In re C.S.M.F.

• Decision Date: 07 April 2014
• Citation: In re C.S.M.F., 2014 PA Super 67, 89 A.3d 670 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2014)
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court
• Parties: In re C.S.M.F., a Minor. Appeal of M.F. & N.F.

89 A.3d 670

2014 PA Super 67

In re C.S.M.F., a Minor. Appeal of M.F. & N.F.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Jan. 29, 2014.

Filed April 7, 2014.

Frederick N. Frank, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Margaret P. Joy, Pittsburgh, for participating party.

BEFORE: BOWES, DONOHUE, and STABILE, JJ.

OPINION BY BOWES, J.:

Appellants M.F. & N.F. are C.S.M.F.'s (“C.F.”) adult half-brother and sister-in-law and appeal from the order entered in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Criminal Division's Miscellaneous docket that denied their application to file a private dependency petition concerning M.F.'s now seven-year-old half-sister, C.F.The child's maternal grandparents (“Grandparents”), filed a motion to quash certain issues leveled in Appellants' brief.We deny the motion to quash and reverse and remand for further proceedings in the family division.

On July 25, 2013, C.F.'s father(“Father”) was arrested and charged with murdering his wife, C.F.'s mother.On the same date, Grandparents sued Father in criminal court for sole physical custody and sole legal custody of C.F., and they filed an ex parte petition for special relief seeking immediate custody of their granddaughter.The criminal court granted the ex parte petition immediately and scheduled a hearing for August 7, 2013.The matter was issued a docket number corresponding to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Criminal Division's Miscellaneous docket.¹

Appellants attended the August 7, 2013 hearing and requested that the trial court transfer the matter to Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Family Division and sought to file a custody complaint and a private dependency petition.The trial court declined to transfer the matter to the Family Division and sustained Grandparents' preliminary objections to Appellants' custody complaint due to Appellants' conceded lack of standing under the child custody law.Moreover, the trial court dismissed the private dependency petition because Appellants failed to file a prerequisite application to file the private petition pursuant to Pa.R.J.C.P. 1320.²The court also rejected Appellants' attempt to file the Rule 1320 application orally during the hearing.C.F. continued in Grandparents' custody pursuant to the ex parte emergency order.

Appellants filed the written Rule 1320 application on the same day as the hearing.The trial court scheduled a hearing on Appellants' application to file a private dependency petition for October 4, 2013.At the outset of that hearing, the trial court adopted Grandparents' position that Appellants lacked standing to file a private dependency petition because they would lack standing to participate in an ensuing dependency proceeding.In reaching its conclusion, the trial courtcited case law that addressed standing to participate in an adjudication proceeding.That case law concluded that a “party” is limited to parents, legal custodians, and the person whose care and control is being challenged.SeeIn re L.C., II,900 A.2d 378(Pa.Super.2006).As Appellants did not fit within one of the enumerated classes of individuals that have standing as a “party” to participate during the adjudication, the trial court dismissed the application prior to considering the merits of Appellants' allegations that C.F. is dependent as the term is defined in 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302.This timely appeal followed.

Appellants raised eight issues in their concise statement of matters complained of on appeal, which they consolidated in their brief into the following three questions:

1.Can any person file a private dependency petition under the Juvenile Act?

2.Did the Criminal Division follow the proper procedures in placement of a dependent child?

3.Should the dependency and child custody proceedings have been transferred from the Criminal Division to the Family Division of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas?

Appellants' brief at 5.

At the outset, we address Grandparents' motion to quash.Pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1972, a party may petition to quash an appeal “for any ... reason appearing on the record.”However, quashal generally is reserved for scenarios where the underlying order is interlocutory or untimely, or the appellate court lacks jurisdiction.In Sahutsky v. H.H. Knoebel Sons,566 Pa. 593, 782 A.2d 996, 1001 n. 3(2001), our Supreme Court explained:

Quashal is usually appropriate where the order below was unappealable, seeToll v. Toll,293 Pa.Super. 549, 439 A.2d 712(1981)(court lacks jurisdiction-appeal interlocutory), the appeal was untimely, seeStotsenburg v. Frost,465 Pa. 187, 348 A.2d 418(1975), or the Court otherwise lacked jurisdiction, see Pa.R.C.P. 1972.

