Appellant
Rachel Kingsley
Appellees
Gregory Kingsley, Jerri A. Blair, the George Russ family, and the State of Florida
Appellant's Claim
That a minor has no legal right to terminate parental rights solely on his own initiative.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Jane E. Carey
Chief Lawyer for Appellees
George H. Russ
Judges for the Court
George N. Diamantis (writing for the court), Jacqueline R. Griffin
Judges Dissenting
Charles M. Harris
Place
Daytona Beach, Florida
Date of Decision
18 August 1993
Decision
Ruled in favor of Gregory Kingsley by finding that clear and convincing evidence of abandonment supported termination.
Significance
The court held that a minor child does not have the capacity to terminate parental rights on his own behalf. However, because a petition for termination was filed on Gregory's behalf by other parties, termination was allowed. In effect, the court allowed Gregory Kingsley to "divorce" his natural mother. Thecase was part of a trend in courts deciding more frequently in the best interest of the child against parental authority concerning education and healthissues. The competency of children to make legal claims on their own increasingly became a subject of intense debate between children's rights advocates and others.
The conflict between children's rights and parental rights has often come tothe forefront in American history. During the Industrial Revolution, child labor laws were sought to protect children from parents forcing them to work asadults. A side effect of such debate was the recognition that parental authority was not absolute. Traditionally, courts assumed parents knew what was best by considering children as property and parental rights as paramount. Several court cases in the twentieth century focused on parental rights in choosing how their children would be educated.
By the 1970s, courts began applying "the best interests of the child" principle in ruling against parents. In 1989, the United Nations passed a resolutionrecognizing the children's rights in freedom from discrimination, health care, education, and freedom of thought. In a political era of emphasizing the promotion of family values by major political parties during election campaigns, the issue of children's legal rights persistently arose along with women'srights, minority rights, and rights of the disabled. In the 1990s, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned for the acceptance that children were competent to exercise legal standing. The Supreme Court seemingly sought a middle ground in its decisions, basically recognizing the dominance of parental rights except in clear-cut cases where children were in need of protection. Physical abuse cases often presented clear needs to favor the child's best interest, but emotional abuse cases presented much more difficult situations to judge. State and local governments remained inconsistent in their recognition of parental and child rights.
A Child as a Person
In 1992, Gregory Kingsley, at 11 years of age, was living in foster care while his poor and unemployed mother, Rachel, had lived for two years in Missouriwithout trying to contact him. His parents were divorced and his brother, Jeremiah, was in foster care suffering from the neurological disorder, Tourette's syndrome. When the Missouri Department of Human Resource Services recommended that Gregory be reunited with his mother, he filed a petition in the juvenile division of Florida's Orange County circuit court to terminate the parental rights of his natural parents. In a separate action, he also filed for adoption by his foster parents in the civil division of the same circuit court.
The first question to be resolved by the courts was whether Gregory as a minor was a "person" under the law who could initiate lawsuits. In July of 1992,the trial court ruled that Gregory was indeed a natural person under the law,and understood the situation. Therefore, Gregory had legal standing to seektermination of the parental rights even though an unemancipated minor.
George and Elizabeth Russ, a Mormon couple with children of their own, had taken Gregory in as a foster child. They also filed adoption papers in September of 1992. Gregory Kingsley's natural father readily agreed to the adoption petition and soon died while the case was still proceeding through the courts.But repeated petitions for termination of parental rights by the mother, Rachel Kingsley, received no response.
Later in September, the court decided to try the issues of termination and adoption together. After two days of trial, the court terminated Rachel's parental rights, and in a separate order, granted the adoption to the Russ'. Rachel appealed to the district court of appeals.
By a 2-1 majority, the District Court of Appeals of Florida for the Fifth District partially affirmed the district court's ruling and remanded Gregory's case back to the district court for further consideration. In presenting the court's findings, Judge Diamantis, writing for the majority, first examined the legal ability of a minor to file a lawsuit. Rachel Kingsley argued that Gregory could not seek termination of parental rights on his own behalf. She contended courts historically ruled that unemancipated minors did not have legalstanding to initiate legal actions on their own. The restriction, in fact, was included in Florida civil law which stated,
A guardian ad litem is a person appointed by the court to represent the child in the best interests of the child. An attorney ad litem is aperson appointed by the court to represent a person as his counsel in the legal proceeding. Diamantis was concerned that the district court simply appointing one of Gregory's attorneys as his guardian ad litem was insufficient.
However, Diamantis wrote,
Diamantis then turned to the second question, termination of Rachel's parental rights. Gregory contended the level of proof needed should be a "preponderance of the evidence" rather than the more stringent "clear and convincing evidence." Gregory argued that a child's right to be raised free of abuse and neglect should be at least equal to a parent's right to maintain a formal relationship with the child. Diamantis disagreed by holding that Florida law applicable to termination of parental rights cases required clear and convincing evidence.
