In the Matter of H. W., a Child. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, Petitioner-Respondent, and H. W., Respondent, v. K. W., Appellant.
Multnomah County Circuit Court 18JU05221; Petition Number 113265; A171945
In the Court of Appeals of the State of Oregon
Argued and submitted January 16, affirmed October 7, 2020
307 Or App 17 (2020) | 476 P3d 107
Mother appeals the dependency judgment in which the juvenile court established jurisdiction over her child, H, based on mother‘s fact admissions. Mother argues that her admissions were insufficient to permit the juvenile court‘s dependency jurisdiction and that the judgment should be reversed, even though she did not raise that objection at the jurisdictional trial. In her view, preservation is excused by Dept. of Human Services v. D. D., 238 Or App 134, 138, 241 P3d 1177 (2010), rev den, 349 Or 602 (2011), which fused the dual meanings of “jurisdiction” in
Affirmed.
Carol A. Herzog, Judge pro tempore.
Shannon Flowers, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Shannon Storey, Chief Defender, Juvenile Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services.
Inge D. Wells, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent Department of Human Services. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Matthew J. Steven argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent H. W.
Before Armstrong, Presiding Judge, and Tookey, Judge, and Aoyagi, Judge.
ARMSTRONG, P. J.
Affirmed.
Mother appeals the dependency judgment in which the juvenile court established jurisdiction over her child, H, based on mother‘s fact admissions. Mother argues that her admissions were insufficient to permit the juvenile court‘s dependency jurisdiction, even though she did not raise that objection at the jurisdictional trial. In her view, preservation is excused by our decision in Dept. of Human Services v. D. D., 238 Or App 134, 138, 241 P3d 1177 (2010), rev den, 349 Or 602 (2011), in which we fused the dual meanings of “jurisdiction” in
establishing dependency jurisdiction, we affirm the jurisdictional judgment.
Before we turn to our legal discussion, we briefly set out the undisputed historical and procedural facts. In 2018, DHS petitioned the juvenile court to take jurisdiction over H on the grounds that (1) father could not be found and was not a custodial resource, and (2) mother‘s cognitive abilities made her unable to adequately care for H, who has significant behavioral issues. Later that year, father was discovered in the State of Louisiana, DHS amended the petition to reflect that development, and the juvenile court established dependency jurisdiction as to father based on father‘s admissions that he needed DHS‘s help to safely parent H given that he did not have sole custody of H, he was unable to protect H from mother, and H had significant needs. The allegations against mother were set for trial.
At the trial, held in May 2019, DHS recommended that H be placed with father; Louisiana had conducted a home study and determined that there were not any safety issues in father‘s home. Mother was presented with the choice of the juvenile court dismissing the case without establishing dependency jurisdiction, which meant that H would be placed immediately with father, or the court establishing jurisdiction so that H could remain with mother for the rest of H‘s school year. Mother chose the latter and admitted that she “understands [H] will be placed out-of-state with the father” and “believes the placement requires oversight by DHS to ensure [H]‘s safety.” The court entered a judgment in which it established dependency jurisdiction over H as to mother based on mother‘s admissions. Mother filed a notice of appeal. A few months after the juvenile court took jurisdiction of H, the court conducted a review hearing and entered an order dismissing the dependency case and terminating its wardship. The order recited that H had been in Louisiana for four months and that reports from several professionals in Louisiana indicated that there were no concerns about H‘s safety or father‘s parenting.
That dismissal requires us to pause our jurisdictional discussion to address DHS‘s motion to dismiss mother‘s appeal of the jurisdictional judgment. DHS asserts that the
juvenile court‘s dismissal of dependency jurisdiction makes this appeal moot because our decision in the matter will not have any practical effect on the rights of the parties. See Dept. of Human Services v. A. B., 362 Or 412, 414, 412 P3d 1169 (2018) (a party moving to dismiss an appeal as moot must show that the decision being challenged on appeal will have no further practical effect on the parties’ rights). In DHS‘s view, mother‘s admission in this case is not one that would put her at a disadvantage in any future dependency or custody proceedings because it is not an admission of abuse and is “relatively benign.” Mother contests dismissal and responds that there is ongoing custody and parenting time litigation between her and father and that, in her view, reversal of the jurisdictional judgment would improve her position because she would not have a judicial determination that she was unfit.
