Care and Protection of a Minor (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-182-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-12403 CARE AND PROTECTION OF A MINOR. November 10, 2017. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Practice, Civil, Notice of appeal. Notice, Timeliness. The father of a child who is the subject of a care and protection proceeding in the Norfolk County Division of the Juvenile Court Department filed a petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, with a single justice of this court seeking relief pursuant to the court’s general superintendence power. The father is an attorney who is representing himself. The record of material he has put before us is confusing, to say the least. It appears that the child has been removed from his parents’ custody and that the father contests the removal. In his G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition he sought, among other things, a jury trial in the care and protection proceeding. He also claimed that the Department of Children and Families has violated his due process rights and that “non-party participants” in the care and protection proceeding should have been sequestered during certain motion hearings in the Juvenile Court. The single justice denied the petition without a hearing on May 5, 2017. The petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on May 10, 2017. While the certiorari petition was pending, the petitioner filed a motion with the single justice, on August 7, 2017, for leave to file a late notice of appeal from the denial of the G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition. The single justice denied the motion on September 12, 2017. The petitioner then filed a notice of appeal from the denial of that motion, and his appeal was entered in this court on September 22, 2017. Shortly thereafter, the United States Supreme Court denied his certiorari petition, on October 2, 2017. The petitioner’s appeal to this court involves only the denial of his motion for leave to file a late notice of appeal. The single, very limited issue that is properly before us is whether the single justice erred or abused his discretion in denying that motion. Nevertheless, the multitude of papers that the petitioner has filed in this court focus almost exclusively on the underlying merits of his G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition, and address only minimally the issue of the late notice of appeal. He has […]
Adoption of a Minor (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-076-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11797 ADOPTION OF A MINOR. Middlesex. March 2, 2015. – May 7, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Adoption, Parent’s consent. Parent and Child, Adoption. Minor, Adoption. Practice, Civil, Adoption. Notice. Consent. Words, “Lawful parent.” Petition filed in the Middlesex Division of the Probate and Family Court Department on April 25, 2014. A motion to proceed without further notice was heard by Jeffrey A. Abber, J., and a question of law was reported by him to the Appeals Court. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Patience Crozier for the petitioners. Kari Hong, of California, & Mary L. Bonauto & Vickie Henry, for American Academy of Adoption Attorneys & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. DUFFLY, J. The petitioners, J.S. and V.K, a married same-sex couple, filed a joint petition for adoption in the Probate and Family Court, seeking to adopt their son Nicholas.[1] Nicholas was born to J.S. in 2014, during the petitioners’ marriage. He was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF),[2] using a known sperm donor[3] selected by J.S. and V.K., whose names appear on his birth certificate. The petitioners sought to adopt their son as a means of ensuring recognition of their parentage when they travel outside the Commonwealth, or in the event of their relocation to a State where same-sex marriage is not recognized. The petitioners filed a motion to proceed with the adoption without further notice, arguing that, as Nicholas’s lawful parents, they could consent to the adoption, no other consent was necessary, and no notice to any other person was required under G. L. c. 210, § 4. While recognizing the petitioners as Nicholas’s legal parents in Massachusetts, a Probate and Family Court judge issued an interlocutory order denying the motion, and reserving and reporting to the Appeals Court the question “whether the lawful parents of a child must give notice to the known biological father/sperm donor pursuant to G. L. c. 210, § 2,” in conjunction with their petition for adoption. We transferred the case to this court on our own motion to consider the correctness of the judge’s ruling. See Roberts v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. of Boston, Inc., 438 Mass. 187, 188 & n.4 (2002), citing O’Brien v. Dwight, 363 Mass. 256, 276 (1973).[4] We […]