A Facebook message a woman sent to her former sex partner announcing she was pregnant was not sufficient legal notice to support terminating the father’s parental rights, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this week. 
 
 “This Court does not believe that attempts to provide notice via Facebook comport with the requirements of due process,” Justice Douglas Combs wrote in his majority opinion. 
 
 The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn two lower court decisions that had upheld the termination of Billy McCall’s parental rights in a Rogers County adoption case. The case will now go back to district court to reconsider whether McCall’s parental rights should be terminated. 
 
 How much of an obligation a pregnant woman has to seek out and notify an absent father has been a point of contention in some parental rights termination cases. 
 
 It’s an issue upon which even state Supreme Court justices disagreed. 
 
 In a minority opinion, Justice James R. Winchester contended it was the father’s responsibility to inform himself of the pregnancy. 
 
 “The legislature has clearly pronounced its intent,” Winchester wrote. “The duty of the male who has sexual relations with a female is (1) to be aware that a pregnancy might occur and (2) to inform himself. He cannot complacently wait for the female to find him in the event of a pregnancy.” 
 
 He was joined in his dissent by Justices Steven Taylor and Noma Gurich. 
 
 In the majority opinion, Justice Combs noted that even though the birth mother sent the father a Facebook message revealing that she was pregnant and planned to give the child up for adoption, the father testified he didn’t see the message until sometime after the child’s June 2012 birth. 
 
 The trial court judge took the position that when the father actually found out about the pregnancy and birth of the child was irrelevant, contending the legal burden was on the father to determine if he might have fathered a child and to exercise his parental rights. 
 
 The Supreme Court majority disagreed. 
 
 Entitled to notice 
 
 Combs wrote that the court has consistently ruled that “in Oklahoma, the natural father of a child born out of wedlock is entitled to notice of the existence of the child so that the natural father has a chance to exercise his opportunity interest in developing a relationship with a child.” 
 
 “Instead of contacting father directly, mother left him a message on Facebook, which is an unreliable method of communication if the account holder does not check it regularly or have it configured in such a way as to provide notification of unread messages by some other means,” Combs wrote. “This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due process clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions because it is not reasonably certain to inform those affected.” 
 
 The couple had sex on several occasions beginning in August 2011, but the “father testified that though they were friends, they were never in a romantic relationship,” the Supreme Court decision said. “The record indicates that the last sexual encounter between father and mother occurred sometime in either September or October of 2011, and the father testified that he made no attempt to contact mother after that event.” 
 
 Prospective adoptive parents have had physical custody of the child since she was released from the hospital after birth. ||||| Facebook Paternity Notice Rejected in Okla. (CN) - Notification via Facebook message does not satisfy a man's constitutional right to be informed that he fathered a child, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled. 
 
 The biological parents in question broke off contact after a sexual relationship that lasted from August 2011 to September or October of that year. 
 
 Billy McCall testified he saw the mother, who is identified in the court record only by her initials T.Z., once more in December 2011 when she visited him at his workplace. 
 
 It didn't come up that T.Z. was pregnant. 
 
 An adoptive couple named Marshall and Toni Andrews took custody of child, who is identified in the court record as KPMA, as soon as she was released from the hospital. 
 
 McCall testified that he learned seven days after the child's June 21, 2012, birth. When McCall tried to contact T.Z. on Facebook at some point in July 2012, he allegedly saw for the first time that T.Z. had sent him a Facebook message during her pregnancy, informing him that planned to give the child up for adoption. 
 
 The Andrews petitioned on June 27, 2012, to terminate the parental rights of KPMA's natural parents, and they petitioned to adopt the baby on Aug. 14. 
 
 T.Z. voluntarily relinquished her rights on that same day, and she attended 2013 court proceedings in Rogers County on the motion to terminate McCall's paternity rights, 
 
 The trial court sustained T.Z.'s motion for a directed verdict to terminate McCall's parental rights. 
 
 Though an appellate panel endorsed the trial court's findings in April 2014, the Oklahoma Supreme Court vacated the appellate opinion Tuesday, 6-3, and reversed the trial court's ruling. 
 
 "This court does not believe that attempts to provide notice via Facebook comport with the requirements of due process," Justice Douglas Combs wrote for the majority. "While the adequacy of Facebook as a means of providing notice in a due process context is an issue of first impression in Oklahoma, to date only one federal court - of at least three that have considered the issue - has allowed service of process via Facebook and even then only as a supplementary means of providing notice." 
 
 The trial court erred by placing the burden on the father to discover whether he fathered a child, the opinion states. 
 
 Oklahoma precedent reveals that a biological father has a constitutional right to notice of the existence of a child born out of wedlock so that he has the opportunity to assert his right to build a relationship with his son or daughter, the court found. 
 
 Here the mother had an obligation to contact the father directly but instead "left him a message on Facebook, which is an unreliable method of communication if the accountholder does not check it regularly or have it configured in such a way as to provide notification of unread messages by some other means," according to the ruling. 
 
 "This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due process clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions because it is not reasonably certain to inform those affected," Combs wrote. 
 
 Two justices joined a dissent by Justice James Winchester that says Facebook messages can qualify as notice. 
 
 "Admitting the message was there, the father either saw it and ignored it, or did not see it and wishes the trial court to conclude that the pregnancy was kept from the father," Winchester wrote. "The majority opinion concludes that the 'Mother allegedly informing Father of her pregnancy via a Facebook message was insufficient to satisfy the notice requirement of due process.' There is no 'allegation' of a Facebook message as the majority opinion states. The Father admits there was a message. Either he had actual notice or he had constructive notice." 
 
 The dissent criticizes the majority for not informing the mother precisely what notice would satisfy the court. 
 
 "Why would Facebook be any less reliable than other forms of electronic communication?" Winchester asked. "Does the court require a face-to-face confrontation with witnesses? Face-to-face discussions can be denied; letters can remain unopened; and faxes can be lost." 
 
 Stating that Facebook is as dependable a method of communication as email, Winchester found "no support that Facebook is less dependable as an actual notice than a fax, a letter or some form of email other than Facebook."
– Oklahoma's Supreme Court has ruled that when it comes to informing a man that he is about to become a father, a Facebook post doesn't cut it, legally speaking. In this case, a woman had a three-month fling with a man named Billy McCall in 2011, then realized she was pregnant after they broke things off, reports the Oklahoman. She sent him a Facebook message informing of the big news, gave birth in 2012, then immediately put the baby up for adoption. McCall says he never saw the Facebook post and learned about the baby only after it was born, explains Courthouse News Service. Lower courts declared that McCall's parental rights had been terminated, but the state Supreme Court disagreed. "This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due processes clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions," wrote a justice in the majority opinion, according to the Wall Street Journal. A dissenting justice wondered why Facebook should be considered different than other forms of communication—"letters can remain unopened; and faxes can be lost"—but no matter, the issue now goes back to the lower courts to determine whether McCall still has fatherly rights to the child. The toddler is now 2 years old and has been living with the same adoptive parents since birth. (In other Facebook legal news, parents might be responsible for their kids' posts.)