The Arizona Supreme Court recently heard a case involving a biological father’s parenting rights [1]. After the mother offered the child to Adoption Choices of Arizona (“Choices”), the organization petitioned to terminate the father’s parenting rights. Choices contended that the father missed the 30 day deadline imposed for putative fathers and forfeited any claim of right. The Arizona Supreme Court Disagreed, holding that a potential father’s rights and duties differ from those of a putative father’s, and that this potential father did enough to preserve his paternity claim.

Putative Fathers Registry

A.R.S. § 8-106.01 requires putative fathers to file a notice of a claim of paternity no later than thirty days after the birth of their child. Filing a claim entitles the putative father to notice when adoption proceedings are initiated and affords him the right to withhold consent for any adoption. Failing to file within this timeframe forfeits any such right. To put it simply, when a father wants to be the child’s legal father, he must affirmatively act to preserve that right.

Potential Father vs. Putative Father

The key reason for the Court’s decision is that the father was both a potential father and a putative father. A potential father is a man who the mother alleges is the father. In contrast, a putative father is a man who claims he is the father. Notably, potential fathers need not follow the putative fathers registry requirements and are automatically notified of their rights amidst impending adoptions, then are provided thirty days to contest the adoption.

Here, the mother originally listed only her then-boyfriend as a potential father. The real father never received notice and never bothered to file within thirty days after the birth of his child. Choices, the adoption agency, contended that the father’s claim was wholly barred by the putative fathers registry because he claimed to be the father and did not file a claim of paternity within thirty days of birth [2].

But after Choices filed its petition, the mother updated her list of potential fathers to include the real father, ostensibly under pressure to put forth a good-faith effort in identifying the father. This changed the father’s status from a purported father to a purported and potential father, entitling him to notice and thirty days to contest the adoption proceeding.

Implications of This Ruling

This decision strengthens parenting rights and departs from a system that rewarded subterfuge. The ruling is especially important because of how few fathers know about the putative fathers registry [3]. Prior to this case, fathers unaware of the registry’s requirements were effectively subject to the will of the mother—if the mother decided to initiate adoption proceedings, the father’s parental rights were almost assuredly evanescent. Now, fathers have a chance to contest the adoptions.

The ability to contest adoptions is paramount. In Arizona, adoption proceedings are final and closed. The case also cannot be scrutinized—the child’s biological parents will not even know the names of the adoptive parents. Therefore, this thirty day timeframe is the difference between raising your child and never again seeing your child.