Domestic Relations : Adoption – Motion To Intervene – Third-Party Rights

(1)Where appellant and respondent who were unmarried agreed to conceive a child by artificial insemination and the appellant sought to intervene after the respondent married and her husband sought to adopt the child and the appellant also sought a determination of third-party child custody rights, a judgment dismissing the appellant’s child custody petition and denying her motion to intervene did not resolve claims asserted by the respondent and her husband in the adoption petition, so the judgment was not final, and therefore the dismissal of the third-party custody petition is not a final and appealable judgment, so the appeal of that portion of the judgment is dismissed but denial of the motion to intervene was a final and appealable judgment.

(2)Where appellant and respondent who were unmarried agreed to conceive a child by artificial insemination and the appellant sought to intervene after the respondent married and her husband sought to adopt the child, child custody determinations are not at issue in an adoption proceeding, so the appellant’s interest in determining her custody and visitation rights is not the type of interest that will support intervention as a matter of right in the adoption proceeding

Dismissed in part; remanded; affirmed in part.

In the Matter of the Adoption of: C.T.P.; K.L. v. A.M. and R.M. Jr. (MLW No. 67247/Case No. WD77435 – 26 pages) (Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, Martin, J.) Appealed from circuit court, Cole County, Beetem, J.  (Gregory J. Minana and Omri E. Praiss, Clayton, for appellant) (Jonathan Sternberg and William H. Reynolds, Kansas City, Missouri, for respondents).

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