M. L. B. v. S. L. J.

How later courts described this case

• explaining that “the interest of parents in their relationship with then-children is sufficiently fundamental to come within the finite class of liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment” (quoting Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 774, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted))
• holding that a state in which civil litigants have a general statutory right to appeal from state court decisions, it is inconsistent with the due process and equal protection clauses to condition a mother’s right to appeal from the court’s civil order terminating her parental rights on her ability to prepay record preparation fees
• holding that mother had due process right to appeal termination of parental rights while noting the distinction between “loss of custody, which does not sever the parent-child bond” and “parental status termination [which] is irretrievably destructive of the most fundamental family relationship” (internal quotation marks omitted)
• holding that the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding "access to judicial processes ... reflect both equal protection and due process concerns” and that "A ‘precise rationale’ has not been composed” for analyzing those cases "because cases of this order cannot be resolved by resort to easy slogans or pigeonhole analysis”

Written by the judges who cited it.