However, Diamantis did find that clear and convincing evidence existed in Gregory's case concerning abandonment and neglect. The Florida Supreme Court hadpreviously defined "clear and convincing evidence" as believable evidence with facts distinctly remembered, testimony specific, and no confusion over thefacts. Florida law also defined abandonment as "a situation in which the parent . . . of a child . . . , while being able, makes no provision for the child's support and makes no effort to communicate with the child, which situation is sufficient to evince a willful rejection of parental obligations." Marginal efforts were normally not sufficient. Judge Diamantis concurred with theappeals court finding of abandonment based on strong supporting evidence.
Improper Parental Comparisons
The third issue involved the adoption order. Rachel Kingsley argued the district court should not have tried the termination and adoption cases simultaneously. Such action by the court violated her rights to procedural due processof the law. Mistakenly, according to Rachel, the court had shifted its focusfrom the abandonment and neglect issue to comparing her parenting skills withthose of the proposed adoptive parents. This comparison ignored her fundamental interest in Gregory on its own merit. Diamantis agreed with Rachel.
He ruled that trying the two petitions separately would avoid this inappropriate comparison of parenting skills. Such comparisons could unnecessarily influence termination decisions. Diamantis wrote that termination cases must focus solely on issues of abandonment, neglect, or abuse. That a child may be better off with the prospective adoptive parents was not legally relevant in deciding termination. Natural parents retain custody unless found unfit. Anothercould not obtain custody merely because they might provide better care.
Diamantis found that Rachel's appeal regarding termination effectively suspended the adoption case. When Rachel contested termination in district court, the court should have immediately suspended any further consideration of the adoption issue. Diamantis was especially concerned that the adoption order wasissued prior to terminating parental rights contrary to Florida law. The lawspecifically stated that an appeal of an order terminating parental rights automatically suspended any placement of the child for adoption. Diamantis affirmed the order terminating Rachel's parental rights, but reversed the adoption order.
Judge Harris, in dissent, argued the court should have simply judged whetherRachel had really done something so bad that she should lose her child. Although agreeing with the majority that Gregory had no legal standing as a minor,Harris insisted Rachel should have had a new hearing on the abandonment issue. He believed the district court's error in considering abandonment and adoption together was not as "harmless" as the majority ruled. Adoption issues likely tainted the abandonment arguments too severely to be ignored as the majority were doing.
Impact
Gregory became the topic of talk shows and two movies made for television. His story encouraged other children to seek legal help with their problems andraised hopes of foster care parents interested in adopting children with no legal guardians. The increased reporting of child abuse incidences throughoutthe nation, often in high-profile news stories, greatly supported efforts torecognize children's rights. By the late 1990s estimates projected that 1.5 million children were subjected to moderate or serious abuse across the nationannually. Still, courts across the nation commonly ruled in favor of recognizing parental rights despite prior neglect and abuse. In response, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requiring courts to considerpast histories of abuse in deciding to terminate parental rights for those children already in state foster care systems. States were threatened with loss of federal child-welfare funds if they did not conform with the act.
Some family advocates were concerned that the concept of children's rights was often discriminatory against poor and single mothers of color. Also, the publicity of such cases could have long-term effects on the children themselves. Advocates for the poor and minorities encouraged family preservation programs in attempting to more assertively help the parents before removing the children from their homes.
Kingsley helped define the limits of children's rights in U.S. law. Unemancipated minor children could not terminate parental rights in their own right, but needed an adult advocate to represent them in addition to a lawyerin legal proceedings. Many still believed Kingsley set a dangerous precedence with the child being named as the plaintiff, rather than the anticipated foster parents or public agency. Issues over the government's right to act on behalf of children in opposition to their parents continued concerning denial of medical care for religious purposes, ineffective home schooling, andright to abortion without parental permission. Some feared the government was assuming too much of a decision-making role in family matters. What was traditionally considered parental inherent rights were being diminished. In reaction, children's rights advocates argued the notion children were, in essence, the property of their parents was ill-founded and outdated.
Related Cases
Rachel Kingsley
Appellees
Gregory Kingsley, Jerri A. Blair, the George Russ family, and the State of Florida
Appellant's Claim
That a minor has no legal right to terminate parental rights solely on his own initiative.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Jane E. Carey
Chief Lawyer for Appellees
George H. Russ
Judges for the Court
George N. Diamantis (writing for the court), Jacqueline R. Griffin
Judges Dissenting
Charles M. Harris
Place
Daytona Beach, Florida
Date of Decision
18 August 1993
Decision
Ruled in favor of Gregory Kingsley by finding that clear and convincing evidence of abandonment supported termination.
