In Sabrina V. v. State, Department of Health and Social Services,[1] the supreme court held that it was not an abuse of discretion for the superior court to decline to allow Sabrina V.’s untimely withdrawal of her voluntary relinquishment of parental rights. Sabrina V. signed a relinquishment of her parental rights to her son Kaleb D., which provided that she could withdraw it for any reason within ten days after signing it. When the agreement was signed, the Office of Children’s Services was considering Kaleb D.’s paternal grandmother as a possible adoptive parent. However, due to the grandmother’s poor health, the adoption fell through. After receiving notice of the failed adoption, Sabrina V. signed a notice that she was withdrawing her relinquishment agreement, which had been filed fifteen days earlier. Affirming the lower court’s decision to not allow Sabrina V. to terminate her relinquishment agreement, the supreme court assumed, without deciding, that the court had the discretion to accept her late withdrawal notice. But it nevertheless held that the lower court did not abuse its discretion. First, the supreme court noted that the lower court’s rejection of Sabrina V.’s withdrawal notice as untimely was not unreasonable because the ten-day withdrawal deadline of the agreement applied. Second, the court held that it was not unreasonable for the court to conclude that the failed adoption did not provide grounds to reconsider termination because the agreement expressly acknowledged that the adoption might fail for some reason. Even though Sabrina V. had the statutory right to consent only to the grandmother’s adoption, the relinquishment agreement that she signed was unconditional. Thus, the supreme court held that it was not arbitrary for the lower court to deny to terminate Sabrina V.’s relinquishment agreement.
[1] 442 P.3d 717 (Alaska 2019).
