Terms Used In Maryland Code, FAMILY LAW 5-3A-18

  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • Person: includes an individual, receiver, trustee, guardian, personal representative, fiduciary, representative of any kind, corporation, partnership, business trust, statutory trust, limited liability company, firm, association, or other nongovernmental entity. See
  • state: means :

    (1) a state, possession, territory, or commonwealth of the United States; or

    (2) the District of Columbia. See
(a) A court may grant a guardianship of a child only if:

(1) each of the child’s living parents consents:

(i) in writing; or

(ii) by failure to timely file notice of objection after being served with a show-cause order in accordance with this subtitle;

(2) an administrative, executive, or judicial body of a state or other jurisdiction has granted a governmental unit or person other than a parent the power to consent to adoption, and the governmental unit or person consents; or

(3) parental rights have been terminated in compliance with the laws of a state or other jurisdiction, as described in § 5-3A-05 of this subtitle.

(b) A governmental unit or person:

(1) may condition consent or acquiescence on adoption into a specific family that a child placement agency has approved for the placement; but

(2) may not condition consent or acquiescence on any factor other than placement into a specific family.