IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA

No. COA18-1222

Filed: 17 March 2020

Guilford County, No. 16 JA 181

IN THE MATTER OF: A.K.G.

Appeal by respondent from order entered 26 March 2018 by Judge Lora C. 

Cubbage in Guilford County District Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 31 October 

2019.

Christopher L. Carr and Taniya Reaves for petitioner-appellee Guilford County 

Department of Health and Human Services.

Anné C. Wright for respondent-appellant father.

Administrative Office of the Courts, by GAL Appellate Counsel Matthew D. 

Wunsche, for guardian ad litem.

DIETZ, Judge.

Respondent appeals a permanency planning order that changed the 

permanent plan for his daughter Adele.

1 While this appeal was pending, Adele 

reached the age of majority, thus terminating the trial court’s juvenile jurisdiction.

This Court ordered supplemental briefing to address whether the appeal is now 

moot. After reviewing the parties’ submissions, we hold that Respondent’s appeal 

does not fall within any applicable exceptions to the mootness doctrine. 

 

1 We use a pseudonym to protect the juvenile’s identity.
IN RE: A.K.G.

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The challenged order, which merely changed Adele’s permanent plan, does not 

create the sort of collateral consequences that exist with an order adjudicating a 

juvenile as neglected or an order terminating parental rights. Similarly, there is 

nothing about the trial court’s fact-bound permanency planning decision, unique to 

this particular case, that could warrant application of the public interest exception. 

Finally, the particularized trial court errors that Respondent asserts in this appeal 

are not the sort of issues that are “capable of repetition yet evading review” so as to 

preclude mootness. 

We therefore dismiss this appeal as moot. We note, however, that our State’s 

appellate system goes to rather extraordinary lengths to expedite these juvenile cases 

and it is, and should be, rare for a juvenile case to be rendered moot in this way.

Facts and Procedural History

In 2016, the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services filed 

a petition alleging Adele was a neglected and dependent juvenile and took custody of 

Adele later that day. After a hearing, the trial court entered an order adjudicating 

Adele to be a neglected and dependent juvenile. The court set Adele’s primary 

permanent plan of care as reunification with a parent and set her secondary plan as

guardianship with a relative. 

Following this initial adjudication, the trial court conducted a series of

permanency planning review hearings. In 2017, the trial court changed the primary
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permanent plan to guardianship with a relative with reunification as the secondary 

plan. Then, in 2018, the trial court changed the primary permanent plan to adoption 

and the secondary plan to guardianship with a relative, thus ceasing reunification 

efforts with Respondent. The court found Respondent was making some progress on 

his case plan, but that he failed to address his past issues with domestic violence.

Respondent appealed the trial court’s order on 25 September 2018. The case was 

heard by this Court on 31 October 2019. Adele reached eighteen years of age several 

days later.

Analysis

Respondent appeals the trial court’s permanency planning order, arguing that 

the trial court failed to make sufficient findings and improperly ceased reunification 

efforts and set Adele’s permanent plan as adoption.

While this appeal was pending, Adele reached eighteen years of age. In a 

juvenile proceeding, “jurisdiction shall continue until terminated by order of the court 

or until the juvenile reaches the age of 18 years or is otherwise emancipated, 

whichever occurs first.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7B-201(a). Thus, the trial court no longer 

has subject matter jurisdiction in this proceeding and the permanent plan is no longer 

in effect. This, in turn, means that even if this Court determined that the trial court 

erred in its order changing Adele’s permanent plan, we could not remand the matter 
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to correct that error and our ruling would have no practical effect. Id.; see also N.C. 

Gen. Stat. § 7B-1000(b).

Ordinarily, this Court must dismiss an appeal as moot when “a determination 

is sought on a matter which, when rendered, cannot have any practical effect on the 

existing controversy.” In re B.G., 207 N.C. App. 745, 747, 701 S.E.2d 324, 325 (2010).

But there are a narrow set of exceptions to the mootness doctrine, some of which 

apply to juvenile proceedings. We asked the parties for supplemental briefing to 

assess whether this appeal is moot. Respondent offered three arguments against 

mootness. We address those arguments in turn below.

First, Respondent contends that the challenged permanency planning order 

might have adverse “collateral consequences” for him. An appeal from a juvenile 

ruling “which creates possible collateral legal consequences for the appellant is not 

moot.” In re A.K., 360 N.C. 449, 453, 628 S.E.2d 753, 755 (2006). In other words, 

although the juvenile (now an adult) is no longer affected by the challenged order, the 

case might not be moot if the order could have future adverse effects on the parent

who filed the appeal. 

