Court Opinion

ID: 9522050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:17:17.47433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:14.058370
License: Public Domain

Robinson, J.,
¶ 41. concurring. I concur in the result, and join the lion’s share of the majority’s opinion. I write separately because I do not believe we need to reach the question of whether In re B.C., 169 Vt. 1, 726 A.2d 45 (1999), should be extended to this circumstance — in which the petition to terminate parental rights was sought at the initial disposition hearing — because parents waived the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA) jurisdictional challenge to the termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings on the record.
¶ 42. The majority’s analysis hinges on its conclusion that the petition to terminate parental rights in this case started a new action, subject to a new analysis of the court’s jurisdiction under the UCCJA. Because C.P. had lived with his aunt in Vermont, pursuant to DCF placement, for nearly seven months at the time DCF filed its petition to terminate parental rights, the majority concludes that Vermont’s courts had home-state jurisdiction to entertain that petition pursuant to the UCCJA, without regard to the soundness of the court’s prior exercise of jurisdiction in the child in need of care or supervision (CHINS) phase of these proceedings. The majority relies on our decision in In re B.C. to support its holding. In that case, we stated, “Unless termination of parental rights is sought at the initial disposition hearing, a TPR petition commences a new proceeding to modify the previous disposition order based on changed circumstances.” In re B.C., 169 Vt. at 5, 726 A.2d at 49. This case presents the exact scenario this *49Court expressly excepted from the scope of its holding in In re B.C.: In this case, DCF did seek termination of parental rights at the initial disposition hearing.
¶ 43. Some of the rationales underlying the Court’s holding in In re B.C. may apply when DCF seeks TPR at the initial disposition, but in In re B.C. we considered significant the fact that a TPR petition filed after an initial disposition order is essentially a motion to modify a previous disposition order based on changed circumstances — which qualifies as a distinct proceeding for UCCJA purposes. In this case, the termination petition was part and parcel of the initial disposition hearing in the CHINS case, so the argument for treating the petition as a new proceeding under the UCCJA is weaker.
¶ 44. The court’s authority under the UCCJA to adjudicate the CHINS case, while unappealed and not subject to collateral attack here, was highly questionable. C.P. was born in New York, his parents lived in New York, and his life was based in New York at the time his mother brought him to Vermont pursuant to the guidance of New York Department of Social Services (DSS). He was in Vermont for a matter of days when DCF intervened and the court began exercising emergency jurisdiction. The parents cannot fairly be characterized as having abandoned the child in Vermont; the trial court found that mother left the child in Vermont after aunt essentially kicked mother out of aunt’s home while insisting on retaining custody of C.P. The trial court found that aunt suggested to father that he would be kidnapping C.P. if he took the child when he came to retrieve mother. Rather than contacting the on-call DSS/New York caseworker, as contemplated by the agreement she had signed with DSS several days earlier, aunt contacted Vermont DCF. Instead of taking immediate action to protect the child and then deferring to DSS caseworkers to initiate a proceeding in New York to provide for C.P.’s well-being in the long term, DCF proceeded as if C.P. was a Vermont child. And the trial court proceeded accordingly.
¶ 45. Although I might agree to extend In re B.C. in an appropriate case, and to hold that a TPR petition initiates a separate proceeding under the UCCJA even when filed in connection with the initial disposition in a CHINS case, the facts here present a less-than-compelling case for doing so. Because I believe that the child’s continued presence in Vermont for a period longer than six months was secured by an improper exercise of ongoing *50jurisdiction by the trial court, which itself followed on the heels of the child’s aunt’s denying the parents the opportunity to take him back to his home state of New York with threats of kidnapping charges, I cannot readily conclude that the child’s presence in Vermont was a sufficient foundation to support home-state status.
¶ 46. I do not believe we need to address the issue in this case on account of the parents’ own decision to essentially withdraw objections to the court’s authority under the UCCJA to proceed with the TPR. At a January 2011 status conference, after the CHINS judgment and before the disposition/termination hearing, and after multiple invitations by the court to brief the jurisdiction issue, the court specifically asked the parties whether they intended to pursue a jurisdictional challenge. Father’s counsel stated, “I wanted to consider it, but I feel like it’s at a point now where we need to litigate the merits of the determination of the petition.” Mother’s counsel remained silent, and the discussion proceeded to other topics. The parties did not simply waive the argument that the court lacked authority to proceed with the TPR by virtue of their inaction; when expressly questioned on the record about whether they had ongoing objections to the court’s authority, father’s counsel said no, and mother’s counsel said nothing. I believe a challenge to the court’s authority to act under the UCCJA, while not necessarily waivable by inaction, can be expressly relinquished. Having declined the trial court’s express invitation to pursue the issue, parents cannot raise it now on appeal. See In re Estate of Cartmell, 120 Vt. 234, 240, 138 A.2d 592, 595 (1958) (“If a court has jurisdiction of the subject matter, the parties by their conduct may waive all other jurisdictional requirements.”).
¶ 47. Notwithstanding my divergent views on the underlying rationale with respect to the question of the court’s authority to act on the TPR petition, I join in the majority’s affirmance of the trial court’s decision, and concur in the Court’s opinion except as to the points raised above.