Title: GEERTS v. JACOBSEN

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

GEERTS v. JACOBSEN 2004 WY 148100 P.3d 1265Case Number: 03-132Decided: 11/29/2004Notice:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third.  Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002 of any typographical or other formal errors in order that corrections may be made before final publication in the permanent volume.
October Term, A.D. 2004

 

BART 
GEERTS,

Appellant(Respondent),

v.

KIANDRA 
LISARAY JACOBSEN,

Appellee(Petitioner).

 

Appeal 
from the District Court of Albany County

The Honorable Jeffrey A. Donnell, Judge

 
 
    

Representing 
Appellant:

Mary 
Elizabeth Galvan of Mary Elizabeth Galvan, PC, Laramie, WY.  Argument by Ms. Galvan.

 
   

Representing 
Appellee:

Devon 
O'Connell Coleman of Pence and MacMillan, LLC, Laramie, WY.  Argument by Ms. Coleman.

 
   

Before HILL, C.J., and GOLDEN, LEHMAN, and KITE, JJ., and 
STEBNER, D.J.

 
 
          

LEHMAN, Justice.

 
 

[¶1]      In 
this appeal, we must consider whether the district court, in a post-divorce 
decree setting, had jurisdiction to enforce an interlocutory oral admonition 
made before entry of a divorce decree.  
After the divorce decree was entered, without incorporating the oral 
admonition, the district court found that appellant Geerts (Father) had violated 
that earlier oral admonition, found Father in contempt of a court order, and 
sanctioned Father by suspending visitation with his daughters in Laramie, 
Wyoming, and allowing only supervised visitation in the Seattle home of appellee 
Jacobson (Mother).  Father appeals on 
grounds the district court lacked jurisdiction and abused its discretion by 
enforcing the oral admonition without due process.

 
  
            
      

[¶2]      We reverse and 
remand, in part, and affirm, in part.

 
   
      

ISSUES

 

[¶3]      Father provides this 
issues statement:

 
  
  

A.  Whether 
the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enforce an 
interlocutory oral order which merged into and was extinguished by the final 
decree of divorce.

B.  Whether 
the district court abused its discretion by converting an interlocutory 
temporary restraining order into a permanent injunction with contempt sanctions 
which indefinitely affected appellant's substantive visitation rights without 
notice or a hearing on its merits.

C.  Whether the district court abused its 
discretion by imposing punitive sanctions with the effect of modifying the 
visitation provisions of the divorce decree, without providing Mr. Geerts an 
opportunity to purge his contempt or otherwise to demonstrate future 
compliance.

 
 
            
           
            
  

Mother believes that the following is at issue:

 
 
      

I.  Is 
the Wyoming Supreme Court's review of the district court's interlocutory order 
before the evidence on the modification motion is heard premature and thus the 
Wyoming Supreme Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to review this 
appeal?

II.  Is 
appellant estopped from collaterally attacking the July 2001 
order?

III.  Did 
the district court have continuing subject matter jurisdiction to enforce its 
July 2001 order?

IV.  Did the district court abuse its discretion 
when it held appellant in civil contempt of court for photographing his nude 
daughter in clear violation of the court's July 2001 order?

 
 
             
             
  

In his reply brief, Father responds:

 
 
    

A.  Whether 
the Wyoming Supreme Court has subject matter jurisdiction to review on appeal 
the district court's order finding Appellant in contempt of 
court.

B.  Whether 
appellant is precluded from appealing the district court's order on motion for 
order to show cause by his failure to appeal the July 18, 2001 order following 
entry of the decree of divorce.

C.  Whether the law of the case doctrine is 
inapplicable to the district court's July 18, 2001 order.

 
 
              
 

FACTS

 

[¶4]      Mother filed for 
divorce in December of 2000 and requested custody of the parties' two daughters, 
ages four and six years old.  The 
parents entered into a stipulated order for temporary child support and custody 
on February 13, 2001, agreeing to joint custody with Mother having primary 
physical custody.  Father was to pay 
child support and have all reasonable visitation as mutually agreed.  At the time the parties lived in 
Laramie, but Mother later moved to Seattle, Washington.  

