Child custody case focuses on wrongful adoption

When a child is placed for adoption in Colorado or elsewhere, the adoptive parents want to feel assured that they will be able to care for their newest family member for the duration of their lives. The reality is that some adoptions are more complex than others, and there are circumstances in which an adoption can be challenged or even overthrown. An example is found in a child custody case in which a child’s father argued that his parental rights were violated by his daughter’s adoption.

The child was born to an unmarried couple in 2013. The couple went through the process of having paperwork notarized that proclaimed the man to be the baby’s father. Within a year, however, the man received notice that his daughter was being placed for adoption in a different state. He refused to give his consent or to give up his parental rights and filed a case in that state’s court. He also filed a case in the state where the little girl was born.

The court in the state where the adoption was initiated had paternity testing done, which determined that the man was not the biological father of the child. That fact led the court to allow the adoption to proceed, and it eventually went through. In making his appeal, the man argued that the court had no right to continue processing an adoption when a court in another state had already deemed him the legal father of the child, and when there was a pending child custody case in that jurisdiction.

The state’s Supreme Court agreed, and the adoption was overturned. It is unclear whether the child was immediately reunited with her legal father, or whether the adoptive family is planning to appeal. What is clear to readers in Colorado and across the nation is the importance of establishing paternity as soon as possible, and of taking an aggressive stance to protect one’s parental rights when faced with a child custody matter.

Source: omaha.com, “Court reverses adoption of girl born in Ohio; father had fought mother’s actions“, June 25, 2016