Case Title: Cabral v. L'Heureux

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2017 ME 50

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2017-03-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 50 
Docket: 
Aro-16-6 
Submitted 
On Briefs:  July 20, 2016 
Decided: 
March 16, 2017 
Corrected: 
June 29, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
KENNETH CABRAL 
 
v. 
 
DANIELLE L'HEUREUX 
 
 
MEAD, J. 
[¶1]  Danielle L’Heureux appeals from a judgment entered in the 
District Court (Houlton, O’Mara, J.) that established parental rights and 
responsibilities and awarded Kenneth Cabral primary physical residence of the 
parties’ two daughters.  L’Heureux argues that the court erred in considering 
and relying upon evidence offered in a separate proceeding concerning the 
same parties.  We agree and vacate the order and remand for further 
proceedings. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following facts are established in the record in this matter.  
L’Heureux and Cabral are the parents of two daughters, ages nine and twelve at 
 
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the time of the District Court’s October 14, 2015, order.  At the time Cabral 
commenced a complaint for determination of parental rights and 
responsibilities and child support in the District Court at Lewiston in August 
2012, the girls were residing with him at his home in Aroostook County.  
L’Heureux resided in Auburn, and the children had been residing with her until 
the month before Cabral’s filing.  After multiple continuances, the case was 
transferred to the District Court at Houlton in March 2014.  A hearing was held 
on the complaint on September 28, 2015, and the court issued its decision on 
October 14, 2015. 
[¶3]  Cabral, his daughters, and his partner and her three children live in 
a mobile home that suffers from a significant lack of adequate heating and 
sanitation facilities, including a lack of running water in the past.  The elder 
daughter testified to her distress in living under the conditions in the mobile 
home.  The mother of a friend of one of the daughters testified to the conditions 
within the trailer after briefly observing them when bringing the daughter 
home.  She reported that Cabral prohibited his daughter from visiting the 
friend’s house after the visit. 
[¶4]  L’Heureux resides in an apartment in Auburn.  She testified that she 
had been engaged in an “unhealthy relationship” that concluded three years 
 
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prior to the hearing.  She was arrested at her apartment for disorderly conduct, 
but the charges were later dropped. 
[¶5]  During the period between the filing of the parental rights complaint 
by Cabral in 2012 and the issuance of the court’s October 14, 2015, order, 
Cabral obtained two protection orders against L’Heureux: an order for 
protection from abuse from the District Court at Lewiston, and an order for 
protection from harassment from the District Court at Houlton.  At the 
conclusion of the evidence in the parental rights case, the court announced that 
it was going to take judicial notice of the protection from harassment case that 
it had presided over in April and June 2014.1  The October 2015 parental rights 
and responsibilities order includes the following statement: 
The court has carefully considered the evidence, and has taken 
judicial notice of the pleadings, testimony and orders in 
HOUDC-PA-14-10 and hereby renders its Judgment . . . . 
 
(Emphasis added.) 
 
[¶6]  After the issuance of the order and the denial of L’Heureux’s motion 
for amended or additional findings, L’Heureux timely appealed. 
                                         
1  The court’s statement and the text of the parental rights and responsibilities order make 
reference to a protection from abuse case.  Although the record is not altogether clear, it appears that 
the matter was actually a protection from harassment complaint commenced pursuant to 5 M.R.S. 
§ 4653 (2016), and we will refer to it as such throughout this decision. 
 
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II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶7]  The court’s judgment includes three findings that could be 
perceived as adverse to L’Heureux on issues regarding primary residence and 
parental contact: (1) she was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge—which 
was later dismissed—for an unknown circumstance at her apartment; (2) she 
was involved in an “unhealthy relationship”—the circumstances of which are 
not elucidated in the record—that concluded three years prior to the hearing; 
and (3) she supported a man who reportedly was charged with abusing one of 
Cabral’s partner’s children.2 
 
[¶8]  The first two findings, while adverse to L’Heureux’s position, are not 
overwhelming or dispositive.  By contrast, the third raises profound questions 
regarding L’Heureux’s judgment and interactions with minor children. 
 
