Brooks v. Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions

SMITH, J. pro tem.

*

Appellant appeals from a judgment based on an order sustaining a demurrer to her complaint without leave to amend. While her complaint is not clear, she apparently attempted to plead that by fraud and misrepresentations the County Bureau of Adoptions induced her to sign a relinquishment of her child; that the father also signed; that she attempted to rescind and filed an action (prior to this one) to cancel the relinquishment; that she lost such action because the father would not consent to the rescission; that she appealed; that the defendant County Bureau of Adoptions induced her to abandon her appeal by representing they would assist her in readopting her own child; that the Bureau started to do so but after she made arrangements they refused. She wants her child back.

The trial judge sustained a demurrer to such complaint without leave to amend for the sole reason that he believed that result was required by

In re

Newman, 187 Cal.App.2d 377 [9 Cal.Rptr. 746]. For the same reason he did not decide any of the grounds set forth in the demurrer filed by the county. The

Newman

case was decided on a very limited record and the present problem was not before this court. Section 224m, Civil Code, provides that under certain circumstances the relinquishment is “final and binding and may be rescinded only by the mutual consent of the adoption agency” and the parents. The

Newman

case involved the problem of an attempted unilateral withdrawal of consent by the parents, which is expressly forbidden by that language. This court cited the section and, in stating what it provided, used the exact words of the section above quoted. It did not purport to apply those words to the present problem which is: May there be rescission

for cause

? Our answer to that question is: Yes.

In the field of contract law rescissions normally are not permitted except for cause, and consequently to lawyers and judges “rescission” usually carries with it the connotation of “for cause,” and thus a law prohibiting rescission is

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