Court Opinion

ID: 9764242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:16:49.216551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.236848
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. It overstates the case a bit to say the appellant obtained exactly the relief she requested of the chancellor. The prayer of her petition to set aside the ex parte order granting custody of Ryan Bynum asked that the court declare unconstitutional specific portions of Ark. Code Ann. § 28-65-218 (Supp. 1991) that permit a minor fourteen years of age or under to have a temporary guardianship imposed without notice and without other protections accorded under the Constitution. True, the chancellor “circumvented” those issues by vacating the order, but on a deferred basis to enable appellee to seek other expediences. Beyond that, the record is silent. Thus the case demonstrates how the mootness doctrine can, and often does, defeat the real concerns of the litigant. The question presented here may be moot with respect to Ryan Bynum, but the asserted flaws in the statutory procedure have hardly been resolved. I believe the better path, and the one we have often taken, would be to address the issues, even though the underlying problem may no longer exist.