In the Matter of the Adoption of S.A.H.

Summary

The Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed district court decisions denying a cousin's motion to vacate the paternal grandparents' adoption of S.A.H. and dismissing the cousin's guardianship petition as moot. The Court held that the cousin had no statutory or constitutional custody rights requiring notice or permitting her to challenge the adoption, and that the biological father's consent to the adoption was controlling absent evidence of parental unfitness or harm to the child.

Holdings

1. A third party seeking custody must affirmatively establish the natural parent's unfitness or harm to the child; the cousin had no statutory or constitutional right to custody or visitation that could override the father's parental decision to consent to the grandparents' adoption.
2. The adoption court could proceed with the grandparents' adoption petition even though the cousin's general guardianship claim remained pending because the proceedings sought different relief, no intolerable jurisdictional conflict existed, and the cousin had no current guardianship or custody right requiring her consent.
3. The cousin was not entitled by statute or constitution to notice of the grandparents' adoption proceeding and could not obtain equitable relief unwinding an adoption to which the father validly consented.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the adoption court could grant the paternal grandparents' adoption petition based on the father's consent while the cousin's claim for general guardianship was pending.
2. Whether the guardianship court properly dismissed the cousin's guardianship petition because the child's adoption made a guardianship unnecessary and the matter moot.
3. Whether the cousin had a statutory or constitutional right to custody, notice, or an opportunity to object sufficient to require vacatur of the adoption decree.

Disposition

affirmed