 

[¶5]      On June 15, 2001, 
Mother filed an ex parte emergency motion for supervised visitation for various 
reasons, one of which alleged that Father had engaged in inappropriate sexual 
behavior with the children.  A hearing was held on July 18, 2001, and, 
after Mother presented her several allegations, the motion was dismissed without 
Father having to present any evidence; however, from the bench, the district 
court admonished Father:

 
 
             
           
         

            
[THE COURT:]  Now, I do want 
to say one thing for the record.  
Different people have different ideas as far as nudity and those things 
are concerned, and thereit seems fairly apparent that nudity, at least, has 
been a fairly common thing in your family for a long time.  We certainly have the photos here to 
indicate that.[1]  Fine.  I don't have any problem with that.  That's sort of a European[2] sort of style, I suppose.  But I'm here to tell you, Mr. Geerts, 
that whatever your wife has said to you about not bathing with your children in 
the past, I'm here to tell you today that that stops right now.  

            
Do you understand that?

            
GEERTS:  
Yes.

            
THE COURT:  And I'm here to 
tell you today that part of this orderand it's on the record todayis that you 
are to have no more contact like that.  
You are to have no other inappropriate physical contact with your 
daughters.  You are not to engage in 
any sort of sexual innuendo with them.  
You are not to take any more nude photographs of them.  And if I find out that you have done any 
of those things, Mr. Geerts, your visitation will end.  Period.  You will not see them 
again.

            
Do I make myself clear?

            
GEERTS:  Yes.  

 

[¶6]      This oral 
admonition was never reduced to a signed order, and a divorce decree was issued 
on November 26, 2001, without incorporating the admonition.  Mother relocated to Seattle, Washington 
with the two daughters and allowed the children to visit Father in Laramie.  After one such visit, Father sent Mother 
a photograph showing one daughter in a bath with a soap beard.  The photograph shows the head and 
shoulders of the child.  Mother, however, 
believed that the photo violated the district court's admonition against Father 
taking nude photographs of the children and, on May 20, 2003, filed a motion for 
order to show cause why Father should not be held in contempt of a court order 
and petitioned to modify child visitation and child support on the basis of this 
contempt.

 
 
          
             
                
              
     

[¶7]      An order to show 
cause was entered, a hearing held, and Father was held in contempt of court, but 
the court withheld final decision on custody, visitation, and child support 
pending the modification hearing.  
Father now appeals the contempt 
order.

 
     

DISCUSSION

 

Jurisdiction To Review

 

[¶8]      Mother contends 
that under our previous decision in Madden v. Madden, 558 P.2d 669, 670 
(Wyo. 1977), the contempt order is not an appealable order because neither a 
fine nor imprisonment was imposed.  
However, as we later explained, Madden held that an order 
originating in a contempt proceeding, which does not even purport to find a 
party in contempt, is interlocutory only and therefore not appealable.  Stone v. Stone, 842 P.2d 545, 
547 (Wyo. 1992) (citing Madden, 558 P.2d at 670).  We have held that where a court 
alters reasonable visitation to supervised visitation, without benefit of a 
modification hearing, and indefinitely denies a parent visitation with children 
except under supervised conditions, such a drastic modification is not 
interlocutory but is an appealable final order.  Matter of SAJ, 942 P.2d 407, 409 
(Wyo. 1997).  Here, Father was held 
in contempt and his visitation modified as a sanction; accordingly, we hold that 
this order affected his substantial rights and is appealable.  SAJ, 942 P.2d  at 409.

 
   

[¶9]      On the merits, 
Father contends that the admonition was an interlocutory order that merged with 
the divorce decree and was extinguished.  
He contends that Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 20-2-203(a) (LexisNexis 2003) 
grants the district court continuing subject matter jurisdiction to enforce 
decrees but not to enforce a temporary order, which is not made part of the 
final decree, and the order is void and null.  Mother 
contends that father failed to timely appeal the interlocutory order after the 
July hearing and is precluded from now collaterally attacking its contents and 
also contends that the final decree adopted the order as the law of the 
case.

 
      
            
            
         

[¶10]   Father has properly appealed the 
contempt order and not collaterally attacked the earlier admonition.  Mother presents no evidence that the 
admonition was actually adopted by the divorce decree to become the law of the 
case.  Thus, Father has presented 
the proper issue for our review, which is whether the district court lacked 
subject matter jurisdiction to enforce the admonition because it was an 
interlocutory order that merged with the divorce decree and was 
extinguished.  

 

[¶11]   Jurisdiction is essential to the 
exercise of judicial power, and whether a court had subject matter jurisdiction 
is always subject to review and cannot be waived. Terex Corp. v. Hough, 
2002 WY 112, ¶5, 50 P.3d 317, ¶5 (Wyo. 2002).  

 

Unless the court has jurisdiction, it lacks any authority to proceed, 
and any decision, judgment, or other order is, as a matter of law, utterly void 
and of no effect for any purpose.  
Subject matter jurisdiction, like jurisdiction over the person, is not a 
subject of judicial discretion.  
There is a difference, however, because the lack of jurisdiction over the 
person can be waived, but lack of subject matter jurisdiction cannot be.  Subject matter jurisdiction either 
exists or it does not and, before proceeding to a disposition on the merits, a 
court should be satisfied that it does have the requisite 
jurisdiction.

 

Id. 
(quoting Boyd v. Nation, 909 P.2d 323, 325 (Wyo. 
1996)).

 
   

[¶12]   Courts maintain continuing subject 
matter jurisdiction to enforce or modify decrees and may use contempt as a 
sanction to enforce court orders.  
Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 20-2-203(a) and -204.  The statute limits the continuing 
subject matter jurisdiction to enforcement of decrees.  We generally determine the intent of a 
statute by its language if plain and unambiguous.  Parker Land & Cattle Co. v. 
Wyoming Game & Fish Comm'n, 845 P.2d 1040, 1043 (Wyo. 1993).  The statutory language plainly evidences 
no intent to allow enforcement of an interlocutory order.    

 

[¶13]   The general rule is that all 
provisional or interlocutory proceedings in a matter are merged in, and disposed 
of, by the final decree.  
Hinrichs v. Office of Family & Children of Allen County, 798 N.E.2d 867, 872 (Ind.App. 2003). Our review of the record does not show evidence 
that the oral admonition was a permanent injunction that survived entry of the 
divorce decree.  The admonition was 
delivered from the bench after a motion hearing about temporary visitation until 
the parties' competing custody claims could be heard on the merits at 
trial.  The motion was dismissed 
without allowing Father to present evidence; and, although Father was 
admonished, the district court's instruction to Father was not a final order 
that reached or determined the substantive rights of the parties from which 
Father could have appealed.  
Plainly, then, the oral admonition was 
interlocutory.

 
      

[¶14]   Mother and Father entered into a 
settlement agreement that resolved fitness, custody and visitation issues, and 
the admonition was not made part of the agreement or the decree.  The controversy that had resulted in the 
admonition was resolved at that time and, therefore, necessarily merged into the 
divorce decree and was extinguished.  
After entry of the divorce decree, the interlocutory order did not exist 
to be enforced by later proceedings.  

 

[¶15]   Although the divorce decree was 
entered without incorporating the court's earlier admonition, the court relied 
on it to issue an order to show cause why Father should not be held in contempt 
and then issued a contempt order for violating that order.  After the divorce decree was entered, 
however, that earlier oral admonition merged and no longer existed.  The district court did not have subject 
matter jurisdiction to enforce an interlocutory order, and the contempt order is 
null and void.  Therefore, the contempt order is 
vacated.

 
  
   

Temporary Modification of 
Child Visitation

 
 
   

[¶16]   At the time of the contempt 
hearing, Mother's petition to modify child visitation and child support was 
pending.  While it is unfortunate 
that the district court's order temporarily modifying Father's visitation with 
his minor children was founded within the context of contempt, the district 
court retained jurisdiction to enter temporary orders which the district court 
found to be in the best interests of the minor children regarding Mother's 
petition.  Hence, we would affirm 
the portion of the district court's order that modified Father's visitation with 
his minor children.  As clearly 
stated in the district court's order, Father's modified visitation requiring him 
to have supervised visits with his minor children at Mother's residence was 
merely temporary pending formal hearing on Mother's petition.  Indeed, the 
district court even went further to particularly specify that Mother should not 
treat the ordered visitation modification as a victory and admonished Mother not 
to characterize it as such with the children.

 
      
           
           
      

[¶17]   As set forth above, courts maintain 
subject matter jurisdiction to enforce or modify decrees.  Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 20-2-203(a).  This statute provides a court with 
subject matter jurisdiction to enforce or modify a final decree concerning the 
care, custody, and visitation of the children as the circumstances of the 
parents and needs of the children require on either a temporary or permanent 
basis.  Id.  See also Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 
20-2-201, -202, and -204.   

 

[¶18]  Hence, while we reverse the order of the 
district court finding Father in contempt, we affirm the district court's order 
temporarily modifying Father's visitation with the children pending formal 
hearing on Mother's petition, holding that the district court had jurisdiction 
to do so outside any contempt proceeding.

 
        
            
         
           
      

FOOTNOTES

 

1The court had been presented with a photo of the family, 
including mother, swimming nude when the children were aged five and 
two.

 
 
             
        

2Apparently 
a reference to the fact that Father is from Europe and not a U.S. citizen.