PORTLAND — A Kentucky couple has won a lengthy battle over the right to adopt a 4-year-old girl from Klamath Falls, Ore.
Laila Sloan’s Kentucky foster parents, James and Angela Sloan, are her biological aunt and uncle, and Oregon welfare officials sent the child to live with them two years ago, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Sunday. The couple intended to adopt Laila.
The state later decided, however, that Laila should be adopted by an unrelated Klamath Falls couple who were fostering her younger brother with the goal of reuniting the siblings, the newspaper reported.
An older brother lives in Oregon as well, in a Eugene-area residential center for children with severe mental health problems.
Before the Oregon family could adopt Laila, a Kentucky judge ruled that the Sloans could adopt her because their state has jurisdiction. The Oregon Department of Justice then hired a Kentucky lawyer to challenge that state’s jurisdiction.
