Court Opinion

ID: 9900329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 22:11:05.174837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:04.436383
License: Public Domain

754                 October 25, 2023                 No. 560

        IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                STATE OF OREGON

              In the Matter of A. K. N.,
                  aka A. N., a Child.
        DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,
               Petitioner-Respondent,
                          v.
                        B. B.
                      and I. B.,
                     Appellants.
           Deschutes County Circuit Court
                19JU04428; A179897

  Wells B. Ashby, Judge.
  Submitted March 28, 2023.
  Richard D. Cohen filed the brief for appellants.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Inge D. Wells, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge.
  HELLMAN, J.
  Affirmed.
Cite as 328 Or App 754 (2023)                             755

        HELLMAN, J.
         Appellants, child’s foster parents, challenge a juve-
nile court order denying their motion to intervene in child’s
dependency case under ORS 419B.116. In two assignments
of error, appellants contend that the court erred when it
failed to “balance” the requirements for intervention in
ORS 419B.116(5)(c) and when it determined that appellants
failed to prove the requirement that “the existing parties
cannot adequately present the case,” ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D).
We conclude that the statute does not allow a juvenile court
to balance the requirements for intervention and that the
record before the court did not compel the court to make a
different determination. Accordingly, we affirm.
         The relevant facts are undisputed. Appellants
I. B. and B. B. have served as child’s foster parents since
she was a newborn. Within a year of child’s placement, the
Department of Human Services (DHS) located and contacted
child’s paternal uncle, who lives in Virginia, and approved
him and his wife as a placement option for child through
an Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC)
study. That study was later updated when the first one
expired. Paternal uncle and aunt also began weekly video
visits with child and later visited child in person in Oregon.
When child’s plan was changed to adoption, DHS discussed
the potential adoption of child with both appellants and
paternal uncle. When child was two-and-a-half years old,
the court terminated her biological parents’ parental rights
and freed her for adoption. Just prior to her third birthday,
DHS completed the adoption selection committee process,
in which child’s attorney and court-appointed special advo-
cate (CASA) participated. Even though child’s attorney and
permanency caseworker advocated for appellants as child’s
adoptive resource, DHS ultimately selected child’s paternal
uncle and aunt.
        After that selection was made, appellants filed
a motion to intervene under ORS 419B.116. Appellants
argued that DHS’s decision was harming child, and they
sought intervention for the purposes of providing more evi-
dence on child’s best interest, removing child from DHS’s
custody, becoming child’s temporary placement, and moving
756                           Dept. of Human Services v. B. B.

to become child’s guardians. As relevant to the issue on
appeal, appellants alleged that the existing parties could not
adequately present the case because child’s attorney did not
actively participate in child’s life and because child—who
was three years old—could not “provide in-depth advice and
guidance to her counsel regarding how to advocate for her
interests.” Appellants asserted that they were in a unique
position as her caregivers to represent child’s best interests.
Child’s attorney and child’s CASA supported intervention
because it would be beneficial to have appellants in the case
but did not offer an explanation why they could not ade-
quately present the case. DHS opposed the motion, arguing,
among other things, that the existing parties could ade-
quately present the case.
        The juvenile court held an evidentiary hearing and
denied appellants’ motion. The court found appellants had
proved all the statutory elements for intervention except for
one—“the existing parties cannot adequately present the
case.” The court found that DHS was not adequately pre-
senting the case. However, the court also found that “the
bottom line is, all of the people who were advocating or who
have a role to advocate on behalf of the child did that. * * *
They have explained why [the current plan is] not in the
best interest [of the child.]” The court specifically pointed
out that child’s attorney represented her best interest in
both the dependency proceeding and in the adoption selec-
tion committee administrative proceeding. Consequently, it
determined that appellants did not prove by a preponder-
ance of the evidence that the existing parties cannot ade-
quately present the case. The juvenile court explained:
       “The statute does not say that the existing parties are
   not best equipped or the most adequate or in the best posi-
   tion to present the case but that the case cannot be ade-
   quately presented without the involvement of the interve-
   nors. * * *
      “* * * I cannot find, by the preponderance or by any mea-
   sure, that the existing parties, meaning, in particular[,]
   Mr. Deuel, attorney for [c]hild, Ms. Thomas, CASA for [c]hild,
   have not and cannot adequately present the case. They
   have, and they’ve done their best, and they’ve tried the
   advocacy. * * *
Cite as 328 Or App 754 (2023)                                  757

