Buckalew v. Buckalew
| Decision Date | 07 September 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 34S05-0107-CV-332.,34S05-0107-CV-332. |
| Citation | 754 N.E.2d 896 |
| Parties | Kim BUCKALEW, Respondent-Appellant, v. Tim BUCKALEW, Petitioner-Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Dan J. May, Kokomo, Indiana, Attorney for Appellant.
Andrew J. Vandenbosch, Raquet & Vandenbosch, Donald E.C. Leicht, Kokomo, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellee.
Howard County Bar Association, William C. Menges, Jr., Kokomo, Indiana, amicus curiae.
Concluding that a local court rule requiring the filing of an income and property disclosure form was jurisdictional, the Court of Appeals held a dissolution decree was void due to the trial court's failure to follow its own rule. Buckalew v. Buckalew, 744 N.E.2d 504 (Ind.Ct.App.2001). Having previously granted transfer, we hold that the local rule was not jurisdictional, and we reject the claim that noncompliance with the local rule requires the dissolution decree to be vacated.
The parties do not dispute that at all times relevant to this case, Howard County Local Civil Rule 16(B) required each party to a dissolution action to file a specified financial disclosure form with the court. Subsection (4) of the rule specified:
No final hearing may be scheduled and no decree of dissolution of marriage or legal separation shall be entered unless and until the prescribed disclosure form is filed with the Court, except in cases where the parties are each represented by separate counsel and file with the court a waiver of such requirement.
Br. of Appellant at 13. The proceedings that resulted in a dissolution of the ten-year marriage of Tim and Kim Buckalew did not include the disclosure form required by Rule 16(B), and neither Kim nor Tim were represented by counsel of record in the dissolution. The issue of the missing disclosure form was first raised seven months after the dissolution when Kim sought relief from judgment pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 60(B) alleging several grounds, one of which asserted that Tim "failed to file a property disclosure as required by local rules." Record at 32. The trial court denied Kim's T.R. 60(B) motion, finding that the parties "consented to the waiver of the filing of a property disclosure statement." Record at 79. In her appeal from the denial of her motion, Kim argues that under the express language of the rule, her waiver was invalid because she was not represented by counsel. She also contends that, because the filing of the disclosure form was mandatory and a prerequisite to the entry of a dissolution decree under the local rule, the trial court lacked authority to waive the filing of the disclosure form absent a valid waiver by the parties.
She is correct that the local rule's specific authorization for waiver of the disclosure form is expressly conditioned upon both parties being represented by counsel, which condition was not met in this case.
Local court rules for the regulation of practice within a local court are authorized by Indiana Trial Rule 81. In Meredith v. State, 679 N.E.2d 1309 (Ind. 1997), this Court permitted a trial court to waive compliance with its own local court rule. We explained:
Before a court may set aside its own rule, and it should not be set aside lightly, the court must assure itself that it is in the interests of justice to do so, that the substantive rights of the parties are not prejudiced, and that the rule is not a mandatory rule.
Id. at 1311. The inclusion of this "not a mandatory rule" qualification was a reference to time limitations and other procedural prerequisites that had generally been described as "jurisdictional," and from which courts may not waive compliance. Id. at 1311 n. 2. In the present case, Kim urges that Howard County Local Civil Rule 16(B)(4) was such a jurisdictional or mandatory rule.
We observe that the term "jurisdictional" is not helpful in resolving the present issue. "To render a valid judgment, a court must possess two forms of jurisdiction: jurisdiction over the subject matter and jurisdiction over the parties." Mishler v. County of Elkhart, 544 N.E.2d 149, 151 (Ind.1989). There is no claim that the trial court here lacked either jurisdiction over the parties or subject matter jurisdiction, i.e., the general scope of authority to hear and determine dissolution cases. See Pivarnik v. N. Ind. Pub. Serv. Co., 636 N.E.2d 131, 137 (Ind.1994)
. Once a court has acquired subject matter and personal...
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