Opinion ID: 2521603
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Husband's Challenge to the Allegations in the Petition

Text: ¶ 13 Wife filed a petition for divorce in a second proceeding in Tulsa County. Husband filed a special appearance and motion to dismiss for lack of in personam jurisdiction. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss. Wife sought reconsideration, and after a response by Husband and reply by Wife, the trial court granted the motion and vacated its earlier order. The trial court's ruling stated that Oklahoma was the home state of the child and that a Missouri court had agreed that the divorce as well as custody and support issues should be decided in Oklahoma. [30] The trial court also ruled that Taylor v. Taylor, 1985 OK CIV APP 26, 709 P.2d 707 (released for publication by order of the Court of Civil Appeals), gave it jurisdiction to determine the request for divorce and child custody, and indicated that the Missouri court's orders directing Husband to litigate the divorce, custody, and support issues in Oklahoma provided a separate jurisdictional basis. ¶ 14 Husband filed a special appearance and motion to dismiss in the District Court. The motion states that a divorce proceeding is pending in Missouri between the parties, but the motion has no affidavit or evidentiary substitute bringing that fact before the trial court. [31] Husband filed no affidavits or evidentiary substitutes challenging the alleged facts in Wife's petition, and so we construe his jurisdictional challenge as one attacking the facial sufficiency of Wife's petition. [32] The motion to dismiss was granted and Wife requested reconsideration by a motion with attached photocopies of legal authority. Husband's Response to Motion for Reconsideration was not accompanied by affidavit, did not contest any issue of fact, and thus contained only legal argument. We accordingly construe his response to the motion for reconsideration as a continuation of his challenge to the facial sufficiency of the petition. ¶ 15 Wife's verified petition states that Respondent [Husband] agreed with Petitioner that she could go to Oklahoma with their child, ... [and] remove her own separate furniture from the marital home to Oklahoma.... [33] Wife alleges that Husband refused to let Wife stay in their marital home in Missouri, [34] and that Wife had no choice but to move into her parents' home in Oklahoma. She alleges that the parties attended counseling prior to the move, and Husband argues this same point in his motion to dismiss stating that the both of them had open discussion concerning a separation or pending divorce. [35] She also alleges being fearful of Husband due to his verbal abuse and threats against her, his erratic behavior including D.U.I. arrests, alcoholism, one instance of breaking a locked door to gain access to her and one instance of his falling down stairs while carrying a child. She alleges that before moving to Oklahoma she would lock herself in a room in their home for her personal safety. [36] ¶ 16 A federal court is a court of limited jurisdiction and jurisdiction must be pled by the party invoking the court's jurisdiction. [37] The federal rules require that the allegations of jurisdiction satisfy the notice-pleading standard in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, Rule 8(a), which requires a short and plain statement of the grounds upon which the court's jurisdiction depends. [38] Unlike the Federal Rule 8 jurisdictional pleading requirement in federal courts, prior to 1969 an Oklahoma District Court was considered to be a court of general jurisdiction, and a plaintiff was not required to plead in his or her petition the jurisdictional facts necessary to support a judgment of an Oklahoma District Court. Howard v. Duncan, 1933 OK 256, 163 Okla. 142, 21 P.2d 489, 490-491. Since 1969 Oklahoma District Courts are not courts of mere general jurisdiction, but they exercise unlimited original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution. Jernigan v. Jernigan, 2006 OK 22, n. 16, 138 P.3d 539, 545. Thus, specific and detailed allegations of each and every relevant jurisdictional fact need not be pled on the face of a petition invoking this unlimited jurisdiction of an Oklahoma District Court. ¶ 17 Various methods may be used to place facts before a trial court to receive judicial recognition, and Professor Fraser has stated that ... if a long-arm statute must be used to serve the defendant the plaintiff should plead facts that show such service is proper. George B. Fraser, The Petition Under the New Pleading Code, 38 Okla. L.Rev. 245, 246 (1985). That showing of proper service is based upon a notice-pleading standard, for the facts necessary to support in personam jurisdiction must appear of record, not necessarily on the face of the petition itself. [39] For example, we have explained that when a non-resident defendant challenges in personam jurisdiction, the facts in support of such jurisdiction must appear on the face of the trial court record, and the plaintiff, the party asserting that such jurisdiction exists, has the burden of placing those facts before the trial court in the proper form for adjudication. [40] Professor Fraser also stated that the pleading requirements for an Oklahoma petition were not designed to impose more exacting procedural burdens than those imposed by the federal rules; rather, the Oklahoma pleading requirements were modeled after the federal rules. 38 Okla. L.Rev. at 245. Oklahoma pleading requirements for the petition, like their similar federal counterparts, impose a notice-pleading standard in accordance with which a plaintiff's petition need only give fair notice of the plaintiff's claim and the grounds upon which it rests. Gens v. Casady School, 2008 OK 5, ¶ 9, 177 P.3d 565, 569. This Court has explained in various contexts that Due Process may require a plaintiff to allege and show on the face of the trial court record certain facts, or the adjudication of certain facts. [41] Due Process does not require that a plaintiff plead in the petition each and every necessary fact in support of in personam jurisdiction and thereby prevent a plaintiff from raising by amended petition, or some other post-petition method, facts in addition to those asserted by petition, and which support long-arm jurisdiction and are then made of record in the trial court proceeding. [42] The petition should contain facts which give fair notice of the plaintiff's assertion of in personam jurisdiction and the factual grounds upon which in personam jurisdiction may be asserted as to the non-resident defendant. ¶ 18 In summary, when a plaintiff's petition invokes a court's long-arm jurisdiction [43] a defendant may use a timely motion to dismiss to challenge the facial sufficiency of the petition's allegations and assert that they fail to give fair notice of the factual basis for long-arm jurisdiction, a defendant may use a timely motion to dismiss with attached affidavits to challenge the petition by raising facts not of record on the face of the petition, and a plaintiff may respond to the motion with affidavits in support of the in personam jurisdiction. [44] We need not discuss other trial court procedures because Husband's filings challenged the facial sufficiency of the petition and did not raise any extra-record fact by affidavit, pleading, or form of evidence. [45] ¶ 19 In supervisory review of a trial court's order adjudicating a motion to dismiss challenging the facial sufficiency of a petition asserting long-arm jurisdiction, we must determine if the allegations of the petition give fair notice of the factual basis for long-arm jurisdiction sufficient to comply with Due Process. Is Wife's petition facially sufficient to give Husband notice of the factual basis for her assertion of long-arm jurisdiction? We hold that the petition is facially sufficient, for reasons we now explain.