Page:Canerday-Banks v. State, 2018 Ark. App. 523.pdf/21

 standing in an adoption proceeding turns on whether they were entitled to statutory notice of the adoption petition. The two cases she relies on, however, Hinton v. Bethany Christian Services, 2015 Ark. App. 301, 462 S.W.3d 361, and In re Adoption of J.L.T., 31 Ark. App. 85, 788 S.W.2d 494 (1990), are distinguishable. In each of those cases, the circuit court found that a party seeking to intervene and set aside a previously entered adoption decree had not been entitled to statutory notice and lacked standing to petition the court to set aside the decree. Those cases did not address a named party's standing to appeal, and we see no basis for deviating from the general rule stated above. In this case, the Bankses were named parties to the case when the court issued the final decree of adoption in favor of the Bartons, and they are aggrieved by the order because it prevents them from further pursuing adoption of P.S. The Bankses therefore have standing to challenge the adoption decree on appeal.

The central issue in this appeal is the Bankses' challenge to the circuit court's findings, pursuant to section 9-9-214(c) that DHS unreasonably withheld consent for the Bartons to adopt P.S. Arkansas Code Annotated section 9-9-206(a)(3) states that "a petition to adopt a minor may be granted only if written consent to a particular adoption has been executed by any person lawfully entitled to custody of the minor or empowered to consent." One exception to this requirement is that the consent of a legal guardian is not necessary if the guardian "has failed to respond in writing to a request for consent for a period of sixty (60) days or who, after examination of his or her written reasons for withholding consent, is found by the court to be withholding his or her consent unreasonably." Ark. Code Ann. § 9-9-207(a)(8).