In re Adoption of B.C...

2025 UT 23

• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Decided: July 25, 2025
• Docket: Case No. 20230726
• Status: Published

Opinion

This opinion is subject to revision before final publication in the Pacific Reporter 2025 UT 23

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

In the Matter of the Adoptions of B.C., K.J.C., D.W.C., and B.C., persons under eighteen years of age ________________________________________________

C.C., Appellant, v. A.K. and L.K., Appellees.

No. 20230726 Heard March 3, 2025 Filed July 25, 2025

On Certification from the Court of Appeals

Second District Court, Weber County The Honorable Noel S. Hyde No. 202900022

Attorneys: Emily Adams, Sara Pfrommer, Melissa Jo Townsend, Bountiful, for appellant Charles R. Ahlstrom, Farmington, for appellees

CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT authored the opinion of the Court, in which ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE, JUSTICE PETERSEN, JUSTICE HAGEN, and JUSTICE POHLMAN joined.

CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, opinion of the Court: ¶1 A.K. (Mother) is the mother of four minor children, B.C., K.J.C., D.W.C., and B.C. (Children). In 2013, while the family was living in Alaska, Children’s biological father, C.C. (Father), was charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and was In re Adoption of B.C. Opinion of the Court

incarcerated. That same year, Mother and Children moved to Utah. In 2015, Father was convicted. And in 2016, Mother divorced Father and married L.K. (Stepfather). Stepfather then began living with Mother and Children and raising them with her. ¶2 In 2020, Mother and Stepfather filed a petition in district court for Stepfather to adopt Children. As part of that action, they moved the district court to terminate Father’s parental rights. Father intervened and opposed the termination and adoption. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court terminated Father’s parental rights. ¶3 Father immediately appealed the termination order. While his appeal was pending, the court of appeals decided In re Adoption of K.R.S., holding that a termination order issued by a district court is not immediately appealable when an underlying adoption petition remains unresolved.1 It stated that such an order is not a final judgment because it does not “dispose of all parties and claims in the adoption proceeding.”2 ¶4 For the reasons articulated in our decision Ross v. Kracht, 2025 UT 22, we retain jurisdiction over this case to hear further arguments on Father’s challenges to the termination order. In an order issued alongside this decision, we ask the parties to brief the merits of Father’s challenges to the termination order.

__________________________________________________________ 1 2024 UT App 165, ¶ 1, 561 P.3d 229.

2 Id. ¶ 16 (cleaned up).