Posted on 10/25/2014 11:56:33 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
Oklahoma's Supreme Court has ruled that when it comes to informing a man that he is about to become a father, a Facebook post doesn't cut it, legally speaking.
In this case, a woman had a three-month fling with a man named Billy McCall in 2011, then realized she was pregnant after they broke things off, reports the Oklahoman.
She sent him a Facebook message informing of the big news, gave birth in 2012, then immediately put the baby up for adoption. McCall says he never saw the Facebook post and learned about the baby only after it was born, explains Courthouse News Service.
Lower courts declared that McCall's parental rights had been terminated, but the state Supreme Court disagreed. "This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due processes clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions," wrote a justice in the majority opinion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’ve heard of worse. Much worse.
“US married father’s horror after wife places his child with an adopted family without telling him”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2965568/posts
You’re right! If his name was misspelled does this legally constitute notice? Well, we fixed that, didn’t we? LOL
Maybe. Maybe not. And if they did, he might have thought that she, or they, were funning him. As others have pointed out, a Facebook post is nothing approaching genuine legal notice.
That's a real miracle.
Laz will now be canonized.
Well, he maybe entitled for damages, I have said that (she should have served him notification) but if I were the judge, I would not be ruling so fast to give up the child to him; unless I studied both history and backgrounds of both parties. He is not very responsible at 20 years old to have a 3 month casual relationship with a woman he met on fb and doesn’t try to keep in touch. She carried the baby for 9 months. He didn’t text or call her..
He has the right to keep his pants on instead of fornicating with unscrupulous partners.
The loser in this story is the poor kid.
Yep.
You get it.
In this case, the kid ended up better than most.
Being adopted in to a loving family with mother and father who understand the gift of parenthood may make the kid the winner, not the loser.
“I wonder if the court would have ruled the same way if Baby Mama had been trying to get child support?”
Good question! Government agencies would have done whatever it takes to track the quy down, and be sure he got the “message”. Why didn’t the courts insist on some proof of notice to the father, before awarding the child to adoptive parents? This could have been done in several ways: registered mail, process server — even by email or Facebook, if there were a confirming reply.
Fathers have responsibilities for their children — regardless of marital status. If fathers have the responsibility of paying child support; isn’t the flip side of that responsibility some modicum of parental rights?
Yes, there is. As much as there is with any medium. Letter can be burnt, voice mails can be erased, e-mails deleted. Even stone tablets can be broken.
and odds are he was blocking the harridan.
Why is she a harridan? And if he was "blocking her" how was she suppose to inform him?
The way you are setting it up aside from a formal summons there is no way she can "Prove" that he got notified without a response from him.
And how many guys respond when their casual sexual partner tells them that she is pregnant? Half maybe?
The law says she must inform him. She did. If they want to change the law so it defines more narrowly the way she must do so they can for the future but that would be expost facto in this case.
There is no denying that she did inform him, even he admits that.
I text people instead of calling as I can’t hear and understand what they say.
Woman good. Man bad. Next question?
The law also generally spells out what is acceptable service.
Facebook is not it. I laugh a million LOLs at those who say it has a permanent record, even like unto the classifieds that generally serve as legal notices. If I miss looking at Facebook even for a day, it takes 15 minutes of scrolling to see where to catch up. No, will not legally fly, and the court did the right thing, and now all citizens are put on notice.
Also I see no such “admission.” Probably granted arguendum.
“The child is not a part of either of them. It is it’s own individual human.”
I guess you are entitled to your opinion, as flawed as it is!
“I don’t even read text messages. “
Text messages are very handy. You should try it.
“He was informed.”
How do you know? Did you talk to him?
So am I.
That’s astonishing - they were actually married.
I guess I am just ignorant.
This is reminding me of the most recent “Nashville” episode.
SPOILER ALERT - just in case any fans who are behind in their viewing see this post.
One of the characters is pregnant, the father doesn’t know, of course they are madly in love but basically he hates her right now.
Thankfully she has rejected abortion, although it was close, but has been considering adoption. (generally I will stop watching a show if a character has an abortion, but I might not have stuck to that in this case, so I was very relieved.)
There has been quite a bit of business involving Tennessee’s laws. For one thing they had to do a sonogram and tell her how far along she was. That was part of why she changed her mind about having an abortion. (But not really for pro-life reasons but because she realized one guy and not another was the father.)
Another thing discussed was that “Tennessee law” required the father’s permission to place the child for adoption. I really thought nothing of that at the time, but this discussion makes me realize that might not be the rule everywhere.
Well, I hope I haven’t bored you with all this blah blah about my favorite TV show.
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