ADOPTION OF EMILY.

WARNER, J. On June 28, 1985, a District Court judge found the parents of Emily unfit and ordered her permanently committed to the care and custody of the Department of Social Service (department). See G. L. c. 119, Section 26. On July 8, 1985, the father appealed, and the appeal was docketed in this court on March 5, 1987. Meanwhile, the department, on June 23, 1986, filed in a Probate Court a petition to dispense with the parents' consent to the adoption of Emily. See G. L. c. 210, Section 3(b).

On February 19, 1987, a Probate Court judge ordered that the trial of the petition to dispense with consent be postponed until after a decision had been rendered in the father's appeal in the District Court care and protection proceeding. The judge

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took this action, he said in part, because: "It would be incongruous for a Probate Court to allow a c. 210, Section 3, petition and then have the Appeals Court reverse a District Court judgment which found a child to be in need of care and protection."

At the request of the department, the probate judge, on August 5, 1987, reserved and reported (see G. L. c. 215, Section 13) the following question: "Whether G. L. [c. 210,] Section 3(b), permits a petition brought by the Department . . . to be filed and a decree entered notwithstanding the pendency of an appeal from the allowance of an earlier care and protection proceeding brought under G. L. c. 119, Section 24." In his reservation and report, the judge tells us that he postponed the trial on the petition to dispense with consent because: "I adopted the position that the G. L. c. 210, Section 3, petition could not be heard while the appeal was pending." If the reported question were not moot, we would answer it "yes." [Note 1]

In Adoption of a Minor, 386 Mass. 741 (1982), the court held that, "when a child's lawful parent is actively opposing a pending petition for care and custody of the child, neither the Department nor any other person has such `care or custody' [see G. L. c. 210, Section 3(a) and (b),] of the child as is necessary to initiate an adoption proceeding without parental consent" (at 748-749). In that case, a District Court judge had granted permanent custody of the child to the department in a care and protection proceeding. The mother appealed to the juvenile appeals session (an appellate route then prescribed, see G. L. c. 119, Section 27, as appearing in St. 1978, c. 478, Section 51), and the appeal was pending when the foster parents (to whom the department had entrusted the care and custody of the child) filed a petition for adoption in a Probate Court. The Supreme Judicial Court pointed out the undesirable consequences (which troubled

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the probate judge in this case) of the possible conflict in orders where parallel proceedings are permitted. In explanation of its holding, however, the court said: "Our conclusions are based on, and limited to, the language of G. L. c. 210, Section 3, and the relationship between care and protection proceedings and adoption proceedings when both are opposed by the child's parents" (emphasis supplied). Id. at 749.

In obvious response to the decision in Adoption of a Minor, the Legislature amended G. L. c. 210, Section 3(b), by St. 1983, c. 437. That amendment added, in pertinent part, the following sentence: "A petition brought pursuant to [G. L. c. 210, Section 3(b),] may be filed and a decree entered notwithstanding the pendency of a petition brought under chapter one hundred and nineteen [care and protection] . . . regarding the same child" (emphasis supplied). [Note 2] The plain language of the 1983 amendment and the context in which it was adopted require the conclusion that it was the intent of the Legislature that the pendency of a care and protection proceeding at any stage should not preclude the department from proceeding with a petition to dispense with consent to adoption. Speedy resolution of cases involving issues of custody or adoption is desirable, see Custody of a Minor, 389 Mass. 755, 764 & n.2 (1983), and that goal was the undoubted purpose of the 1983 and 1985 amendments to G. L. c. 210, Section 3(b). An equally important and complementary objective is the avoidance of conflicting orders in proceedings involving care and protection and dispensing with consent. There are salutary methods by which conflict and uncertainty may be minimized, if not resolved. [Note 3] Given these remedies and

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the clear statement of the Commonwealth's policy by the amendments to G. L. c. 210, Section 3(b), we think no sensible distinction can be drawn between the appellate and any other stage in the course of a care and protection proceeding.

Because the question reported is moot, the report from the probate judge is discharged.

So ordered.