## Facts

- Twin boys, G.L.V. and M.J.V., were born in 1994 to parents who never married.
- A 1995 paternity action established the father’s paternity and child-support obligation.
- The father left soon after the twins’ birth, returned in 1997, and exercised court-ordered weekend visitation only a few times; he later had virtually no direct contact with the children.
- The paternal grandparents and extended family maintained a relationship with the twins.
- The father accumulated substantial child-support arrears in the early years.
- From April 2003 through June 2006, the father was steadily employed and paid $366 per month via income withholding, paying $21,003.86 during a period when $14,274 was owed, with the excess applied to arrears.
- The mother married the stepfather, who petitioned to adopt the twins without the father’s consent under K.S.A. 2007 Supp. 59-2136(d), asserting the father had failed to perform parental duties and that adoption served the children’s best interests.

## Issues

1. Under K.S.A. 2007 Supp. 59-2136(d) (as amended in 2006), may a court grant a stepparent adoption without the natural parent’s consent based on best interests and parental fitness when the natural parent performed parental duties in the two years preceding the petition?
2. Whether consistent payment of court-ordered child support during the statutory period constitutes performance of “parental duties” sufficient to preserve the consent requirement.

## Decision

- The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the stepparent adoption.
- The 2006 amendment allowing consideration of the child’s best interests and the nonconsenting parent’s fitness did not eliminate the statute’s threshold consent/parental-duties framework.
- Because the father consistently provided financial support during the relevant two-year period, he performed parental duties and his consent was required.
- Best-interests and fitness considerations could not be used to override the statutory consent requirement for a parent who was performing parental duties.

## Legal Principles

- In a Kansas stepparent adoption, the nonconsenting natural parent’s consent remains mandatory unless the statutory conditions for dispensing with consent are satisfied, including failure or refusal to perform parental duties for the required period.
- The 2006 amendment to K.S.A. 59-2136(d) authorizes consideration of the child’s best interests and the nonconsenting parent’s fitness only within the statutory consent framework; it does not create an independent basis to terminate a performing parent’s rights.
- Consistent payment of child support during the statutory period may constitute performance of parental duties, even if visitation or direct contact is minimal.
- Statutory interpretation should avoid construing the adoption statute to permit termination of parental rights of a performing parent based solely on a best-interests comparison, given the constitutional protection afforded to parental rights.

## Conclusion

The court held that a stepparent adoption cannot proceed over a natural parent’s objection when the parent has performed parental duties—here, consistent financial support—during the two years preceding the petition; the statute’s best-interests and fitness language does not authorize dispensing with consent in that circumstance.


In re Adoption of G.L.V. & M.J.V., 190 P.3d 245 (Kan. 2008)