right to notice, the opportunity to defend and the right to appeal. The Court of Appeals found no basis in statutory or common law for a court to order the sterilization of a minor child simply upon a parent's petition. It also held that Judge Stump's action could not be justified as a valid exercise of the power of courts to fashion new common law. Concluding, Judge Swygert wrote: Even if defendant Stump had not been foreclosed under the Indiana statutory scheme from fashioning a new common law remedy in this case, we would still find his action to be an illegitimate exercise of his common law power because of his failure to comply with elementary principles of procedural due process. Here a juvenile was ordered sterilized without the taking of the slightest steps to ensure that her rights were protected. Not only was the plaintiff not given representation, she was not even told what was happening to her. She was afforded no opportunity to contest the validity of her mother's allegations or to have a higher court examine whether the substance of those allegations, even if true, warranted her sterilization. Finally, the petition and order were never filed in court. This kind of purported justice does not fall within the categories of cases at law or in equity. Judge Stump and his co-defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari and reversed the Court of Appeals. The holding Associate Justice Byron White, writing for the five-member majority, disagreed with the determination by the Court of Appeals that there was a "clear absence of all jurisdiction" for Judge Stump to consider Ora McFarlin's petition, noting that Indiana law gave circuit courts "original exclusive jurisdiction in all cases at law and in equity" and jurisdiction over "all other causes, matters and proceedings where exclusive jurisdiction thereof is not conferred by law upon some other court, board or officer." Justice White acknowledged an intervening decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals in 1975 that held that a parent has no common-law right to have a minor child sterilized; but he reasoned that when presented with a petition like Ora McFarlin's, an Indiana circuit judge "should deny it on its merits rather than dismiss it for lack of jurisdiction." Noting that Judge Swygert found no Indiana law that authorized Judge Stump's action, Justice White observed: ...[I]t is more significant that there