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Family Law & Court ReformOur Work
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Family Law LitigationUpdate on Filing of WLP Amicus Brief In re Adoption of L.J.B.On April 29, 2011, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced its decision in In re Adoption of L.J.B., a case in which the mother’s parental rights to her nine year old daughter were terminated based on abandonment. WLP filed an amicus brief in support of the mother whose parental rights were terminated on behalf of nine public interest and domestic violence organizations, arguing that the termination of rights was unsupported by clear and convincing evidence and that the court failed to consider the totality of the circumstances, including the father’s abusive and obstructionist conduct and the stepmother’s expressed intent not to adopt the child. The Supreme Court remanded the case for an immediate hearing to determine whether the matter is moot based on the stepmother’s communications to the lower courts withdrawing her intention to adopt, with instructions to dismiss the termination if it is determined that she will not be proceeding with the termination. In the absence of a contemplated adoption, a parent’s petition terminate a natural parent’s rights is not cognizable. In addition, in light of questions regarding the impartiality of the judges who handled the custody and termination proceedings, the only two judges in Clinton County, Pa., the Court also ordered all future proceedings pertaining to this child be assigned to a new jurist not from Clinton County. Three dissenting justices would have reversed based on the lack of clear and convincing evidence to support the termination of parental rights. The opinion and accompanying concurring and dissenting opinions can be found at these links: WLP Files Amicus Brief In re Adoption of L.J.B.On September 2, 2010, the Women’s Law Project filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court In re Adoption of L.J.B. on behalf of nine public interest legal and domestic violence advocacy organizations dedicated to ensuring that judicial determinations affecting the relationship between mothers and their children properly consider the safety of family members. Appellant mother endured years of abusive conduct perpetrated by the father of her child after their separation, including direct threats of violence, stalking, and harassment. The father also misused the custody courts as a way to harass the mother. As a litigation tactic in custody proceedings, the father subjected the child to repeated invasive medical examinations related to unfounded accusations of sexual abuse against the mother. To protect the child from further medical examinations and from the hostility of custody litigation, the mother relocated to a new state, accepted visitation with her child, and refrained from conduct she reasonably believed would provoke the father’s abuse. From that point on, the father and his wife obstructed the mother’s contact with her child— they hung up the phone when the mother called the child, listened to the conversations on speaker-phone when they allowed the mother and the child to speak, and returned — unopened — a birthday card from the mother (and the grandmother) to the child. The father and his wife filed to terminate the mother’s parental rights, arguing there had been no contact between the mother and the child for six months even though they had obstructed the mother’s efforts to contact her child. The trial court terminated the parental rights of the mother, who had been the primary custodial parent for the first four and a half years of child’s life, and rewarded the father for his obstructionist and abusive behavior. The Superior Court affirmed. In its brief, Amici urge the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse the trial court’s termination of the mother’s parental rights because the trial court misapplied Pennsylvania’s Adoption Act by failing to apply the appropriate legal standard, failing to consider the totality of the circumstances, including the father’s abusive and obstructionist conduct and the mother’s attempts to parent in the context of domestic violence, failing to give proper consideration to the needs of the child, and by giving undue weight to the recommendation of the representative of the child (guardian ad litem) who failed to comply with best practices. By misapplying the law, the lower courts violated the mother’s constitutionally protected right to parent and thwarted Pennsylvania’s public policy against rewarding obstructionist and abusive behavior by litigants. |
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