Court: Don't Tell Him You're Pregnant on Facebook

Facebook is used by a billion people, but it's not enough when notifying a father about his biological child being placed for adoption, a court rules.

The court stems from an Oklahoma woman notifying the biological child via Facebook before placing the child up for adoption, according to the Wall Street Journal. The biological father of a baby girl contested the termination of his parent rights, stating that she had let him know through a Facebook message, court records revealed.

The man, Billy McCall, claimed he never saw the message and the girl was put up for adoption in 2012. McCall claimed he didn't know of the child's existence until a week before she was born and a trial court severed his parental rights in 2013. The court was weighing in on the question of whether a Facebook message satisfies the notification requirement given to "the natural father of a child born out of wedlock."

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that it wasn't enough. From the decision:

Instead of contacting Father directly, Mother 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. 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 custody case between McCall and the child's adoptive parents is ongoing.
 
It's nice to know that legal documents may not be served up on Facebook, sandwiched in between ads and virtually ignored.
 
 
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