Brian T. Marriott v. Christina E. Anderson, 0590164

Background

Parents divorced in 2011; they share custody of their son born in 2008. Father was ordered in March 2014 to pay child support and arrearages.
Father lost his job May 2014 and petitioned the JDR court to modify support on October 8, 2014.
On May 14, 2015, the JDR court entered two related but separate orders based on its modification: one addressing arrearages (with DCSE as a party) and one addressing current support (DCSE was not a party).
Mother filed two separate notices of appeal to the circuit court: May 21, 2015 (arrears order) and May 27, 2015 (current-support order). The latter was one day late under the ten-day appeal rule.
The circuit court heard the appeals, declined father’s motions to dismiss, imputed income to father, and entered an order requiring father to pay current support and arrearage installments.
On appeal to the Court of Appeals of Virginia, father argued the circuit court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the appeal from the JDR court’s current-support order was untimely.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Anderson)	Defendant's Argument (Marriott)	Held
Whether the circuit court had jurisdiction over mother’s appeals from two JDR orders	Mother treated the two JDR orders as related and filed separate appeals; both should proceed	Father argued the notice of appeal for the current-support order was untimely and divested the circuit court of jurisdiction	Court held the appeal of the current-support order was untimely, depriving the circuit court of jurisdiction and requiring reversal of its rulings
Whether the two JDR orders were substantively the same such that a single timely appeal sufficed	Mother argued the orders were entered in tandem and substantively related	Father pointed out the parties differed (DCSE joined arrears order only), making them separate final orders	Court held the orders were substantively different because the parties differed, so separate timely appeals were required
Effect of an untimely appeal on related appeals	Mother implicitly argued both appeals could survive because they arose from the same proceeding	Father argued the untimely appeal invalidated the circuit court’s exercise of jurisdiction over both matters	Court held the untimely filing of the current-support appeal undermined the circuit court’s exercise of jurisdiction and it erred in not dismissing both appeals
Standard for reviewing whether circuit court has jurisdiction over JDR appeals	—	—	Court reviewed questions of jurisdiction de novo and applied the ten-day appeal rule under Code § 16.1-296(A)

Key Cases Cited

Blevins v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 61 Va. App. 94, 733 S.E.2d 674 (2012) (untimely appeals from JDR court preclude circuit court jurisdiction)
Congdon v. Commonwealth, 57 Va. App. 692, 705 S.E.2d 526 (2011) (untimely appeal from JDR court requires dismissal)