FINAL BILL REPORT

SSB 6219

                                  C 203 L 88

BYSenate Committee on Children & Family Services (originally sponsored by Senators Kreidler and Kiskaddon)

Changing the review standard for consent to adoption.

Senate Committee on Children & Family Services

House Committe on Human Services

SYNOPSIS AS ENACTED

BACKGROUND:

The adoption chapter requires a preplacement report to be filed with the court when prospective adoptive parents petition for adoption.  The agency with temporary custody of the child must consent or refuse consent to the adoption, based on the preplacement report.

Prospective adoptive parents are allowed to have additional reports by experts completed if they disagree with the report of the custodial agency, but the court may bypass consent of the agency only if the adoption is in the best interests of the child and the court finds that the agency's refusal to consent is "arbitrary and capricious".

Even if the family can prove to the court that the best interests of the child would be served by granting the adoption petition, the arbitrary and capricious standard is nearly impossible to prove.  As a result, a court is usually precluded from overturning an adoption agency decision regardless of the best interests of a child.

SUMMARY:

The court is no longer required to find that a custodial adoption agency acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner when refusing to consent to an adoption.  The court may dispense with the consent requirement if it finds, by clear, cogent and convincing evidence, that an adoption is in the best interest of the child.

VOTES ON FINAL PASSAGE:

      Senate    48     0

      House 95   0 (House amended)

      Senate            (Senate refused to concur)

      House 96   0 (House receded)

EFFECTIVE:June 9, 1988