We agree with mother that the appeal is not moot. The crux of the jurisdictional judgment is that H could remain with mother for a little while longer before H was placed with father, but for that to happen, she had to admit that she requires DHS oversight to ensure H‘s safety. Further, the juvenile court‘s determination that it had dependency jurisdiction was necessarily a determination that mother was unable to adequately care for H under
Returning to the main issue, mother asks for a reversal of the juvenile court‘s determination that it had dependency jurisdiction over H. According to mother, her admission that placement with father with DHS oversight to ensure H‘s safety was an insufficient ground to establish dependency jurisdiction. She contends that her admission failed to show that she suffered from any deficits that
exposed H to a current, nonspeculative threat of serious loss or injury. As noted, she failed to make that argument below and argues on appeal that her failure to object to the juvenile court‘s jurisdictional determination is of no consequence because, under D. D., she can raise it for the first time on appeal. DHS responds that, to the extent that D. D. so held, it was wrongly decided and argues that D. D. was implicitly overturned by C. M. H., in which we disentangled the juvenile court‘s authority to act, i.e., its subject matter jurisdiction, from its determination to assert dependency jurisdiction over a child.
In D. D., mother admitted to DHS‘s allegation, namely the allegation that ““child has special medical needs“” for which she ““would benefit from assistance from [DHS].“” 238 Or App at 136 (emphasis omitted). The mother also stipulated that, “by admitting the allegations, the Court may take control over [her child], as deemed necessary *** and may place the child out of the family home, if deemed it is the best interests of the child.” Id. at 136-37 (internal quotation marks omitted). The juvenile court established jurisdiction over the child based on the mother‘s admissions and proceeded to a disposition hearing. Id. at 137. At the hearing, the mother neither made any objection to the court establishing dependency jurisdiction nor moved to dismiss. Rather, she argued that the child should be placed with her rather than with the father. The juvenile court determined that it was in the best interests of the child to place the child with the father. Id.
On appeal, the mother argued that the admitted allegations were insufficient to support the juvenile court‘s jurisdiction over the child. Id. at 138. Mother posited that “it is axiomatic that a set of facts that would be insufficient to establish jurisdiction, if proved, is necessarily insufficient to establish jurisdiction when admitted.” Id. (emphasis omitted). As for her failure to object to the juvenile court taking jurisdiction of the child, the mother argued that parties cannot stipulate to the existence of jurisdiction. We agreed with the mother, stating that the mother “is correct that, although a party may stipulate to facts supporting jurisdiction, jurisdiction cannot itself be created by stipulation.” Id.
We relied on State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Gates, 96 Or App 365, 371, 774 P2d 484, rev den, 308 Or 315 (1989), to explain that, where no party had challenged the juvenile court‘s jurisdictional determination,
““we must consider jurisdictional issues, even when they are not raised by the parties. Jurisdiction for a so-called “conditions-and-circumstances” juvenile hearing, [former
ORS 419.476(1)(c) (1991) ],4 is not just the power of the court to act. It also requires a factual determination that a child is dependent, which is the basis on which the court may make the child a ward of the court, that is, may place the child in the court‘s “jurisdiction.““”
D. D., 238 Or App at 138. Consequently, we concluded that we were required to consider whether the juvenile court properly determined that it had jurisdiction despite the mother‘s failure to object to the court asserting jurisdiction. Id.
