## Facts

- Two unmarried women in a same-sex domestic partnership each had one biological child and lived together as a family.
- Each petitioner filed to adopt the other’s biological child while also retaining her own existing parental rights.
- The requested decrees sought an adoption effect similar to a stepparent adoption, but without a marital relationship between the petitioners.
- The petitioners executed private legal arrangements to secure shared caregiving authority, including guardianship/conservatorship designations, durable powers of attorney (including for parental decision-making), and estate-planning instruments.
- The district court dismissed the petitions, ruling the children were not “available for adoption” under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 19-5-203 (1995 Cum. Supp.) because neither biological mother would relinquish parental rights and the petitioners were not married.

## Issues

1. Whether children are “available for adoption” under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 19-5-203 when an unmarried partner seeks to adopt without termination or relinquishment of the legal parent’s rights.
2. Whether failure to satisfy § 19-5-203’s statutory predicates deprives the district court of subject-matter jurisdiction over the adoption petitions.

## Decision

- The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal.
- The court held the children were not “available for adoption” under § 19-5-203 because none of the statute’s specified conditions (termination, relinquishment, or statutorily defined stepparent circumstances) applied.
- Because the statutory prerequisites were not met, the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to grant the requested adoptions.

## Legal Principles

- Adoption is purely statutory; courts may exercise adoption authority only within the bounds set by the adoption statutes.
- A court’s jurisdiction to enter an adoption decree depends on satisfaction of statutory “availability for adoption” requirements.
- Under the statutory scheme at issue, adoption generally divests natural parents of legal rights and obligations except where the legislature has expressly provided exceptions (such as certain stepparent adoptions).
- Statutory silence regarding a proposed form of adoption does not authorize courts to create a new adoption category based on policy considerations or generalized best-interests arguments.

## Conclusion

The court refused to recognize a second-parent “co-parent” adoption for unmarried partners under Colorado’s then-existing adoption statutes, holding that because the children were not statutorily “available for adoption,” the trial court lacked jurisdiction and properly dismissed the petitions.


In re Adoption of T.K.J. & K.A.K., 931 P.2d 488 (Colo. Ct. App. 1996)