here are some takeaways: (1) A court will sometimes make a decison that has nothing to do with merits of the case. You need a good attorney to help you through the process. A procedural snafu caused a father to lose the chance to fight for his child. (2) A father can, even if he does everything he is required to do, lose his rights. Both potential adoptive parents and birth fathers must be aware that this situation may occur. All birth fathers must be on notice now that if they do not intervene in an adoption, they will lose their rights. (3) Utah's legal system is not set up to help father's protect their rights. It's main purpose is to facilitate adoptions because that is what is in the best interests of the child. All other rights are clearly secondary to that issue.
The entire decision is available here: http://www.utcourts.gov/opinions/appopin/mjb010611.pdf
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