More recently, in C. M. H., the juvenile court disestablished the parentage of the appellant, who was married to the child‘s biological mother when the child was born. 301 Or App at 489. The appellant asserted that the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to disestablish her parentage because, when it did so, it had not
Our analysis in C. M. H. explored the use of the term “jurisdiction” for juvenile dependency cases. We explained that there are “two uses of the term jurisdiction at issue in dependency cases: (1) the juvenile court‘s authority to act at all—often referred to as subject matter jurisdiction; and
(2) the juvenile court‘s determination to assert jurisdiction over a child—sometimes referred to as a court asserting dependency jurisdiction.” 301 Or App at 495. The former use of the term “jurisdiction“—subject matter jurisdiction—we said, is the authority to exercise judicial power; that authority is conferred by a statute or the state constitution. Id. (citing State v. Terry, 333 Or 163, 186, 37 P3d 157 (2001), cert den, 536 US 910 (2002)). We noted that orders entered by a court lacking subject matter jurisdiction may be attacked at any time, while orders entered by a court with subject matter jurisdiction require a preserved claim of error. Id. (citing Multnomah County Sheriff‘s Office v. Edwards, 361 Or 761, 777-78, 399 P3d 969 (2017)). The latter use of the term “jurisdiction” in the context of dependency cases occurs when a juvenile court establishes that a child is within its dependency jurisdiction and makes the child a ward of the court. “When the court takes jurisdiction of a child, a series of complex statutes and proceedings come into play. Those statutes seek to protect the safety and well-being of children, and the rights of both children and parents.” C. M. H., 301 Or App at 495-96 (quoting Dept. of Human Services v. S. J. M., 364 Or 37, 50, 430 P3d 1021 (2018)). The use of “jurisdiction” in that sense, we said, “is a legal question based on factual findings.” We then said that the “two uses of the term ‘jurisdiction’ contemplate distinct legal concepts, and a juvenile court taking jurisdiction of a child is not a prerequisite for that court‘s authority to act at all, viz., for the court to exercise its subject matter jurisdiction.” Id. (emphasis added).
That last statement, in which we disentangled the two uses of the term “jurisdiction,” contradicts what we said in D. D. In D. D., we fused together two meanings of “jurisdiction“—subject matter jurisdiction and dependency jurisdiction—when we effectively concluded that a challenge to dependency jurisdiction could be raised at any time. Mother reads D. D. to mean that a juvenile court‘s determination that a child‘s condition or circumstances endangers a child is a prerequisite for the court‘s subject matter jurisdiction. That is because, in mother‘s view, the legislature conditionally tied the terms “exclusive original jurisdiction,” of which she asserts the ordinary meaning is subject matter jurisdiction, to the subject areas set out in
Before we discuss mother‘s statutory interpretation arguments, it is instructive to revisit subject matter jurisdiction. The Oregon Constitution gives circuit courts “subject matter jurisdiction over all actions unless a statute or rule of law divests them of jurisdiction.” Terry, 333 Or at 186; see
Thus, for example, the legislature has divested circuit courts of workers’ compensation matters concerning a claim under
to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) to review land use decisions of local governments and state agencies). Another example is that, generally, a circuit court‘s jurisdiction over a “cause” is divested and transferred to this court when a party files a notice of appeal. See
Importantly, subject matter jurisdiction is a court‘s authority to judicially engage with a subject area or type of dispute. C. M. H., 301 Or App at 495; Garner v. Alexander, 167 Or 670, 675, 120 P2d 238 (1941), cert den, 316 US 690 (1942) (Subject matter jurisdiction is “the power to deal with the general subject involved.“). In Terry, the Supreme Court described subject matter jurisdiction as defining “the scope of proceedings that may be heard by a particular court of law and is conferred by statute or the constitution.” 333 Or at 186 (emphasis added). Moreover, “subject matter jurisdiction—the authority to exercise judicial power in a given subject area or dispute—is distinct from a court‘s exercise of its authority within a given subject area or dispute.” Menten v. Deatherage, 302 Or App 425, 429, 461 P3d 1075 (2020) (citing Southard v. Larkins, 275 Or App 89, 97, 364 P3d 1006 (2015), rev den, 359 Or 39 (2016)).