[¶9]  None of the facts supporting this third finding appear in the record 
of the parental rights proceedings.  They are drawn, as noted in the judgment, 
wholly from testimony presented in the earlier protection from harassment 
hearing.  The court incorporated the testimony from the separate action under 
the rubric of judicial notice. 
                                         
2  The court found, without evidence in the record of this matter, that L’Heureux called her own 
daughter a liar and expressed great disappointment that she would testify against the man.  The court 
further found that L’Heureux went to her children’s school and caused a scene that resulted in a 
partial lockdown of the school. 
 
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[¶10]  The doctrine of judicial notice is well established in Maine.  
Rule 201 of the Maine Rules of Evidence, which codifies prior Maine practice, 
defines the type of adjudicative facts that may be judicially noticed as follows: 
(b)  Kinds of facts that may be judicially noticed.  The court 
may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute 
because it: 
 
(1)  Is generally known within the trial court’s territorial 
jurisdiction; or 
 
(2) Can be accurately and readily determined from sources 
whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned. 
 
M.R. Evid. 201(b).  Maine courts have historically applied judicial notice to a 
wide variety of indisputable facts.  See Field & Murray, Maine Evidence § 201.2 
at 55-57 (6th ed. 2007) (providing illustrative examples).  Courts may take 
judicial notice of pleadings, dockets, and other court records where the 
existence or content of such records is germane to an issue in the same or 
separate proceedings.3  See Finn v. Lipman, 526 A.2d 1380, 1381 (Me. 1987); 
Union Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Town of Topsham, 441 A.2d 1012, 1016 (Me. 1982). 
                                         
3  The case of In re Scott S., 2001 ME 114, ¶¶ 12-13, 775 A.2d 1144, confirms a unique evidentiary 
treatment that is applicable only to child protective proceedings wherein a judge may consider and 
rely upon evidence submitted in earlier hearings—as long as the same judge heard the evidence—
because such proceedings are unitary in nature. 
 
 
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[¶11]  The doctrine of judicial notice, as defined in Rule 201 and our 
precedents, does not, however, open the door to the consideration of testimony 
and exhibits offered in separate proceedings.  A clear line of demarcation exists 
between the fact that a pleading, docket entry, or order exists in separate 
proceedings—all of which are subject to judicial notice if germane to an issue 
in later judicial proceedings—and the actual evidence submitted in the earlier 
proceedings.  A court may incorporate evidence submitted in earlier, separate 
proceedings by agreement of the parties, or admit pertinent findings made in a 
different proceeding if those findings meet the requirements of collateral 
estoppel, but it cannot, under the rubric of judicial notice, simply sua sponte 
import and rely upon evidence presented in an earlier judicial proceeding.4 
 
[¶12]  Upon this record, it appears that the prior, separate body of 
evidence relied upon by the court loomed large in its decision to award primary 
physical residence to Cabral despite the circumstances in his home and the 
expressed wish by the older child to live with her mother.  Because the court’s 
                                         
4  We note the occasional, but inaccurate, shorthand use of the term “judicial notice” by counsel 
who simply wish the court to accept facts or evidence that is outside the actual evidentiary record—
for example, where a companion case has already proceeded to trial and incorporation of the record 
in that first case would create efficiencies in the second.  Although the parties may agree to 
submission of that record in evidence in the newer matter, it is not done through the application of 
judicial notice.  Judicial notice is a narrow concept that requires specific findings as provided in M.R. 
Evid. 201(b); it should not be referenced except in circumstances that truly constitute judicial notice.  
In re Jonas, 2017 ME 115, ¶ 38 n.10, --- A.3d ---. 
 
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error in relying upon that evidence absent the consent of the parties or another 
legitimate evidentiary basis cannot be deemed harmless, we vacate the 
judgment and remand the matter for further proceedings that may include, at 
the court’s discretion, further hearing or rehearing. 
 
The entry is: 
The judgment establishing parental rights and 
responsibilities is vacated and the matter is 
remanded to the District Court for further 
proceedings. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Richard L. Rhoda, Esq., Houlton, for appellant Danielle L’Heureux 
 
Kenneth Cabral did not file a brief 
 
 
Houlton District Court docket number FM-2014-33 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY