McAlister v. Clifton

Erin McAlister and Wendi Clifton were former domestic partners raising McAlister's adopted daughter, Catherine. After they separated, a trial court used Georgia's equitable caregiver law to give Clifton visitation rights with Catherine, and McAlister challenged that law as unconstitutional. Separately, McAlister claimed Clifton owed her money under their old settlement agreement for Catherine's private school tuition, but the trial court rejected that claim. By the time the appeal reached the Supreme Court of Georgia, Catherine had turned 18, meaning she was legally an adult no longer subject to any custody or visitation order. The court held that this made McAlister's constitutional challenge moot (no longer a live legal question), because there was no adult right to visitation left to fight over. On the money dispute, the court found the trial court was right to reject McAlister's claim because she could not prove she actually paid the tuition costs she said Clifton owed.

The court held that once the child turned 18, any dispute over visitation rights under the equitable caregiver statute became moot, so it vacated the trial court's rulings on the statute's constitutionality and the visitation award, and remanded with directions to dismiss the visitation claim. It affirmed denial of the tuition counterclaim because McAlister failed to prove damages.

The ruling shows that constitutional challenges to Georgia's equitable caregiver statute, which lets non-parents seek custody or visitation rights, can evaporate once a child reaches adulthood, leaving the law's constitutionality untested in similar future cases unless a case reaches the court before the child turns 18.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with direction

1. The court explained that mootness is a jurisdictional issue, meaning a case that no longer presents a live dispute must be dismissed before the merits can even be considered, because deciding it would just answer an abstract question.
2. Because Catherine turned 18 before the appeal was decided, she was legally an adult no longer subject to any custody or visitation order under Georgia law (OCGA § 19-7-1), so the visitation award and the underlying constitutional challenge no longer affected any real right.
3. The court rejected the argument that special exceptions to mootness applied, explaining that a case is only saved from mootness if the issue is capable of repetition yet evades review, and here any future challenger could still raise the same constitutional question in a new equitable caregiver case, so review was not being evaded.
4. Following its usual practice when a case becomes moot through mere passage of time rather than a party's own actions, the court vacated the trial court's constitutional and visitation rulings rather than simply dismissing the appeal, so those rulings would not create binding legal consequences.
5. On the tuition counterclaim, the court applied the ordinary rule that a breach of contract claim requires proof of actual damages, and found the trial record supported the trial court's conclusion that McAlister never produced proof, such as cancelled checks or receipts, that she had actually paid Catherine's tuition.

• equitable caregiver statute
• visitation rights
• mootness
• settlement agreement dispute
• child reaching adulthood