HELEN GRISSOM ET AL., APPELLANTS,
v.
DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA, AND THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEES
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The court held that indigent persons do not have a fundamental right to have publication costs for adoption proceedings paid by taxpayers.
[1] The right to adopt a child is not a fundamental right that requires the state to waive publication costs for indigent individuals.
[2] Statutes requiring publication to obtain jurisdiction over unknown natural parents in adoption proceedings are not unconstitutional as applied to indigent persons unable…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligencePlaintiff, an indigent, sought to adopt a child but could not afford publication costs to locate the natural parents. She sued seeking county payment …
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Plaintiff-appellant seeks review of the lower court’s order dismissing her complaint with prejudice.
Plaintiff, Ms. Grissom, is desirous of adopting a 12 year old girl for whom she has cared since the child’s birth. The child’s natural mother and father cannot be located. Plaintiff-appellant alleges she is indigent and, therefore, is unable to pay the publication costs to acquire jurisdiction over the girl’s natural parents pursuant to F.S. §§ 49.011(10) and 49.10 F.S.A. Ms. Grissom filed this class action on her own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated for declaratory relief in which she requests that Dade County, Florida be ordered to pay the publication costs involved *900in her adoption action on the grounds that solely because of her indigency she is unable to adopt the child. In the alternative, plaintiff-appellant sought to have F.S. §§ 49.011(10) and 49.10 F.S.A. declared unconstitutional because, as applied, they deny to insolvent and poverty-stricken persons the right to adopt children whose natural parents cannot be served personally with service of process. The State of Florida, which was permitted to intervene, filed an answer and a motion to dismiss. Said motion was granted after argument was heard thereon and the plaintiff appealed.
In her first point on appeal appellant contends that the provisions of F.S. §§ 49.-011(10) and 49.10 F.S.A., which require publication to obtain jurisdiction over the natural mother in an adoption proceeding where the whereabouts of said natural mother are unknown, are unconstitutional as applied to indigent person who cannot pay the costs of said publication, in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, §§ 2, 9 and 21 of the Florida Constitution.
In essence, this appeal raises the following question: “Is it a fundamental right of the appellant and the class she seeks to represent to have the taxpayers of the state or county pay her publication costs ?” We reply in the negative.
Appellant in her brief relies mainly upon Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971), wherein the U.S. Supreme Court held that an indigent litigant in a divorce case had a fundamental right to a waiver of court costs and filing fees. However, Boddie, supra, did not include extraneous costs such as that of publication as in the case sub judice. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that its holding in the Boddie case was restricted to the area of the dissolution of the marital relationship:
“We do not decide that access for all individuals to the courts is a right that is, in all circumstances, guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so that its exercise may not be placed beyond the reach of any individual. . . Thus we hold only that a State may not, consistent with the obligations imposed on it by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, pre-empt the right to dissolve this legal relationship without affording all citizens access to the means it has prescribed for doing-so.”
Consistent with this narrow holding of the Boddie case, the U.S. Supreme Court recently has held that an indigent litigant is not entitled as a matter of right to a waiver of a $50 fee for a bankruptcy petition payable to the U.S. District Court1 or a $25 state appellate court filing fee.2
We further noted that the case at bar can be distinguished from Boddie v. Connecticut, supra in that Boddie granted a right to waiver of court costs and filing fees whereas appellant in the instant case actually is seeking public funds of the county to pay for her publication costs.
Finally, appellant cannot be heard to complain that she has been denied access to the courts as F.S. § 57.081 F.S.A. precludes such denial of access to indigents who “shall receive the services of the courts, sheriffs, clerks, and constables of the county in which they reside, without charge.” See F.S. § 57.081 F.S.A.
For the reasons stated hereinabove appellant’s first argument must fail.
*901We have considered also appellant’s second point on appeal and find that to be without merit.
Accordingly, the judgment of the lowei court must be and hereby is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Grissom v. Dade Cnty., 293 So. 2d 59 (Fla. 1974)…t or a declaration that the statute was unconsitutional in its application. A motion to dismiss was filed by the ln-tervenor State, which the circuit court granted with prejudice. The District [*61] Court, in affirming the order of the trial court, 279 So. 2d 899, stated: “In her first point on appeal appellant contends that the provisions of F.S. § 49.011(10) and 49.10 F.S.A., which require publication to obtain jurisdiction over the natural mother in an adoption proceeding . . . are unconstitutional as ap…
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Dade Cnty. v. Womack, 285 So. 2d 441 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973)…cost of publication for indigent parents who wished to change the names of their minor children, when they could not obtain personal service of process upon the missing parent. We reverse upon the authority of Grissom v. Dade County, Fla.App.1973, 279 So. 2d 899, and authorities cited therein,1 and the matter is returned to the trial court for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith. Reversed and remanded, with directions. . It is noted that Grissom v. Dade. County, supra, was decided subsequent to…
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Grissom v. Dade Cnty., 294 So. 2d 718 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974)…[*719] ORDER ON MANDATE PER CURIAM. Whereas, the judgment of this court was entered on July 3, 1973 (279 So. 2d 899) affirming the order of the Circuit Court for Dade County, Florida, in the above styled cause; and Whereas, on review of this court s judgment by appeal, the Supreme Court of Florida by its opinion and judgment filed March 27, 1974 (293 So. 2d 59)…
Authorities Cited
- Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (U.S. 1971)
- United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434 (U.S. 1973)
- Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U.S. 656 (U.S. 1973)