       “And maybe there is something I don’t know and none of
   us know as to how this particular decision was reached, but
   it does not seem that any amount of advocacy would have
   resulted in a different outcome in terms of the placement
   decision and permanency decision of adoption with the bio-
   logical relatives.”
        Appellants now appeal that decision. Before setting
out appellants’ specific arguments on appeal, we start with
the text of the intervention statute to provide context for
those arguments. ORS 419B.116(5)(c) provides, in relevant
part:
      “[T]he court may grant the motion for intervention if the
   person moving to intervene in the case proves by a prepon-
   derance of the evidence that:
      “(A) A caregiver relationship exists between the per-
   son and the child or ward;
      “(B) The intervention is in the best interests of the
   child or ward;
      “(C) The reason for intervention and the specific relief
   sought are consistent with the best interests of the child or
   ward; and
         “(D) The existing parties cannot adequately pres-
ent the case.”
“ORS 419B.116 confers discretion on a juvenile court to
allow intervention in a dependency case by a person who
has a ‘caregiver relationship’ with a child, as that term is
defined by statute.” Dept. of Human Services v. R. F., 328
Or App 267, 271, ___ P3d ___ (2023). The juvenile court may
allow intervention “only if the person seeking intervention
first ‘proves by a preponderance of the evidence’ ” the four
listed requirements. Id.
         As set out above, the juvenile court in this case
denied appellants’ motion based on their failure to prove by
a preponderance of the evidence that “the existing parties
cannot adequately present the case,” ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D).
In challenging that ruling on appeal, appellants raise two
assignments of error. In the first, appellants assert that, in
addressing intervention under ORS 419B.116(5)(c), the child’s
best interest must be paramount, and, thus, the court erred
758                         Dept. of Human Services v. B. B.

in isolating the requirement under ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D),
when, here, the best interest factors overwhelmingly sup-
ported granting intervention, ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(B) and (C).
In short, appellants argue that the court was required to
balance the intervention requirements. In their second
assignment, appellants argue that the juvenile court’s deter-
mination that they failed to prove ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D)
was not supported by the evidence. In so arguing, appellants
assert that “adequacy” under ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D) must
be measured in relation to the best interests of the child,
because otherwise it is “a low standard” that does not serve
the best interests of the child. Appellants argue that, in the
circumstances of this case, child’s best interests required
a higher level of “[i]nformed and assertive advocacy” than
child’s attorney or CASA could provide given that DHS’s
placement decision ignored the recommendations it received.
        We first engage in our familiar method of statutory
interpretation under State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 171-72,
206 P3d 1042 (2009), to address the questions of statutory
construction that appellants’ arguments raise. As always,
we begin “with the text and context of the statute, which
are the best indications of the legislature’s intent.” State v.
Walker, 356 Or 4, 13, 333 P3d 322 (2014).
         Based on the text alone, we reject appellants’
argument for a balancing of the requirements under ORS
419B.116(5)(c). ORS 419B.116(5)(c) is plainly written in the
conjunctive and unambiguously requires intervenors to prove
each of the four subparagraphs (A) to (D). See Broadway Cab
LLC v. Employment Dept., 358 Or 431, 443, 364 P3d 338
(2015) (explaining that because the elements of the disputed
statute were conjunctive, the petitioner had the burden to
establish each of those criteria); National Maintenance
Contractors v. Employment Dept., 288 Or App 347, 352, 406
P3d 133 (2017), rev den, 362 Or 508 (2018) (same). That is, a
party seeking intervention must prove by a preponderance of
the evidence each of those four statutory requirements; the
four requirements cannot be balanced against each other,
such that more weight on the best interests of the child could
make up for an unpersuasive showing on “the existing par-
ties cannot adequately present the case.”
Cite as 328 Or App 754 (2023)                             759

