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NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 […]