On March 16, 2022, in a 6-1 vote, the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed this case for lack of a final, appealable order. Justice Brunner dissented.

On November 10, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio will hear oral argument in Rachel Davis v. Tammie Nathaniel, et al., 2021- 0170. At issue is whether a maternal aunt loses standing to pursue companionship with her late sister’s children after they are adopted by another relative.

Case Background

Tammie Nathaniel’s sister died in 2013. The sister had three children, whom Tammie Nathaniel and her husband, Jeff, adopted after the biological mother’s death to prevent the biological father, who had no contact with the children, from seeking custody. Tammie Nathaniel’s other sister, Rachel Davis, continued to visit the children as their maternal aunt following the adoption.

However, in 2019, Jeff Nathaniel forbade Davis from seeing the children. In response, Davis filed a complaint seeking companionship with the children. The Summit County Domestic Relations Court found that Davis had standing to pursue companionship rights with the children pursuant to R.C. 3109.11.

In June 2020, the trial court appointed a guardian ad litem to investigate Davis’ relationship with the children. (Before awarding companionship rights, courts must determine if it would be in the best interest of the children involved). The Nathaniels appealed.

The Appeal

In a unanimous decision written by Judge Thomas Teodosio, and joined by Judges Donna Carr and Julie Schafer, the Ninth District Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, holding Davis did not have standing to pursue companionship with the children because the final decree of adoption pursuant to R.C. 3109.11 supersedes the companionship rights in R.C. 3109.11. This rule is meant, in part, to give adoptive parents the same autonomy over childrearing as biological parents.

However, Judge Teodosio also wrote, “Davis’ bloodline relation to her sister Tammie remains unaffected, and thus she continues to be the maternal aunt of the adopted children.”

Key Statutes and Precedent

U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1 (“… No state shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”)

R.C. 3109.11 (provides a legal basis for relatives of a deceased parent to pursue companionship or visitation rights with the deceased parent’s children.)

R.C. 3107.15(A)(1) (adoption has the following effects: “except with respect to a spouse of the petitioner and relatives of the spouse, to relieve the biological or other legal parents of the adopted person of all parental rights and responsibilities, and to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted person and the adopted person’s relatives … so that the adopted person thereafter is a stranger to the adopted person’s former relatives for all purposes…”)

3107.15(A)(2) (adoption serves to “create the relationship of parent and child between petitioner and the adopted person, as if the adopted person were a legitimate blood descendant of the petitioner, for all purposes…”)

R.C. 3107.15(C) (“if the relationship of parent and child has not been terminated between a parent and that parent’s child and a spouse of the other parent of the child adopts the child, a grandparent’s or relative’s right to companionship or visitation pursuant to section 3109.11 … is not restricted or curtailed by the adoption.”)

3109.051(D) (list of non-exhaustive factors to determine whether given companionship or visitation plan is in best interest of a child.)

In re Adoption of Ridenour, 61 Ohio St.3d 319 (1991) (in context of stranger adoption, provides that adoption severs legal relationship with adopted child’s former relatives to prevent children from becoming “bewildered as adults battle for their time and affection.”)

Farley v. Farley, 85 Ohio App.3d 113 (5th Dist. 1992) (the Ridenour rationale and language of R.C. 3107.15 lead to the conclusion that “relatives of parents whose parental rights are terminated have no standing in any Ohio court to assert visitation rights.”)

In re Martin, 68 Ohio St.3d 250 (1994) (grandparents do not possess companionship rights following an intra-family adoption.)

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000) (“the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”)

Votes to Accept the Case

Yes: Chief Justice O’Connor and Justices Brunner, Donnelly, and Stewart.

No: Justices Kennedy, Fischer, and DeWine.

Davis’ Propositions of Law Accepted for Review

Proposition of Law 1

Where the relationship of parent and child has not been terminated, the companionship rights of the relatives of that parent are not restricted or curtailed by an adoption by a relative of the child.

Proposition of Law 2

A decree of adoption does not terminate the companionship rights of the relatives of the petitioner who is also a relative of the child.

Nathaniels’ Response to Davis’ Propositions of Law

The Ninth District Court of Appeals correctly determined that Appellees’ final decrees of adoption, and thus fundamental and substantial rights as married parents, supersede Appellant’s statutory privilege to assert visitation pursuant to R.C. 3109.11 and therefore Appellant lacks standing to pursue non-parent visitation.

