21 Wash. App. 803 - In Re Sage’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

19 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The primary interest of the public is to preserve the integrity of the adoptive process. That is, the continued existence of adoption as a humane solution to the serious social problem of children who are or may become unwanted, abused or neglected. In order to maintain it, the public has an interest in assuring that changes in law, policy or practice will not be made which negatively affect the supply of capable adoptive parents or the willingness of biological parents to make decisions which are best for them and their children. We should not increase the risk of neglect to any child, nor should we force parents to resort to the black market in order to surrender children they can’t care for. *** No one has yet shown that decades of policy protecting the anonymity of the biological parents and the security from intrusion of the parent-child relationship after adoption have been misguided. Quite the contrary. The overwhelming success of adoption as an institution which has provided millions of children with families, and vice versa, cannot be easily attacked. The public has a strong interest, too, in preserving the confidential non-public nature of the process. Public attitudes toward illegitimacy and parents who neglect or abuse children have not changed sufficiently to warrant careless disclosure of the circumstances leading to adoption. But the public also has an interest in the mental health of children who have been adopted — in order that they not become burdens to so”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 84 Ill. 2d 323 - In Re Roger B.

2. “In the adoption context, our courts are directed to make decisions consistent with “the best interests of the child.” The sealed records statutes are a codification of that directive. Confidentiality encourages and facilitates preadoption investigation and helps to strengthen the adoptive family as a social unit.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. N.P.

3. “an adoption resembles to some extent a four-way contract between the state, the natural parents, the adoptive parents and the adopted child, and all of these interests are thought to be served by the policy of confidentiality.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 108 Wash. 2d 433 - North American Council on Adoptable Children v. Department of Social & Health Services