Birtciel v. Jones

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The issue in this case was whether Father and Stepmother's adoption of the Child, at which proceedings the Child's biological maternal Grandmother did not appear, controlled the outcome of Grandmother's previously filed and pending visitation petition. The trial court ruled that Grandmother's nonappearance divested her right to seek visitation, and the opposition of both parents in this newly created intact nuclear family precluded the court from authorizing such a visitation. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed this judgment, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court granted certiorari. Grandmother argued that she did not lose her right to seek visitation by not appearing at the adoption (at which she lacked standing to do so); her due process rights were violated by the trial court's sua sponte ruling; and the adoption--granted subsequent to and while her visitation petition remained pending--equally did not divest her of this right. The Supreme Court found that Grandmother's properly filed, undecided petition arrived to the court four months before Stepmother petitioned to adopt and six months before the court granted the adoption. Grandmother followed all required procedure by filing, providing notice, and awaiting her day in court. "She should not be penalized for another court's decision to resolve the separate and subsequently-filed action of adoption without reference to the impact of that ruling on her pending petition." Furthermore, by deciding the adoption prior to resolution of the visitation petition--thereby framing Grandmother's rights in reference to the subsequently filed, subsequently granted adoption--the trial court disposed of Grandmother's opportunity to ever obtain any "previously granted" visitation right. The court's determination of the adoption before resolution of the previously filed visitation effectively deprived Grandmother of her statutory right to seek visitation of the Child. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded to the trial court to hear Appellant's petition for grandparental visitation. View "Birtciel v. Jones" on Justia Law