From the foregoing, we derive two salient principles. First, a court cannot exercise its judicial power without first having the authority to do so. See also Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 US 574, 584, 119 S Ct 1563, 143 L Ed 2d 760 (1999) (subject-matter jurisdiction necessarily precedes a ruling on the merits (citing Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 US 83, 118 S Ct 1003, 140 L Ed
2d 210 (1998))). Second, when the legislature has divested a court of subject matter jurisdiction or conferred subject matter jurisdiction, the legislature leaves no doubt that there is somewhere for litigants to go to have their dispute resolved. For example,
With that said, we turn to
“Except as otherwise provided in subsection (5) of this section and
ORS 107.726 , the juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction in any case involving a person who is under 18 years of age and:“*****
“(c) Whose condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare of the person or of others[.]”
(Emphases added.) Mother contends that D. D. was correctly decided because (1) the phrase “exclusive original jurisdiction” means that the legislature conferred subject matter jurisdiction over juvenile dependency cases to juvenile courts and (2) that a juvenile court has that “exclusive original” subject matter jurisdiction when one of the conditions set out in
Although we disagree with mother‘s ultimate point—that a juvenile court has subject matter jurisdiction only upon a determination of dependency jurisdiction—we agree with her that “exclusive” and “original” when modifying “jurisdiction” ordinarily means “subject matter jurisdiction.” “Exclusive jurisdiction” means a “court‘s power to adjudicate an action or class of actions to the exclusion of all
other courts.” Black‘s Law Dictionary 981 (10th ed 2014); see Comcast Corp. v. Dept. of Rev., 356 Or 282, 296, 337 P3d 768 (2014) (explaining that, “when a term is a legal one, we look to its established legal meaning as revealed by, for starters at least, legal dictionaries” (internal quotation marks omitted)). “Original jurisdiction” means a “court‘s power to hear and decide a matter before any other court can review the matter.” Black‘s at 982. It would be difficult to conclude that when jurisdiction is modified by the terms “exclusive” and “original,” it does not mean, at least in some respect, subject matter jurisdiction.
Mother also asserts that the former version of
“The juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction in any case involving a person who is under 18 years of age and:
“(a) Who has committed an act which is a violation, or which if done by an adult would constitute a violation, of a law or ordinance of the United States or a state, county or city; or
“*****
“(c) Whose behavior, condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare of the person or the welfare of others[.]”
(Emphases added.)
In Scurlock, the Oregon Supreme Court decided an issue of subject matter jurisdiction for a juvenile court under former
delinquency. 286 Or at 279. The court noted that former
In Delaney, the defendant was indicted for theft when he was 17 years old. 58 Or App at 444. Without a juvenile court proceeding and a determination of whether he should be remanded to the adult system on the theft charge, the defendant left the state. Later, defendant pleaded guilty to the theft charge, but as an adult: both the district attorney and the defendant‘s attorney believed that, because the defendant was within a few days of turning 18 years old, proceeding in the juvenile court was unnecessary. The defendant was convicted of theft, but in seeking post-conviction relief, he contended that the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to convict him without a remand from the juvenile court. He argued that former
accordance with” the policy that jurisdiction attaches from the time a child is taken into custody and it is for the juvenile court to decide whether to remand a minor to adult criminal proceedings in the circuit court. Id. at 445 (emphasis omitted). Further, we said that it “is not important in this case whether the event triggering juvenile court jurisdiction is the initiation of judicial proceedings or the taking of the child into custody; both of those events occurred while this defendant was 17 years old. The juvenile court had exclusive original jurisdiction of the matter.” Id. at 445-46.
We see that in those two cases, former
As intimated in our discussion of subject matter jurisdiction above, a critical defect in mother‘s argument and our reasoning in D. D. is that a determination by a juvenile court, at least for whether “behavior, condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare of the person or of others,”
C. M. H., 301 Or App at 495 (explaining that “the juvenile court‘s determination to assert jurisdiction over a child [is] sometimes referred to as a court asserting dependency jurisdiction“). Put differently, a decision under
In a similar vein, the implication of mother‘s argument—that subject matter jurisdiction occurs when a juvenile court has made a dependency jurisdiction determination—is that there is no forum available to litigants to resolve a dependency jurisdiction dispute. Mother asserts that, with
have subject matter jurisdiction until it determines that it has dependency jurisdiction.
