Legal Question in Family Law in Wisconsin

Re: terminating parental rights

Your question as to whether your husband can adopt your kids without your ex-husbands consent if he is not willing to participate in their lives as a parent is too complicated for an expedited answer in under 3,000 characters. You would have to be able to prove grounds to terminate the ex�s parental rights under Wis. Stat. 48.415. There are many grounds, the one that seems most likely to apply to your facts is abandonment. Even if you prove abandonment the court still has to hold a dispositional hearing under Wis. Stat. 48.427 to decide if the grounds are significant enough, under all the circumstance, to warrant termination. You can look these statutes up on-line at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/rsb/stats.html or at a library. The court will NOT terminate in any event unless your present husband will adopt the children upon the termination of the ex�s parental rights. On the other hand the ex�s obligation to pay child support terminates if his parental rights are terminated, so maybe he would have develop a significant incentive to sign a consent if you were aggressively pursuing the delinquent child support. Obviously you need to consult further with an attorney before proceeding further. In the space remaining I have included an abstract of 48.415.

48.415 Grounds for involuntary termination of parental rights. At the fact-finding hearing the court or jury may make a finding that grounds exist for the termination of parental rights. Grounds for termination of parental rights shall be one of the following:

(1) Abandonment. (a) Abandonment, which, subject to par. (c), shall be established by proving any of the following:

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3. The child has been left by the parent with any person, the parent knows or could discover the whereabouts of the child and the parent has failed to visit or communicate with the child for a period of 6 months or longer.

(b) Incidental contact between parent and child shall not preclude the court from finding that the parent has failed to visit or communicate with the child under par. (a) 2. or 3. The time periods under par. (a) 2. or 3. shall not include any periods during which the parent has been prohibited by judicial order from visiting or communicating with the child.