Opinion ID: 2831986
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: , 146 P.3d at 996).

Text: 26 See Fairbanks Fire Fighters Ass’n, 48 P.3d at 1168. 27 See, e.g., In re Candace A., 332 P.3d at 579 n.2 (noting that “the question of expert qualifications in ICWA cases is important to the public interest”); Peter A., 146 (continued...) -9- 7043 future CINA cases.28 And in many of those cases, the superior court will likely proceed with adjudication, mooting the probable cause determination and allowing the question to evade review.29 For these reasons we conclude that the public interest exception to the mootness doctrine applies. C. Immediate Review Of Masters’ Decisions To Return Children Home Is Necessary To Avoid Unreasonable Delay. Jennifer argues that the CINA statutes and rules together entrust standing masters with decisions about the placement of children, and masters should therefore have the authority to order children returned home without waiting for judicial review and confirmation. Underlying Jennifer’s argument is the problem of procedural delay. 27 (...continued) P.3d at 996 n.30 (noting that interpretation of AS 47.10.011 is important to public interest, particularly “the effect the availability of a non-offending parent willing and able to care for the child may have on the adjudication determination”). 28 CINA Rule 4(b)(4) provides: A master’s report is not binding until approved by a superior court judge pursuant to Civil Rule 53(d) [defining master’s report] and paragraph (f) [discussing objections to master’s recommendations] of this rule, except: . . a master may enter orders without further approval of the superior court pursuant to Civil Rule 53(b) and (c), and by paragraph (d) of this rule; and . . . a master’s order of removal from the home is effective pending superior court review. (Emphasis added). See also CINA Rule 4(d). The rule provides nine circumstances in which a master may take actions without further approval by a superior court judge. They do not include the authority to return a child to his or her home. 29 See, e.g., Alyssa B. v. State, Dep’t of Health & Soc. Servs., Div. of Family & Youth Servs., 165 P.3d 605, 610 (Alaska 2007) (holding that parent’s challenge to superior court’s probable cause determination was moot in light of court’s later decision adjudicating child in need of aid, because court had to make same findings at adjudication stage but subject to higher standard of “preponderance of the evidence”). - 10 - 7043 We agree that the 23-day wait in this case between the master’s recommendation and the superior court’s order on review of it was unacceptable. The superior court recognized this as well,30 and the delay appears to have been an aberration. Jennifer’s appeal does, however, highlight an anomaly in the CINA rules’ treatment of orders for removal of children from their homes and orders for their return. CINA Rule 4(b)(2)(A) provides that emergency or temporary custody hearings may be referred to a master. CINA Rule 4(b)(4)(B) provides that “a master’s order of removal from the home is effective pending superior court review.” Under CINA Rule 4(f), “[a] master’s order removing a child from the home which is not stayed must be reviewed by the superior court by the end of the next working day if a party so requests.” In short, a master may order a child’s immediate removal from the home, the order takes effect without judicial review, and the order must be reviewed by the superior court no later than the next day if immediate review is requested. But a master’s order returning the child to the home does not receive parallel treatment under the CINA rules; such an order is simply one of those not otherwise mentioned in the rules, “not binding until approved by a superior court judge” as provided by CINA Rule 4(b)(4). The CINA rules are clear on this, and there was thus no error in the superior court’s decision that the master’s recommendation that the children be returned home was not effective until the court had reviewed it. We are nonetheless troubled by the rules’ tacit acceptance of procedural delay in this context. The CINA statutes identify two complementary goals. Alaska Statute 47.10.005 provides that “[t]he provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to . . . achieve the end that a child coming within the jurisdiction of the court 30 The superior court wrote in its order rejecting the master’s recommendation that it would “work closely with the standing masters and staff to ensure more prompt determinations are made in the future.” - 11 - 7043 under this chapter may receive the care, guidance, treatment, and control that will promote [1] the child’s welfare and [2] the parent’s participation in the upbringing of the child to the fullest extent consistent with the child’s best interests.”31 CINA Rule 4(b), by authorizing the master to order a child’s immediate removal from the home without further judicial