        Turning to appellants second statutory argu-
ment, we understand appellants to take the position that
a determination of “adequacy” under ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D)
involves a subjective determination about which party can
make the better presentation of the best interests of the
child. We disagree.
         To start, ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D) references “the case”
instead of “best interests of the child or ward,” reflecting
the difference between “the case” in a juvenile proceeding
and “the best interests of the child.” Although adequately
presenting a case surely includes adequately presenting the
child’s best interests—the essential question under ORS
419B.090 in any juvenile case—nothing about the structure
or text of the statute suggests that the legislature intended
“adequately” to equate to a subjective determination of the
quality of a party’s presentation.
          In addition, the definition of the word “adequately”
leads us to conclude that the statute does not have the mean-
ing that appellants propose. “Adequately” is “in an adequate
manner.” Webster’s Third Int’l Dictionary 25 (unabridged ed
1993). And “adequate” is defined as “equal to, proportionate
to, or fully sufficient for a specified or implied requirement”
and “legally sufficient: such as is lawfully and reasonably
sufficient.” Id. Nothing in those definition suggests that, as
used in ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D), “adequately” was intended to
be determined by a comparison between two proposed pre-
sentations, as appellants assert.
        Further, we note that the juvenile court correctly
recognized that ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D) does not require a
person to show that the existing parties did not adequately
present the case—which would look to the past; it requires
that the existing parties cannot adequately present the
case—which looks at the present. A present-focused inquiry
does not lend itself to the kind of subjective and comparative
analysis that appellants propose.
        In sum, whatever the precise contours of “ade-
quately present the case” are, the requirement does not turn
on the question of whether the person seeking to intervene
760                         Dept. of Human Services v. B. B.

demonstrates that they can present a “better” case than the
existing parties.
         Finally, we turn to appellants’ argument that the
juvenile court erred when it determined that appellants
failed to prove ORS 419B.116(5)(c)(D), because that deter-
mination was not supported by the evidence. In addressing
that argument, we “review to determine whether, on the
record before it, the juvenile court permissibly concluded
that they had not met their burden of demonstrating that
they satisfied the statutory prerequisites for intervention.”
R. F., 328 Or App at 271 (citing Dept. of Human Services v.
S. E. K. H./J. K. H., 283 Or App 703, 705-06, 389 P3d 1181
(2017)). We explained in R. F. that our standard of review
binds us to a juvenile court’s finding that a person seeking
intervention has not proved by a preponderance of the evi-
dence that the existing parties could not adequately present
the case unless we can conclude that the evidence before
the court compels a contrary conclusion. 328 Or App at 271
(citing Prime Properties, Inc. v. Leahy, 234 Or App 439, 449,
228 P3d 617 (2010)).
          Here, the evidence did not compel a contrary con-
clusion. Indeed, evidence in the record affirmatively sup-
ported the court’s determination. The juvenile court spe-
cifically found that “all of the people who were advocating
or who have a role to advocate on behalf of the child did
that.” The record showed that child’s attorney and CASA
were “active participants” in the adoption selection com-
mittee. Their participation included seeking out and using
information from outside sources to represent child’s best
interests, and child’s attorney advocated that it was in
child’s best interests for appellants to adopt child. Under the
plain meaning of the term “adequately,” the juvenile court’s
findings demonstrated that the existing parties could ade-
quately present the case. To be sure, appellants put forth
evidence that they possibly could have presented a stronger
case in support of the position advocated by child’s attorney.
However, as explained, the statute does not require appel-
lants to prove that existing parties cannot present the best
possible case; it requires appellants to prove that the exist-
ing parties cannot adequately present the case. Appellants
Cite as 328 Or App 754 (2023)                          761

have not demonstrated that the juvenile court erred when it
denied their motion to intervene.
        Affirmed.