Significance
The court held that a minor child does not have the capacity to terminate parental rights on his own behalf. However, because a petition for termination was filed on Gregory's behalf by other parties, termination was allowed. In effect, the court allowed Gregory Kingsley to "divorce" his natural mother. Thecase was part of a trend in courts deciding more frequently in the best interest of the child against parental authority concerning education and healthissues. The competency of children to make legal claims on their own increasingly became a subject of intense debate between children's rights advocates and others.
The conflict between children's rights and parental rights has often come tothe forefront in American history. During the Industrial Revolution, child labor laws were sought to protect children from parents forcing them to work asadults. A side effect of such debate was the recognition that parental authority was not absolute. Traditionally, courts assumed parents knew what was best by considering children as property and parental rights as paramount. Several court cases in the twentieth century focused on parental rights in choosing how their children would be educated.
By the 1970s, courts began applying "the best interests of the child" principle in ruling against parents. In 1989, the United Nations passed a resolutionrecognizing the children's rights in freedom from discrimination, health care, education, and freedom of thought. In a political era of emphasizing the promotion of family values by major political parties during election campaigns, the issue of children's legal rights persistently arose along with women'srights, minority rights, and rights of the disabled. In the 1990s, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned for the acceptance that children were competent to exercise legal standing. The Supreme Court seemingly sought a middle ground in its decisions, basically recognizing the dominance of parental rights except in clear-cut cases where children were in need of protection. Physical abuse cases often presented clear needs to favor the child's best interest, but emotional abuse cases presented much more difficult situations to judge. State and local governments remained inconsistent in their recognition of parental and child rights.
A Child as a Person
In 1992, Gregory Kingsley, at 11 years of age, was living in foster care while his poor and unemployed mother, Rachel, had lived for two years in Missouriwithout trying to contact him. His parents were divorced and his brother, Jeremiah, was in foster care suffering from the neurological disorder, Tourette's syndrome. When the Missouri Department of Human Resource Services recommended that Gregory be reunited with his mother, he filed a petition in the juvenile division of Florida's Orange County circuit court to terminate the parental rights of his natural parents. In a separate action, he also filed for adoption by his foster parents in the civil division of the same circuit court.
The first question to be resolved by the courts was whether Gregory as a minor was a "person" under the law who could initiate lawsuits. In July of 1992,the trial court ruled that Gregory was indeed a natural person under the law,and understood the situation. Therefore, Gregory had legal standing to seektermination of the parental rights even though an unemancipated minor.
George and Elizabeth Russ, a Mormon couple with children of their own, had taken Gregory in as a foster child. They also filed adoption papers in September of 1992. Gregory Kingsley's natural father readily agreed to the adoption petition and soon died while the case was still proceeding through the courts.But repeated petitions for termination of parental rights by the mother, Rachel Kingsley, received no response.
Later in September, the court decided to try the issues of termination and adoption together. After two days of trial, the court terminated Rachel's parental rights, and in a separate order, granted the adoption to the Russ'. Rachel appealed to the district court of appeals.
By a 2-1 majority, the District Court of Appeals of Florida for the Fifth District partially affirmed the district court's ruling and remanded Gregory's case back to the district court for further consideration. In presenting the court's findings, Judge Diamantis, writing for the majority, first examined the legal ability of a minor to file a lawsuit. Rachel Kingsley argued that Gregory could not seek termination of parental rights on his own behalf. She contended courts historically ruled that unemancipated minors did not have legalstanding to initiate legal actions on their own. The restriction, in fact, was included in Florida civil law which stated,
When an infant or incompetent person has a representative, such as a guardian or other like fiduciary, the representative may sue or defend on behalf of the infant or incompetent person. An infant or incompetent person who does not have a duly appointed representative may sue by next friend or by a guardian ad litem. The court shall appoint a guardian ad litem for an infant or incompetent person not otherwise represented in an action or shall make such other order as it deems proper for the protection of the infant or incompetent person.
A guardian ad litem is a person appointed by the court to represent the child in the best interests of the child. An attorney ad litem is aperson appointed by the court to represent a person as his counsel in the legal proceeding. Diamantis was concerned that the district court simply appointing one of Gregory's attorneys as his guardian ad litem was insufficient.
However, Diamantis wrote,
Although we conclude that the trial court erred in allowing Gregory to file the petition in his own name because Gregory lacked the requisite legal capacity, this error was rendered harmless bythe fact that separate petitions for termination of parental rights were filed on behalf of Gregory by the foster father, the guardian ad litem, HRS (Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services), and the foster mother.