review, promotes the first goal, but perhaps at the expense of the second.32 And “the ‘right to the care and custody of one’s own child is a fundamental right recognized by both the federal and state constitutions’ ”33 — “one of the most basic 31 See also AS 47.05.060 which identifies the purpose of Title 47 as: [T]o secure for each child the care and guidance, preferably in the child’s own home, that will serve the moral, emotional, mental, and physical welfare of the child and the best interests of the community; [and] to preserve and strengthen the child’s family ties unless efforts to preserve and strengthen the ties are likely to result in physical or emotional damage to the child, removing the child from the custody of the parents only as a last resort when the child’s welfare or safety or the protection of the public cannot be adequately safeguarded without removal. 32 We note the legislative command in AS 47.10.082 that “[i]n making the dispositional order under AS 47.10.080(c), the court shall keep the health and safety of the child as the court’s paramount concern.” But the dispositional order follows a finding that the child is in need of aid. AS 47.10.080(c) (“If the court finds the child is a child in need of aid, the court shall . . .”). After a CINA finding, the child’s health and safety must be “the court’s paramount concern.” But before such a finding, the statutory scheme does not give different weigh to the goals identified in AS 47.10.005: promoting “the child’s welfare and the parent’s participation in the upbringing of the child to the fullest extent consistent with the child’s best interests.” 33 Seth D. v. State, Dep’t of Health & Soc. Servs., Office of Children Servs., 175 P.3d 1222, 1227 (Alaska 2008) (quoting J.M.R. v. S.T.R., 15 P.3d 253, 257 (Alaska 2001)). - 12 - 7043 of all civil liberties.”34 Subsections (d) and (e) of AS 47.10.142 set out the procedures governing emergency custody and temporary placement. They contemplate that a temporary custody hearing will occur “immediately, and in no event more than 48 hours after [the court is] notified” that OCS has taken emergency custody of a child.35 Continuances are allowed, but only “on a showing of good cause” by the parent or guardian.36 “[R]egardless of whether a continuance is granted,” the court must “[a]t the first hearing . . . make a preliminary determination of whether continued placement in the home . . . would be contrary to the welfare of the child”; if it would not, “the court shall return the authority to place the child to the child’s parent or guardian pending a temporary custody hearing.”37 At the temporary custody hearing the court must “determine whether probable cause exists for believing the child to be a child in need of aid”; if probable cause exists, the court “shall order the child committed to the department for temporary placement” or order the child’s return to the parents subject to OCS supervision.38 “If the court finds no probable cause, it shall order the child returned to the custody of the child’s parents or guardian.”39 We read these statutes as contemplating an especially expeditious process, 34 Id. at 1227-28; see AS 47.05.065 (delineating parents’ “rights and responsibilities relating to the care and control of their child while the child is a minor”). 35 AS 47.10.142(d). 36 Id. 37 Id. 38 AS 47.10.142(e). 39 Id. - 13 - 7043 one in which the court makes a decision and contemporaneously orders its implementation, regardless of whether the child is committed to OCS’s custody or returned to the family home. They do not contemplate what is essentially a two-tiered system for return orders: first a hearing before a master resulting in a master’s recommendation, and then, in time, review and final implementation by a superior court judge. Through the CINA rules, we have superimposed on the statutory process the superior court’s authority to delegate certain judicial tasks to a master.40 In doing so we have exercised our constitutional authority to regulate “practice and procedure in civil and criminal cases in all courts,”41 with the goal of promoting judicial efficiency. While substantive law which “creates, defines, and regulates rights” is the domain of the legislature, prescribing the method of enforcing rights falls to the procedural rulemaking power of the judiciary.42 But we have recognized that procedural rules can affect substantive rights, and when they do we must be careful not to confuse “the concerns that led to the establishment of judicial rulemaking power” with “matters of public policy properly within the sphere of elected representatives.” 43 Children’s welfare and the 40 CINA Rule 4(a) (“The presiding judge may appoint a standing master to conduct any or all of the CINA proceedings listed in subparagraph (b)(2).”); CINA Rule 4(b)(2) (“The following proceedings may be referred to a master: (A) emergency or temporary custody hearings . . . .”). 41 Alaska Const. art. IV, § 15. 