Opinion ID: 2445304
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: [¶ 10] The father contends that the PKPA barred the District Court from exercising jurisdiction over the TPR petition because of the pre-existing South Dakota interim custody order. [1] We address this issue before reaching his other claims because absent subject matter jurisdiction, the court had no authority to act. Ewing v. Me. Dist. Court, 2009 ME 16, ¶ 12, 964 A.2d 644, 647. Whether the court had jurisdiction is an issue of law that we review de novo. Id. [¶ 11] As an initial matter, we note that ordinarily the District Court has jurisdiction over child protection petitions regardless of other decrees regarding a child's care and custody, and its orders in a child protection proceeding take[ ] precedence over any prior order regarding the child's care and custody. 22 M.R.S. § 4031(1)(A), (3) (2009). That jurisdictional grant controls here unless the PKPA bars Maine courts from exercising jurisdiction in this case. 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738A(a); see Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U.S. 174, 177, 108 S.Ct. 513, 98 L.Ed.2d 512 (1988) (Once a State exercises jurisdiction consistently with the provisions of the [PKPA], no other State may exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the custody dispute, even if it would have been empowered to take jurisdiction in the first instance .... (citation omitted)); Hamilton v. Hamilton, 2009 ME 83, ¶ 15, 976 A.2d 924, 927 (stating that, if the statutes conflict, the PKPA preempts the Maine Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, 19-A M.R.S. §§ 1731-1783 (2009)). [¶ 12] Accordingly, in order to decide whether the District Court had jurisdiction to terminate the father's parental rights, we must first determine whether the PKPA applies to a child protection petition brought by the Department. If it does not, we need not reach the subsidiary questions of whether the South Dakota order satisfies the PKPA's requirements to qualify for full faith and credit, or whether one of the exception provisions in the PKPA [2] nonetheless allows Maine to assume jurisdiction in this matter. [¶ 13] The PKPA provides, in part, The appropriate authorities of every State shall enforce according to its terms, and shall not modify except as provided in... this section, any custody determination or visitation determination made consistently with the provisions of this section by a court of another State. 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738A(a). A custody determination is defined as a judgment, decree, or other order of a court providing for the custody of a child, and includes permanent and temporary orders, and initial orders and modifications. Id. § 1738A(b)(3). [¶ 14] The South Dakota order, which by its plain terms allocates temporary custody to the father over the mother, is clearly a custody determination within the meaning of the PKPA. See id. The question we face, one of first impression in Maine, is whether the TPR order entered by the District Court as part of a child protection case was likewise a custody determination purporting to modify the earlier South Dakota order. [3] [¶ 15] As evidenced by the split of authority among states that have decided it, the answer to that question is not obvious. Some states have said that the phrase modify ... any custody determination encompasses virtually all custody allocations made by a court, including those made in child protection actions; others have held that a child protection action is a different specie altogether from a custody dispute between private parties, and that Congress did not intend that it be included in the PKPA definition. [4] Statutory language is ambiguous if it is reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation. L'Heureux v. Michaud, 2007 ME 149, ¶ 7, 938 A.2d 801, 803. We, like several of the other states that have interpreted this provision of the PKPA, cannot determine Congress's intent solely from the plain language of the statute. Therefore, because the extent of the prohibition that we not modify ... any custody determination is ambiguous in the context of a child protection case, we look to other language in the PKPA and to the stated purpose of Congress in enacting it for illumination. Id. ([I]f the plain language of the statute is ambiguous ... we look beyond that language to other indicia of legislative intent.). [¶ 16] There are indications in the PKPA that suggest that Congress did not intend it to apply to child protection petitions. The PKPA is largely modeled on the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA), which was enacted in Maine and then later replaced by the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), 19-A M.R.S. §§ 1731-1783. See Levy, Maine Family Law § 2.4.1 at 2-10 to 2-11 (6th ed.2009). All three acts define a custody determination, [5] but only the UCCJA and UCCJEA contain definitions for a custody proceeding. Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction Act § 2(3), 9 U.L.A. pt. 1A, at 286 (1999); Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act § 102(4), 9 U.L.A. pt. 1A, at 658 (codified at 19-A M.R.S. § 1732(4)). The UCCJA defines a custody proceeding as including child neglect and dependency proceedings, and the UCCJEA definition of a child custody proceeding includes a proceeding for ... neglect, abuse ... [and] termination of parental rights. Id. [¶ 17] The omission of a similar definition from the PKPA, which would have explicitly brought child protection actions within the ambit of the Act, is telling and indicates that child protection actions are not custody proceedings when applying the PKPA. See L.G. v. People, 890 P.2d 647, 661 (Colo.1995); State ex rel. Dep't of Human Servs. v. Avinger, 104 N.M. 255, 720 P.2d 290, 292 (1986). We infer that the omission was deliberate because, in enacting the Indian Child Welfare Act two years before it enacted the PKPA, Congress included a definition for child custody proceeding that encompassed both any action removing [a] ... child from its parent ... for temporary placement in a foster home, and any action resulting in the termination of the parent-child relationship. Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, Pub.L. No. 95-608, § 4(1)(i), (ii), 92 Stat. 3069, 3069-70 (codified at 25 U.S.C.S. § 1903(1)(i), (ii) (LexisNexis 2004)). Congress could have easily included a similar provision in the PKPA, but did not. [¶ 18] Furthermore, the PKPA provides that a state making a child custody... determination has continuing jurisdiction so long as that state has jurisdiction under its own law, and such State remains the residence of the child or of any contestant. 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738A(d); see id. § 1738A(c)(1). A contestant is a person ... who claims a right to custody or visitation of a child. Id. § 1738A(b)(2). When the Department petitions the District Court for a child protection order, it does not do so as a person, [6] nor does it claim[ ] a right to custody. See In re L.W., 241 Neb. 84, 486 N.W.2d 486, 501 (1992) ([T]he State... acting in the role of parens patriae, does not fit within th[e] definition [of `contestant'].). The Department may ask the court for temporary custody in order to protect the child involved, but it does not assert any right to custody beyond its statutory authority and the necessities of the situation at hand. The fact that Congress chose to define contestant in a way that excludes the State in its role as parens patriae suggests that it did not intend for the PKPA's continuing jurisdiction provision to extend to child protection cases in which the State is a party. [7] [¶ 19] Examining the purpose of the PKPA further strengthens the conclusion that Congress enacted it as a way to limit concurrent jurisdiction between states over child custody disputes between private parties, see L.G., 890 P.2d at 661-62, not to prevent states from exercising parens patriae authority to protect children within their borders from abuse or neglect, see In re Sayeh R., 91 N.Y.2d 306, 670 N.Y.S.2d 377, 693 N.E.2d 724, 727 (1997). Congress found that the PKPA was necessary because of a large and growing number of cases annually involving disputes between persons claiming rights of custody and visitation of children, and that the inconsistent way in which states resolved those disputes contribute[d] to a tendency of parties involved in such disputes to frequently resort to the seizure, restraint, concealment, and interstate transportation of children. Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1980, Pub.L. No. 96-611, § 7(a)(1), (3), 94 Stat. 3566, 3568-69. One of the general purposes of the PKPA is to deter interstate abductions and other unilateral removals of children undertaken to obtain custody and visitation awards. Id. § 7(c)(6), 94 Stat. at 3569. [¶ 20] The dangers that Congress sought to remedy with the PKPA are not presented when the State seeks to protect a child from abuse or neglect in a child protection proceeding like the one at bar. As discussed above, the Department is not a person, and does not claim[ ] rights of custody when it brings a petition, 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738A(b)(2), nor does it resort to the seizure, restraint, [or] concealment of children in doing so, Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1980, Pub.L. No. 96-611, § 7(a)(3), 94 Stat. at 3569. Nor does the exercise of a state's parens patriae authority promote interstate abductions and other unilateral removals of children undertaken to obtain custody and visitation awards, id. § 7(c)(6), 94 Stat. at 3569, because a parent or another party who brings a child to Maine and then alleges that the child has been abused and requires protection has no assurance that he or she will be awarded custody. See supra n. 7. [¶ 21] Unlike a divorce complaint or parental rights and responsibilities complaint where a court generally determines which of the two parents is to have primary physical custody, a child protection petition often results in an order granting custody to the Department or a third person. Because a court acting on a child protection petition is primarily concerned with the child's safety, and does not presume that custody in such a case should be determined by deciding between the child's parents, there is no incentive to forum shop by bringing a child to Maine and then asserting that the court should intervene because the child has been abused or neglected. Because the incentive to remove a child to another state in an effort to obtain a more favorable custody ruling is the chief evil the PKPA seeks to prevent, and that incentive is not present in a child protection action, it is logical to conclude that Congress did not contemplate that child protection actions would be barred by the PKPA. See L.G., 890 P.2d at 662 (noting that Congress sought to discourage child snatching when it enacted the PKPA and holding, The PKPA, like the UCCJA, was not meant to preclude the state from protecting its resident children.). [¶ 22] Finally, [i]n furtherance of the purposes of [the PKPA], Congress encourages courts to award necessary travel expenses, attorneys' fees, costs of private investigations, witness fees or expenses, and other expenses when a contestant has wrongfully removed a child from the custody of a person entitled to custody. Pub.L. No. 96-611, § 8(c), 94 Stat. at 3571. As discussed above, the Department is not a contestant, nor does it unlawfully remove children from their custodians when a court acting on a child protection petition orders it to assume custody. The fact that the fees and expenses outlined are appropriate in a custody case between private litigants, not in a matter involving a state agency, also makes it plain that Congress contemplated disputes between individuals when it fashioned this provision of the PKPA. [¶ 23] Based on the foregoing analysis of the language used in, and omitted from, the PKPA, and on Congress's stated reasons for enacting it, we conclude that the TPR judgment entered by the District Court is not a custody determination modifying the South Dakota interim custody order within the meaning of 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738A(a), and therefore conclude that the PKPA does not apply to this child protection case. Accordingly, the court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4031(1)(A), (3). [8] We note that both South Dakota and the United States, appearing as amici curiae, agree with our construction of the PKPA and our holding that the District Court had jurisdiction in this matter.