Davis’ Argument

Ohio law provides exceptions to severing a biological relative’s companionship rights, and thus their relationship, with an adopted child. One such exception provides that if one parent dies, and the other remarries, relatives of the deceased parent shall have standing to pursue companionship rights.

But if the Ninth District’s decision holds, it would result in the family of a deceased parent having a better claim to visit children adopted by a stepparent than children adopted by a relative of the same family. Surely the statutory scheme did not intend such a result.

The Martin case held that R.C. 3107.15 does not distinguish between adoptions by strangers and non-strangers. However, R.C. 3107.15(C) now provides an exception: that a stepparent adoption does not curtail relatives’ companionship rights. No court ever terminated the relationship between the children and their biological mother. As a result, R.C. 3107.15(C) controls this case.

The Court of Appeals, citing the Ridenour case, noted the policy undergirding adoption: it transforms a child’s collection of relationships. But in this case, like in stepparent adoptions, the children retain half of their relatives. The children know Davis as their aunt. They will not be bewildered by her continued presence in their lives.

What’s more, Ridenour concerned an adoption by strangers, not by relatives. The rationale behind Ridenour, that adoption serves to give children a new identity, does not hold in a case like this, where the children were adopted into the same family.

Second statutory exception

R.C. 3107.15(A)(1) provides that a spouse of an adopting parent, and that spouse’s relatives, are not to be considered legally removed from an adopted child’s life. Davis is the sister of Jeff Nathaniel’s wife, and thus she qualifies as a relative of a spouse of the adopting parent. She remained the children’s relative after they were adopted. Public policy demands an adoption by one maternal aunt should not deprive another maternal aunt of visitation rights.

Davis must ultimately show that her visiting the children would be in their best interest, as defined by statute. But the Ninth District erred in finding Davis lacked standing even to seek such approval.

Nathaniels’ Argument

Ohio statutes permit standing for non-parents to request visitation under three circumstances: one parent dies, the biological mother is unmarried at the child’s birth, or a married parent initiates a divorce or other legal separation. None of these circumstances applies here, as the Nathaniels are now the legitimate parents of the children, and they are both alive, married and not in the process of legally separating.

Companionship rights derived from R.C. 3109.11 are limited to stepparent adoptions, not adoptions undertaken, as here, by an entirely new set of parents. As a result, R.C. 3109.11 is not applicable. The Revised Code makes no mention of additional exceptions for other types of intra-family adoptions. The adoption exception only applies when the adoption occurs by a new spouse of the surviving parent. Any attempt to judicially expand the intra-family adoption exception must be denied. Once the adoption was complete, Davis’ standing to obtain visitation ceased to exist.

The policy from Ridenour, that adoption serves to transform a child’s identity, should be respected. The Nathaniels are now the children’s actual parents. This prevents bewildering the children via prolonged conflicts by adults for access to the children. The Martin case expanded on Ridenour, in that it found R.C. 3107.15 does not permit post-adoption visitation by a relative even after an intra-family adoption.

Though R.C. 3107.15 was later modified to include a stepparent exception, such an exception is irrelevant here, where the adoption was not obtained by stepparents. To judicially expand the exception to include adoptions like the one in this case would lead to contentious litigation as adults fight for visitation rights, and it would prevent adoptive parents from exercising the same autonomy in childrearing enjoyed by biological parents.

The Nathaniels’ ability to provide the children a stable home cannot be outweighed by the state’s interest in allowing court-ordered access by relatives.

After the adoption, the Nathaniels assumed a fundamental liberty interest in the care and custody of their children, an interest described in the Troxel case. Davis’ attempt to win companionship rights would violate this liberty interest. As the Troxel case stated, the Due Process Clause “protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

R.C. 3107.15(A)(2) provides that an adoption creates a relationship between new parent and child as if the child were a legitimate blood descendant of the parent. But if the visitation exception is expanded to encompass the adoption here, the Nathaniels and other adoptive parents would be treated as second-class parents, lacking the autonomy of biological parents to decide how to raise their children. This would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Student Contributor: Max Londberg