Consequently, it is true that, as we stated in Dept. of Human Services v. S. P., 249 Or App 76, 84, 275 P3d 979 (2012),
See C. M. H., 301 Or App at 497
But, once that adjudication has been made, and the juvenile court has determined that the allegations of the dependency petition have been proven, the child is then within the jurisdiction of the court and the court has established dependency jurisdiction. See C. M. H., 301 Or App at 496 (taking jurisdiction of a child is “a legal question based on factual findings“). That determination requires that the child be made a ward of the court.
the court, a finding of jurisdiction is a factual determination that the child is dependent or delinquent. It is not the kind of jurisdictional question that can be raised at any stage of the proceedings.“).
Accordingly,
With that said, with the parties agreeing that we implicitly overturned D. D. with C. M. H., and with the parties urging us to resolve the conflict between the two cases, we must decide whether to overrule D. D. Under State v. Civil, 283 Or App 395, 416, 388 P3d 1185 (2017), “we must not, and do not, ‘lightly overrule’ our precedents, including those construing statutes.” Rather, only when a prior decision is “plainly wrong” will we overrule a prior decision. That is, it is insufficient for a prior decision to be merely wrong; it must be “plainly wrong.” That standard is “rigorous” and “satisfied only in exceptional circumstances.” Id. at 417. Having concluded that D. D. was wrong, we proceed to discuss whether the erroneous conclusion in D. D. meets the rigorous standard of “plainly wrong.”
One of those exceptional circumstances that satisfies the plainly-wrong standard
irreconcilable. See State v. Pryor, 294 Or App 125, 130-31, 430 P3d 197 (2018) (concluding that the analysis in a subsequent case did not undermine the analysis in a prior decision so as to require that we overrule the prior case as “plainly wrong“); Dixon v. Oregon State Bd. of Nursing, 291 Or App 207, 213-14, 419 P3d 774 (2018), rev den, 364 Or 207 (2018) (concluding that a prior decision could not be reconciled with subsequent case law and that overruling that prior decision was the “only way to achieve consistency in our application” of a statute). That is, the prudential doctrine of stare decisis that embodies the law‘s important values of stability and predictability so that litigants and lower courts can act in reliance on case law, Farmers Ins. Co. v. Mowry, 350 Or 686, 697-98, 261 P3d 1 (2011), is compromised when we have inconsistent decisions. See Multnomah County v. Mehrwein, 366 Or 295, 314, 462 P3d 706 (2020) (discussing cases that cannot be fairly reconciled with other decisions as category of cases where reconsideration of prior cases is warranted).
Resolving inconsistent decisions therefore informs our “plainly wrong” determination. D. D. was wrongly decided, and our analysis in C. M. H. that disentangles dependency jurisdiction from subject matter jurisdiction favors a conclusion that D. D. is plainly wrong. Further, the parties agree that C. M. H. and D. D. are irreconcilable, with mother even stating that C. M. H. “does great violence” to D. D. and DHS asserting that D. D. “has been called into serious question” by C. M. H. Because the two cases cannot be reconciled, we therefore overrule that part of D. D. in which we effectively concluded that, under
Consequently, in this case, we affirm the dependency judgment. Mother failed to preserve a challenge to the juvenile court‘s dependency jurisdiction determination. Indeed, mother, so that H would remain with her for the rest of H‘s school year, invited the juvenile court to take jurisdiction based on her admission that her limited cognitive abilities made her unable to safely parent H. If a party was actively
instrumental in bringing about an asserted error, the party “cannot be heard to complain” on appeal. State v. Ferguson, 201 Or App 261, 269-70, 119 P3d 794 (2005), rev den, 340 Or 34 (2006) (citing Anderson v. Oregon Railroad Co., 45 Or 211, 216-17, 77 P 119 (1904)). Here, mother invited the juvenile court to take dependency jurisdiction but now asserts that doing so was error. Further, mother does not request that we review the error as plain, and this is not an extraordinary circumstance in which we would so. ORAP 5.45. For those reasons, we affirm the dependency judgment.
Affirmed.