stating that the mother and the maternal grandfather “have not demonstrated that the proposed co-parenting arrangement would create a new family unit or a new parent-child relationship” and that the maternal grandfather’s “pre-existing and continuing close relationship with [the] children does not establish legal cause to excuse the requirement that [the] mother relinquish her parental rights under Section 2711 prior to the adoption” (footnote omitted and some formatting altered)
How later courts described this case
- stating that the mother and the maternal grandfather “have not demonstrated that the proposed co-parenting arrangement would create a new family unit or a new parent-child relationship” and that the maternal grandfather’s “pre-existing and continuing close relationship with [the] children does not establish legal cause to excuse the requirement that [the] mother relinquish her parental rights under Section 2711 prior to the adoption” (footnote omitted and some formatting altered)
- warning about the potential for misuse in adoption proceedings “by spiteful parents as a means to involuntarily terminate the rights of unwanted parents, potentially allowing grandparents, cousins, pastors, coaches, and a litany of other individuals who have a close relationship with a child to stand in as prospective adoptive parents so that termination may be achieved.”
- stating that a “petitioning parent must demonstrate that an adoption of the child is anticipated in order for the termination petition to be cognizable”
- holding that the parties seeking to adopt were legally unable to marry and, thus, were excused from satisfying the Adoption Act’s marriage requirement
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice TODD,
concurring.
The Majority Opinion, which I authored, holds that Grandfather may not, as a matter of law, adopt and co-parent his grandchildren with his daughter, as a prerequisite to the termination of Father’s parental rights. Our decision is dictated by the Pennsylvania Adoption Act and, in particular, by the statutory requirement that, in order to terminate the other parent’s parental rights, a petitioning parent must demonstrate that an adoption of his or her child is contemplated and relinquish his or her parental rights, unless the petitioning parent has a spouse or partner willing to adopt. I write separately, unconstrained by majority authorship, to express my views regarding the current formulation of this requirement. 1
It is clear that the relinquishment requirement for termination was designed to promote two-parent families. However, in the nearly 36 years since this requirement was enacted, the concept of family has evolved — and continues to evolve — in today’s society, and there are situations where, in my view, it is unfair to require a single parent to have a spouse or partner as a prerequisite to seeking the termination of the rights of the child’s other legal, but absent, parent. Indeed, there are many families comprised of only a parent and a child where the single parent is fully capable of raising and providing for his or her child, and where the absent parent provides no benefit to — or worse, is a dark cloud over — the child. While, of course, I am mindful of the legislature’s policymaking role in this area, given that today’s families are not necessarily the traditional nuclear families that were envisioned at the time our adoption laws were initially drafted, I urge the legislature, *537 with continued focus on the best interests of our Commonwealth’s children, to revisit the adoption and relinquishment requirements for termination of parental rights under the Act.
. As members of this Court have previously noted, special concurrences are "somewhat unusual, but not without precedent.” Commonwealth v. King, 618 Pa. 405 , 57 A.3d 607 , 633 n. 1 (2012) (Saylor, J., specially concurring) (collecting cases).