Diamantis then turned to the second question, termination of Rachel's parental rights. Gregory contended the level of proof needed should be a "preponderance of the evidence" rather than the more stringent "clear and convincing evidence." Gregory argued that a child's right to be raised free of abuse and neglect should be at least equal to a parent's right to maintain a formal relationship with the child. Diamantis disagreed by holding that Florida law applicable to termination of parental rights cases required clear and convincing evidence.
However, Diamantis did find that clear and convincing evidence existed in Gregory's case concerning abandonment and neglect. The Florida Supreme Court hadpreviously defined "clear and convincing evidence" as believable evidence with facts distinctly remembered, testimony specific, and no confusion over thefacts. Florida law also defined abandonment as "a situation in which the parent . . . of a child . . . , while being able, makes no provision for the child's support and makes no effort to communicate with the child, which situation is sufficient to evince a willful rejection of parental obligations." Marginal efforts were normally not sufficient. Judge Diamantis concurred with theappeals court finding of abandonment based on strong supporting evidence.
Improper Parental Comparisons
The third issue involved the adoption order. Rachel Kingsley argued the district court should not have tried the termination and adoption cases simultaneously. Such action by the court violated her rights to procedural due processof the law. Mistakenly, according to Rachel, the court had shifted its focusfrom the abandonment and neglect issue to comparing her parenting skills withthose of the proposed adoptive parents. This comparison ignored her fundamental interest in Gregory on its own merit. Diamantis agreed with Rachel.
He ruled that trying the two petitions separately would avoid this inappropriate comparison of parenting skills. Such comparisons could unnecessarily influence termination decisions. Diamantis wrote that termination cases must focus solely on issues of abandonment, neglect, or abuse. That a child may be better off with the prospective adoptive parents was not legally relevant in deciding termination. Natural parents retain custody unless found unfit. Anothercould not obtain custody merely because they might provide better care.
Diamantis found that Rachel's appeal regarding termination effectively suspended the adoption case. When Rachel contested termination in district court, the court should have immediately suspended any further consideration of the adoption issue. Diamantis was especially concerned that the adoption order wasissued prior to terminating parental rights contrary to Florida law. The lawspecifically stated that an appeal of an order terminating parental rights automatically suspended any placement of the child for adoption. Diamantis affirmed the order terminating Rachel's parental rights, but reversed the adoption order.
Judge Harris, in dissent, argued the court should have simply judged whetherRachel had really done something so bad that she should lose her child. Although agreeing with the majority that Gregory had no legal standing as a minor,Harris insisted Rachel should have had a new hearing on the abandonment issue. He believed the district court's error in considering abandonment and adoption together was not as "harmless" as the majority ruled. Adoption issues likely tainted the abandonment arguments too severely to be ignored as the majority were doing.
Impact
Gregory became the topic of talk shows and two movies made for television. His story encouraged other children to seek legal help with their problems andraised hopes of foster care parents interested in adopting children with no legal guardians. The increased reporting of child abuse incidences throughoutthe nation, often in high-profile news stories, greatly supported efforts torecognize children's rights. By the late 1990s estimates projected that 1.5 million children were subjected to moderate or serious abuse across the nationannually. Still, courts across the nation commonly ruled in favor of recognizing parental rights despite prior neglect and abuse. In response, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requiring courts to considerpast histories of abuse in deciding to terminate parental rights for those children already in state foster care systems. States were threatened with loss of federal child-welfare funds if they did not conform with the act.
Some family advocates were concerned that the concept of children's rights was often discriminatory against poor and single mothers of color. Also, the publicity of such cases could have long-term effects on the children themselves. Advocates for the poor and minorities encouraged family preservation programs in attempting to more assertively help the parents before removing the children from their homes.
Kingsley helped define the limits of children's rights in U.S. law. Unemancipated minor children could not terminate parental rights in their own right, but needed an adult advocate to represent them in addition to a lawyerin legal proceedings. Many still believed Kingsley set a dangerous precedence with the child being named as the plaintiff, rather than the anticipated foster parents or public agency. Issues over the government's right to act on behalf of children in opposition to their parents continued concerning denial of medical care for religious purposes, ineffective home schooling, andright to abortion without parental permission. Some feared the government was assuming too much of a decision-making role in family matters. What was traditionally considered parental inherent rights were being diminished. In reaction, children's rights advocates argued the notion children were, in essence, the property of their parents was ill-founded and outdated.
Related Cases
- Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982).
- Padgett v. Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, 577 So.2d 565 (1991).
- Twigg v. Mays, WL 330624 (Fla. Cir. Cty. 1993).
- Smith v. Langford, 255 So.2d 712 (1997).
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