Opinion ID: 2633499
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the court of appeals misapprehended the application of the law of the case doctrine to the district court's rejection of the stipulation

Text: ¶ 29 The second judge justified his reversal of the original judge's order that implemented the stipulation on both legal and factual grounds. He read Utah's adoption statute to require that he decide the lawfulness of the mother's relinquishment of her parental rights before he could take up consideration of her son's best interests. This legal interpretation and the related legal ruling prohibiting the mother from participating in the adoption proceedings vitiated the first judge's order that would have permitted the mother to participate in all proceedings related to determining the best interests of E.H. ¶ 30 The second judge formally voided the stipulation on factual grounds. After the adoption hearinga hearing from which the mother was barredthe second judge found that Dr. Wehl's report and recommendation was so flawed that it did not reliably speak to the issue of E.H.'s best interests. ¶ 31 Because the effect of these legal and factual rulings was to reverse a ruling of the first judge, the court of appeals reviewed them within the context of the law of the case doctrine. By analyzing the propriety of the second judge's rulings, primarily as a question of whether he properly exercised his discretion to overrule the order of the prior judge, the court of appeals applied an abuse of discretion standard. We believe that this was a mistake. ¶ 32 A challenge to a judge's reversal of a ruling made by a predecessor judge is inevitably composed of two issues. The first concerns whether the reversal so offends the prudential practice of refusing to reopen matters that have already been decided that it cannot be sustained. Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 444, 32 S.Ct. 739, 56 L.Ed. 1152 (1912). This question is central to evaluating the application of the law of the case doctrine and, as the court of appeals correctly noted, is ordinarily reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. The second component of an inquiry into a reversal of a prior order focuses on the nature of the matter decided. For example, if both the original ruling and the one that displaced it were based on applications of law each would be reviewed under a correctness standard. When a legal question is presented to an appellate court in law-of-the-case packaging, a potential dilemma can arise over which standard of review to apply. ¶ 33 We can identify no reason why an erroneous legal determination should be afforded greater discretion on appeal merely because it wears the garb of law of the case. For purposes of review, then, considerations of law of the case must yield to those of the substance of the underlying ruling when ascertaining the proper standard of review. By stating this rule, we do not intend to diminish the importance of the law of the case doctrine, nor do we surrender the authority of appellate courts to enforce the principle by vacating unexplained and unjustified renunciations of prior court orders. ¶ 34 Under the approach we endorse today, the second judge's legal ruling that a determination of the status of the mother's relinquishment was required prior to and as a condition for the mother's claim to standing in the adoption proceedings is subject to review for correctness, irrespective of the fact that the ruling implicated the law of the case doctrine. We reverse this ruling as an incorrect application of law for reasons we will shortly explain. ¶ 35 The standard of review applied by the court of appeals in reversing the second judge's decision to void the stipulation is unclear. On one hand, the court indicated that the proper standard of review for challenges brought under the law of the case doctrine is abuse of discretion, it later admonished judges to honor the doctrine unless a compelling reason exists, In re E.H., 2004 UT App 419, ¶ 23, 103 P.3d 177, and concluded that the second judge voided the stipulation without a compelling reason to do so. The court of appeals did not explain how it reconciled the relaxed scrutiny of the abuse of discretion standard with the rigor of the compelling reason test. ¶ 36 We conclude, however, that we need not review the decision to void the stipulation. Whatever misgivings or uncertainty we may harbor about the standard of review applied by the court of appeals when it reinstated the stipulation are not relevant to our analysis. The second judge voided the stipulation as part of a ruling in the adoption proceedings, an event from which the mother was erroneously barred due to an incorrect interpretation of law. The court's improper rejection of the mother's right to be heard on the question of best interests meant that only the voice of the adoptive parents was heard on the central issues of whether Dr. Wehl's credentials were sufficient to his assigned task, his methodology appropriate, and his recommendations sound. The absence of the mother from this process rendered it fatally flawed. ¶ 37 Given our conclusion that the district court retained final authority over the determination of E.H.'s best interests and was, therefore, entitled to exercise considerable latitude in ascertaining the weight and effect of Dr. Wehl's recommendations on the boy's best interests, we believe that the court of appeals reached too far when it reinstated the stipulation and the order of the first judge that gave it legal effect. Of course, this outcome repaired the flaw in the process by avoiding the need for an adoption hearing that the mother might attend. It may well be that the court of appeals selected this approach because it offered the promise of an accelerated route to the final placement of E.H. If that was the court's objective, it was a laudable one. It is not, however, a result that we can endorse. ¶ 38 We elect, instead, to fix the procedural defects by remanding this matter to the court of appeals with instructions to order that a new adoption hearing be conducted in which the mother is granted status as an intervenor for the purpose of presenting evidence concerning the best interests of her son. In this position, the mother should be permitted to present evidence in defense of Dr. Wehl and his evaluative report. ¶ 39 Our determination that the proper approach here is to correct the process and not the result is animated in no small measure by our recognition that no custodial decision can claim to actually reflect the best interests of E.H. that does not take into account the events of his life during the years in which the contest for his future has traversed our appellate courts.