Adoption In Louisiana

By Katie Penny

Can you give some basic information on adoption in Louisiana?

There are three varieties of adoption for minor children in Louisiana: 1) agency adoption, 2) private adoption, and 3) intra-family adoption.

An agency adoption is an adoption which takes place when a child is placed by the Department of Social Services or a private, but licensed, adoptive agency. In a private adoption, no agencies are involved, but the parties, rather, agree to the adoption. An intra-family adoption is a kind of sub-species of a private adoption, in which the child is adopted by certain family members.

For all kinds of adoption, usually at least one of the parents is losing their parental rights. In our country, we actually consider the right of a parent to his or her child as one of the most important rights one can have, and the law takes removal of those rights very seriously.

Adoption, by definition, means taking away the rights of a biological parent and giving those rights to a non-biological parent, and that process is understandably one that the courts try very hard to safeguard. The biological parent, even if absent or awful, must be notified at the very least, and usually their consent to the adoption (in an Act of Surrender) is required. This means the consent of the mother of the child, and the consent of the father (usually, and who is meant by the “father” can vary).

To even give up his or her parental rights, the parent must go through mental health counseling (the father can waive his counseling; the mother cannot) and, in a private adoption, legal counseling as well.

The actual Act of Surrender has to be in a particular form, and, in order to protect mothers from aggressive couples trying to get the mother to give up her child, or to protect mothers who want to give up their children before they are born, but might change their minds later, the mother cannot give up her rights until the baby is at least 5 days old. The father can Surrender his rights earlier than the mother, but he can change his mind about his decision to give up his rights all the way up until five days after the birth. At that point, his decision to give up his rights becomes irrevocable. (Under certain circumstances, a parent can surrender their parental rights in open court.)

These requirements might seem excessive and complicated, but, really, in light of the irrevocability and finality of Surrendering these very important parental rights, it is reasonable that the courts should want to give parents every change to make sure they are making the right decision.

A parent’s rights may be taken away by the court (rather than the parent giving up the rights on their own) if the parent is convicted of the murder or unjustified killing of the other parent, if there is extreme abuse or mistreatment of the child or any other child of that parent, or abandonment of the child in such a way that it shows that the parent is trying to avoid supporting the child. Also, if the child has been removed from the custody of the parent by court order for at least a year, the court may terminate the parental rights.

Agency and private adoptions are really rather complicated to address here, and the procedures are very technical. However, it would be good to point out that foster children (when the court has taken the children away from abusive or unfit parents) may be adopted after a period of time being fostered and after the adoptive procedures are followed, and also to point out that the state is in desperate need of wonderful foster parents for the many foster children relying on the State. (If you are interested in providing a foster home for a child, feel free to contact the Office of Child Services in your parish, or the Foster Care program in your area!)

However, intra-family adoptions are very common and very intriguing, and I will address them in the next issue. The intra-family adoption was designed for the situation of a step-parent desiring to adopt their step-child, usually when the biological parent has died or is willing to give up all parental rights. An intra-family adoption is the only kind of adoption in which all previous parental rights need not be terminated---the living biological parent retains their parental rights. However, the intra-family adoption procedure may be utilized by several other relatives wishing to adopt. Further information will follow in the next issue.

The provided information is fact-sensitive and jurisdiction-dependent. Consult an attorney before employing the above legal concepts.

Is it really illegal to scalp?

Again, my answer is my reliable old punt (pun intended)—sometimes. Because it is fall in Louisiana, there is only one really important topic: football. My personal drug of choice is LSU football, and if you look to your left and to your right, you will probably see at least two more similarly-addicted junkies.

Nothing else meaningful really happens in this state on Saturday nights in the fall—no one would dare—and, as the Florida game a few weeks ago proved, sometimes every occupant of the state only really wants to be in one place on Saturday nights.

With big-game LSU football tickets being one of the most valuable items on the planet, the question inevitably becomes, what is one really worth? And how much can you get for one?

A friend of mine was on the LSU campus the Saturday of the Florida game, and he had the bad luck to not have tickets. He and his friend found someone selling tickets, and each purchased one for $150. My friend, being a rather experienced football game attendee, was immediately suspicious of the ticket and went to the ticket office to have the tickets checked.

As it turned out, both of their tickets were counterfeit. (This story actually has a happy ending: my friends gave descriptions of the seller to the police, the police caught him and several other counterfeiters, and my friends got their money back.)

Now, obviously, it is illegal to sell counterfeit tickets, which are worthless, for several times the face value of the “tickets.” But what about real tickets? Under Louisiana law (Louisiana Revised Statutes 4:1), admission tickets to entertainment events must have the price paid for the ticket printed on the face of the ticket.

It is illegal to sell or resell an admission ticket to any athletic contest, dance, theater, concert, circus, or other amusement for an amount that is more than the purchase price printed on the face of the ticket. The ordinary penalty for violating this law is a fine of between $100 to $500 dollars and 30 to 90 days in jail. So, in other words, not worth the extra 25 bucks you might get for selling over face value.

Also, the statute allows for certain donations or contribution requirements to obtain the ticket in addition to the face value purchase price of the ticket, but only “in connection with the sale of tickets to athletic contests of institutions of higher education.” (Hmm, I wonder to what “contests” they are referring…)

Finally, the most interesting new part of the law, and the reason for my ambivalent “it’s only illegal to scalp tickets sometimes…” A section has recently been added dealing with ticket sales online. This section provides that it is legal to sell or resell admission tickets online at any price IF two requirements are met.

First, the organizer of the event and the operator of the location where the event is held must authorize the sale/resale of the admission tickets to the event at higher than face value.

Second, the operator of the website on which the ticket is offered for sale/resale has to guarantee (with that guarantee posted on their website, which the buyer is directed to prior to completion of the sale) a full refund of whatever price is paid under certain conditions: if the event ends up being canceled, if the purchaser, through no fault of his own, is denied admission, or if the ticket is not delivered in the way the website said it would be delivered and that failure of delivery procedure caused the purchaser to not be able to attend the event.


Prior to this new law, there were lots of great stories about people selling an admission ticket to the National Championship game for $1 on Ebay. Except the ticket was only being sold together as a package deal with an old LSU sock, which was priced at $9,000. Well, as long as the two requirements above are met, this sort of charmingly devious subterfuge is no longer necessary.

The provided information is fact-sensitive and jurisdiction-dependent. Consult an attorney before employing the above legal concepts.