42 See Wade v. City of Anchorage, 439 P.2d 793, 794 (Alaska 1968). 43 Nolan v. Sea Airmotive, Inc., 627 P.2d 1035, 1042-43 (Alaska 1981); see also Leege v. Martin, 379 P.2d 447, 450 (Alaska 1963) (“The administration of justice is the day to day business of the courts; they are better equipped than a legislature to know the most effective and efficient methods of conducting that business.”). - 14 - 7043 parent-child relationship are particularly infused with concerns of public policy.44 This requires that we be especially attentive to the effects of procedural rulemaking in cases like this one. The CINA rules’ provision for the delegation of authority from superior court to master is important to the efficient functioning of the courts. But it is not a reason for inordinate delay in cases in which children should be returned to their homes. While we decline “to rewrite the rules of practice from the bench,”45 we acknowledge the importance of this issue, refer it to the CINA Rules Committee, and make the following observations for the committee’s consideration.46 The procedural deficiency at the center of this case, as we see it, was not that the master could not order the immediate return of the children to their home but 44 See AS 47.05.065 (containing legislative findings on parents’ rights and responsibilities relating to their minor children; state policy with regard to families, children, and the state’s treatment of children in its custody and care; and studies regarding children’s attachment and need for permanence); Cooper v. State, 638 P.2d 174, 178 (Alaska 1981) (“Children in need of aid proceedings are intended to promote an important public interest: the welfare of children.”). 45 Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Beck, 624 P.2d 790, 793 (Alaska 1981); see also Buchanan v. State, 561 P.2d 1197, 1209 (Alaska 1977) (“We are of the view that if discovery is to be expanded beyond the provisions presently contained in our Rules of Criminal Procedure, [it is] more appropriate that such change come through amendment of our existing rules of procedure after full study by this court’s Standing Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules, the bench and the bar.”). 46 See, e.g., State v. Carlin, 249 P.3d 752, 763 n.60 (Alaska 2011) (referring matter of substitution of parties in a criminal case to the Standing Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules and noting “the thoughtful consideration of the issue by the Washington Supreme Court”); Irby v. Fairbanks Gold Min., Inc., 203 P.3d 1138, n.41 (Alaska 2011) (referring matter of waiver of peremptory challenges to the Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure); Cole v. State Farm Ins. Co., 128 P.3d 171, 172 n.2 (Alaska 2006) (referring matter of identifying partial, final judgments to the Appellate Rules Committee). - 15 - 7043 rather that the master’s order was not immediately reviewed by the superior court judge. Immediate review would be consistent with the expeditious process contemplated by the statute, AS 47.10.142(d) and (e). As pointed out above, under our CINA rules parties have the right to request that an order removing children from the home be reviewed immediately (“by the end of the next working day”),47 but there is no corresponding right for orders returning the children home. Whether the master’s order is immediately effective or not, we do not see why, in this important context, the rules should not provide the same access to judicial review. We also note that there may be helpful parallels in civil commitment proceedings, where an analogous liberty interest is at stake.48 Pending revisions to the governing rules, when referring CINA matters to masters, superior courts should exercise their authority under Civil Rule 53 and CINA Rule 4(b) to include in the orders of reference a requirement for expedited review of any order for returning a child to the parents’ custody.49 47 CINA Rule 4(f)(3). 48 For initial involuntary commitment proceedings, the legislature has instituted strict time limits on decisions and their review: “Within 48 hours after the completion of the [initial] screening investigation, a judge may issue an ex parte order orally or in writing, stating that there is probable cause to believe the respondent is mentally ill . . . . The court shall confirm an oral order in writing within 24 hours after it is issued.” AS 47.30.700(a). 49 See Civil Rule 53(b) (“The order of reference to the master may specify or limit the master’s powers and may direct the master to report only upon particular issues or to do or perform particular acts or to receive and report evidence only and may fix the time and place for beginning and closing the hearings and for the filing of the master’s report.”); CINA Rule 4(b) (“An order of reference specifying the extent of the master’s authority and the type of appointment must be entered in every case assigned to a master.”). - 16 - 7043