Garcia v. Gutierrez

• Citation: 217 P.3d 591,2009 NMSC 044
• Decision Date: 26 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 31,263.,31,263.
• Parties: Angelina GARCIA, formerly known as Angelina Gutierrez, Petitioner-Petitioner, v. Matthew GUTIERREZ, Respondent-Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico

217 P.3d 591

2009 NMSC 044

Angelina GARCIA, formerly known as Angelina Gutierrez, Petitioner-Petitioner, v. Matthew GUTIERREZ, Respondent-Respondent.

No. 31,263.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

August 26, 2009.

Atkinson & Kelsey, P.A., Thomas C. Montoya, Albuquerque, NM, for Petitioner.

Michael Schwarz, Santa Fe, NM, for Respondent.

OPINION

BOSSON, Justice.

{1} There are occasions, and this is one, when this Court can give no definitive answer to the increasingly complex jurisdictional disputes between state and tribal courts. Given its plenary authority over Indian matters, Congress could provide such answers, but it has not. We do our best to fill the void.

{2} In this case — a divorce and custody dispute between an Indian father and a non-Indian mother whose children are enrolled members of the Pojoaque Pueblo — state and tribal courts have entered conflicting decrees. Regrettably, complete resolution of that conflict lies beyond our reach.

{3} What we can do, however, is conclude that the state court does have jurisdiction. The tribal court — given the importance of the Pueblo's children to its culture and its future — likely has jurisdiction; and neither is exclusive of the other. As has long been the tradition in New Mexico, the state and tribal courts must share jurisdiction under principles of comity and work out their differences, guided by universally accepted principles of doing what is in the best interests of the children. See Fox v. Doak, 78 N.M. 743, 744, 438 P.2d 153, 154 (1968) ("In making [a child-custody determination, a court's] controlling influence should be the welfare and best interests of the child.").

{4} The Court of Appeals held that the state court did not have jurisdiction, to some degree because this dispute arose on private fee land surrounded by the Pojoaque Pueblo, land characterized as "Indian country." While we assume the fee land here is "Indian country," consistent with our holding in State v. Romero, 2006-NMSC-039, 140 N.M. 299, 142 P.3d 887, we nonetheless hold that the "Indian country" paradigm is insufficient to resolve the present action. We do so in light of the current state of federal decisional law and our own state statute. We therefore reverse the Court of Appeals and remand to state district court for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

{5} This case shares many of the same facts, and one of the same parties, as our opinion in Romero, 2006-NMSC-039. In that case, the issue was whether non-Indian fee land surrounded on all sides by Indian land, and located within the exterior boundaries of the Pojoaque Pueblo, can support state-court criminal jurisdiction over tribal members. We held in Romero that the state does not have jurisdiction. Id. ¶ 26. Here, we address the child-custody dispute which arose after the criminal events in Romero.

{6} Angelina Garcia married Matthew A. Gutierrez on October 17, 1998. The couple spent much, but not all, of their four years of married life on Pueblo of Pojoaque lands. When the couple lived off the Pueblo for a time, while Gutierrez attended the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, they remained in New Mexico. Gutierrez ("Husband") is an enrolled member of the Pojoaque Pueblo and Garcia ("Wife") is not Indian. They have two children, both of whom are enrolled members of the Pueblo.

{7} After a series of domestic violence incidents in which Husband allegedly beat Wife, she decided to leave him. On August 25, 2002, she took the children and moved to her father's house, which is on non-Indian-owned fee property within the exterior boundaries of the Pojoaque Pueblo. That same day, after Husband realized Wife had left, he went to her father's house and repeatedly stabbed her. Husband's subsequent criminal prosecution led to the Romero opinion. 2006-NMSC-039.

{8} The day after the stabbing, the district court of Santa Fe County awarded Wife temporary custody of the children. On October 9, 2002, two months later, Wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage, also in state district court. Twenty days later, Husband filed a parallel divorce action in Pojoaque tribal court and, shortly thereafter, filed a motion to dismiss in district court, asserting that the state district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The district court denied Husband's motion.