For example, our Supreme Court has held that an order adjudicating a child 

as neglected is not mooted when the juvenile reaches the age of majority because the 

finding of neglect can be used to support an adjudication of neglect for other children 

living in the same home. Id. at 456–57, 628 S.E.2d at 757–58. Similarly, this Court 
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has held that an order terminating parental rights has possible collateral 

consequences because it can be used to support termination of the parent’s rights to 

another child. In re C.C., 173 N.C. App. 375, 379, 618 S.E.2d 813, 816–17 (2005).

Respondent concedes that the legal effect of an order changing a juvenile’s 

permanent plan, unlike an order adjudicating a juvenile as neglected or terminating 

parental rights, does not have any collateral consequences. But Respondent contends 

that the challenged order has collateral legal consequences because it includes 

unfavorable findings of fact, including a finding that Respondent failed to address his 

ongoing domestic violence issues. Respondent argues that in a future proceeding, 

such as a custody dispute involving a future child, a court might either take judicial 

notice of those unfavorable fact findings or rule that Respondent is collaterally 

estopped from disputing them. We reject this argument.

First, Respondent mischaracterizes the way judicial notice works. A judicially 

noticed fact is “one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally 

known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate 

and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be 

questioned.” N.C. R. Evid. 201(b). Findings of fact in a court order from an unrelated 

legal proceeding are not proper subjects of judicial notice. See In re K.A., 233 N.C. 

App. 119, 128 n.4, 756 S.E.2d 837, 843 n.4 (2014); State v. Cooke, 248 N.C. 485, 493–
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94, 103 S.E.2d 846, 852 (1958). Thus, Respondent’s judicial notice argument is 

meritless.

Second, Respondent ignores that the challenged findings are duplicative of 

other unchallenged findings made by the trial court in orders throughout this juvenile 

proceeding. Thus, even if a court were to permit the highly disfavored use of nonmutual collateral estoppel to bar Respondent from challenging these unfavorable 

findings in “a custody dispute regarding a later born child”—and that is, at best, an 

exceedingly remote possibility—other substantially identical findings would still be 

available even if those in this order were not. Thus, Respondent has not shown that 

the challenged order exposes him to any adverse collateral consequences that would 

not exist without it. 

Next, Respondent argues that his appeal falls under the public interest 

exception to mootness. Again, we reject this argument. A court may choose to hear an 

otherwise moot appeal if it “involves a matter of public interest, is of general 

importance, and deserves prompt resolution.” N.C. State Bar v. Randolph, 325 N.C. 

699, 701, 386 S.E.2d 185, 186 (1989). However, “this is a very limited exception that 

our appellate courts have applied only in those cases involving clear and significant 

issues of public interest.” Anderson v. North Carolina State Bd. of Elections, 248 N.C. 

App. 1, 13, 788 S.E.2d 179, 188 (2016).
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Respondent contends that “[t]he best interests of children and the effect of trial 

court decisions related to these best interests is of public interest and general 

importance.” But that mischaracterizes the scope of the challenged order. The order 

is, at most, a fact-bound ruling involving the permanent plan for a particular juvenile 

in a case with particularized facts. The proper resolution of every juvenile case is 

important both to the litigants and to society as whole. But this case does not present 

anything so exceptionally important to the public interest that it should be treated 

as different from all other juvenile cases. 

Finally, Respondent argues that the issues raised in this appeal are capable of 

repetition, yet evading review. This argument, too, is meritless. The capable-ofrepetition exception applies only when “(1) the challenged action [is] in its duration 

too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a 

reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the 

same action again.” Boney Publishers, Inc. v. Burlington City Council, 151 N.C. App. 

651, 654, 566 S.E.2d 701, 703–04 (2002). Thus, this exception applies to cases in 

which the underlying lawsuit involves some action that is capable of repetition. It 

does not apply in a case like this one, where a litigant argues that the trial court made 

legal errors in its fact findings and legal conclusions that are particular to the case. 

In sum, this appeal is moot and we are unable to adjudicate the merits of 

Respondent’s claims. We note that our State’s appellate system has taken a number 
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of steps to ensure that juvenile cases will not be mooted on appeal, including rather 

extraordinary departures from the usual rules governing preparation of the record, 

drafting of briefs, and the availability of extensions of time. See N.C. R. App. P. 3.1. 

Juvenile cases that are rendered moot while an appeal is pending are rare. But it can 

happen and here it did. The challenged order, which did nothing more than change 

the permanent plan for Adele, was rendered moot when Adele reached the age of 

majority, depriving the trial court of any further jurisdiction over the matter.

Conclusion

We dismiss Respondent’s appeal as moot. 

DISMISSED.

Judges STROUD and HAMPSON concur.