If you’re considering adoption or on your adoption journey, the recent Supreme Court case on adoption might have caught your attention. Actually, the Supreme Court was asked to consider the case but decided not to, so it can’t really be called a Supreme Court case on adoption. But it still has some important messages for people thinking about adoption.
Here’s what happened. In 2019, a two-month-old baby girl was orphaned in an army action in Afghanistan. She was in need of emergency medical care and her entire family had been killed. She had no known family members at that time. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast visited the baby in a Kabul hospital and, together with his wife, began adoption proceedings for the child. Because of the emergency nature of the situation, a Virginia court finalized the adoption in November of 2019.
The Masts worked to bring the baby to their home in Virginia. Meanwhile, the Red Cross in Afghanistan placed the little girl with a couple claiming to be her aunt and uncle, and she lived with the relatives for 18 months. Major Mast helped them come to Virginia following a Taliban attack in August of 2021, and took the baby home with him from a refugee center where the relatives were staying. They filed a petition to end the adoption. The court initially decided in favor of the Masts, since the child’s relatives could not prove either that they were related (they refused DNA testing) or that they had legally adopted the child.
The little girls went to live with the Masts, but the relatives did not give up on their case. Another Virginia court determined that, since the baby had not been in Virginia when the Mast’s adoption was finalized, the adoption was void. However, the Virginia Supreme Court pointed to a Virginia law that says that six months after an adoption is finalized, “the validity thereof shall not be subject to attack in any proceedings, collateral or direct, for any reason, including but not limited to fraud, duress, failure to give any required notice, failure of any procedural requirement, or lack of jurisdiction over any person.” The Mast’s adoption, they found, was safe.
The Afghan couple asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. They claimed that they had not been given notice of the adoption in time to object, and that the decision made in Afghanistan should take precedence over the one made in Virginia. The Masts not only denied these claims, but also said that the child, now seven years old, was settled and happy in their family and should not have the upheaval of being removed to another home.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. They did not explain why. However, there were several legal points that they might have considered when deciding to let the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision stand. First, the adoption had been finalized more than six months before the objections to it. Second, the Afghan couple were unable to prove either kinship or legal custody of the child. As for the claim that they had not been notified, an uncle and aunt need not be notified under U.S. law. The biological parents were definitely no longer living. Indeed, the government that might have supported any legal custody no longer existed, so the law might not have been relevant.
Lessons from the case
The case is complicated and both couples — the Masts and the Afghan couple claiming kinship with the child — have gained sympathy from many people. But the legal situation is not complicated enough to call for a Supreme Court decision. The adoption was finalized, and Virginia allows only six months to “attack” the adoption after it is finalized. An adoption means that the adopted child has a new legal parent or parents. It isn’t open to question or negotiation after the final date has passed.
Part of the reason for the complicated nature of the case is the fact that it took place during a war. This is not likely to happen to you. But the way the adoption decision was made was unusual, the grounds the Afghan couple claimed for wanting the adoption ended were unusual, and the fact that they couldn’t or wouldn’t prove kinship or custody was also unusual. They were unable to show their connection with the child, while the Masts had a legal adoption decree. If the Afghan couple had stepped up in the U.S. in 2021, saying that they were the child’s uncle and aunt, they could not possibly have ended the adoption. They would have had no standing to do so.
The lesson from this group of facts is that making sure your adoption is legal is an absolute must. Casual family arrangements and hurried almost-right decisions are the kind of thing that can involve families in years of legal battles. It’s more economical and just generally smarter to hire an experienced adoption lawyer in the first place. Make sure every T is crossed and every I is dotted in the first place.