{9} It appears from the record that Wife never entered an appearance in tribal court and, despite receiving notice, refused to participate in the tribal court proceedings. The tribal court, on April 26, 2004, entered a decree awarding Wife and Husband joint custody, noting that, because Wife failed to appear, she was "wholly in default." The tribal court, as a matter of comity, recognized the state district court's jurisdiction to enter a divorce order, but concluded "[a]s a matter of federal common law and Indian common law" that the Pueblo had exclusive jurisdiction "over the welfare of enrolled tribal children members who have resided a vast majority of their lives on pueblo lands." Husband sought to have the tribal decree enforced in district court, which denied the motion.

{10} In September 2005, the district court entered a divorce decree, but has not entered a final custody determination. On January 11, 2006, it entered amended findings of fact and conclusions of law, concluding that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the dissolution of the marriage, as well as over issues of custody, child support, distribution of assets and debts, and attorney fees. The court entered a partial final order on January 19, 2006, adopting its findings of fact and conclusions of law. Husband initially appealed from this order.

{11} The Court of Appeals reversed the district court, concluding that only the tribal court had jurisdiction over the child-custody issue. Garcia v. Gutierrez, 2008-NMCA-116, ¶ 25, 144 N.M. 761, 192 P.3d 275. Wife petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, which we granted to decide whether the state court had jurisdiction to decide child-custody issues. Garcia v. Gutierrez, 2008-NMCERT-008, 145 N.M. 255, 195 P.3d 1267. We now reverse the Court of Appeals and remand to the district court. We hold that the district court has jurisdiction over child-custody issues. For reasons explained in detail below, we further conclude that the district court's jurisdiction is not exclusive, but rather is concurrent with what we assume is valid tribal court jurisdiction.

DISCUSSION

District Court Jurisdiction

{12} The sole question before this Court is whether the state has jurisdiction over the child-custody dispute. We do not decide the parameters of tribal court jurisdiction over the same subject matter. One state statute and one federal statute govern our inquiry. We begin with the state statute, the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act ("UCCJEA"), NMSA 1978, §§ 40-10A-101 to -403 (2001), because it is dispositive. We then turn to an analysis of the federal statute, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act ("PKPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 1738A (2000), which we determine does not by its own terms apply to this case.¹

UCCJEA

{13} State legislatures around the nation, including our own, have passed the UCCJEA to combat the problem of conflicting child-custody orders and an epidemic of forum-shopping by parents unsatisfied with child-custody decrees in their home states. All fifty states have passed versions of the UCCJEA or its similar predecessor, the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction Act ("UCCJA"). The statute sets up a two-tiered approach for determining what state has jurisdiction over child-custody matters. First, for purposes of the statute, it asks, which state is the "home state"? See § 40-10A-201(a)(1)-(4). If one state can be established as the "home state," and a child-custody action is filed first in that state, any other states which have passed a similar statute must stay their proceedings, or decline to exercise jurisdiction. See § 40-10A-206. Once the "home state" reaches a final judgment, it has continuing jurisdiction, subject to several conditions. See § 40-10A-202(a)(1)-(2).

{14} If this first tier of analysis is exhausted with no state qualifying as the "home state" within the meaning of the UCCJEA, the analysis then shifts to the second tier. Here, a court is to ask whether the child and at least one parent have "significant connections" with either state. See § 40-10A-201(a)(2)(A). The first action filed in a state with "significant connections" preempts any action later filed in another state. See § 40-10A-206.

Applicability to Tribes

{15} Before applying the UCCJEA to the facts of the present case, we note an anomaly in the way the statute applies in our state. Specific language in the UCCJEA commands courts of this state to treat a tribe "as if it were a state of the United States" for purposes of the statute's jurisdiction provisions. Section 40-10A-104(b). In other words, New Mexico district courts are bound to honor the decisions of tribal courts for continuing jurisdiction purposes, provided that the requirements of the UCCJEA have been met. This legislation, however, has no power to similarly bind the tribal courts, because unless the tribes have passed legislation similar to the UCCJEA, they are not subject to its commands. As for the similar PKPA, a federal statute, tribal courts in theory could be bound by its provisions and, therefore, be required to give full faith and credit to state-court judgments, because of Congress's plenary power over the tribes. As we will explain below, however, the PKPA by its terms does not apply to tribes. For reasons set forth in detail below, we conclude that under the UCCJEA, the State has proper jurisdiction, but that jurisdiction is not exclusive of the tribe. But see Gerber v. Eastman, 673 N.W.2d 854, 858 (Minn.Ct.App. 2004) (assuming that Minnesota state-court jurisdiction under that state's UCCJEA precludes tribal jurisdiction, without...