The High Court continued that quashal would not be proper where a timely filed appeal stemmed from a final, appealable order that “the Superior Court had jurisdiction over ... and appellant[did] not articulate any other ground for quashal under Rule 1972(7).”Id.In contrast, the proper consequence of a procedural misstep that does not implicate finality, timeliness, or jurisdiction, is a waiver of the substantive claims that would be raised on appeal.Id.

Herein, Grandparents do not challenge the finality of the trial court's order dismissing Appellants' private petition, the timeliness of Appellants' appeal, or our jurisdiction.Instead, Grandparents level piecemeal challenges to various aspects of five issues that Appellants raised in their Rule 1925(b) statement.Those five issues relate to the trial court's: 1) refusal to consider the merits of the private petition for dependency; 2) decision to award Grandparents temporary custody based upon an ex parte petition; 3) failure to appoint a guardian ad litem for the child; 4) failure to conduct an independent investigation concerning which placement options would be in the child's best interest; and 5) putative entry of a no-contact order between C.F. and Appellants.Essentially, Grandparents contend that either the foregoing issues that Appellants asserted in the Rule 1925(b) statement were moot, or that Appellants lacked standing to assert the challenges, or that the complaint did not flow from the underlying order.As these allegations do not implicate the finality of the order, the timeliness of the appeal, or our jurisdiction, we hold that those complaints are inappropriate grounds for quashal.Instead, we address Grandparents' sundry allegations as they relate to our merits review of this appeal.SeeSahutsky, supra.Accordingly, we deny the motion to quash the enumerated complaints individually.

While we reject Grandparents' motion to quash, in addressing the claims separately we observe that many of Grandparents' objections to Appellants' arguments have merit.First, since Appellants failed to appeal the trial court's July 25, 2013 custody order and the October 4, 2013 order on appeal does not implicate any issue regarding child custody, we will not address Appellants' assertions relating to the trial court's decision to grant Grandparents' ex parte petition for temporary custody.Second, Appellants' contention that the trial court failed to conduct an independent, predispositional investigation pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 6351(a), concerning which placement options would be in the child's best interest, fails because the referenced section applies only after a child is found to be dependent.Instantly, not only has C.F. never been adjudicated dependent, but also, no dependency petition has been filed in this case.Hence, any of Appellants' claims assailing the trial court for failing to perform a predispositional investigation are extraordinarily premature.Finally, we observe that Appellants have abandoned their argument regarding the unidentified no-contact order between C.F. and Appellants.

The crux of Appellants' remaining assertions is that the trial court misapplied the Juvenile Act and the Pennsylvania Rules of Juvenile Procedure.“A challenge to the court's interpretation and application of a statute raises a question of law.”In re A.B.,987 A.2d 769, 773(Pa.Super.2009).Accordingly, our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is plenary.Id.

Appellants argue that the trial court erred in dismissing their applications for a private dependency petition under Rule 1320 based on their lack of standing to participate in their underlying dependency petitions without reviewing the merits of their application.Grandparents counter that Appellants misinterpret the applicable legal principles and that the trial court's determination was correct.³For the following reasons, we find the trial court's dismissal was error, and we remand for further proceedings.

While the Juvenile Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 6334, provides that any person may file a dependency petition, our Supreme Court subsequently suspended that portion of the Juvenile Act“insofar as the Act is inconsistent with Rules 1320,1321, and1330, which provide that the county agency may file a petition and any other person shall file an application to file a petition.”SeePa.R.J.C.P. 1800(8).Hence, where, as here, the would-be petitioners are individuals, they must first obtain permission under Rule 1320, as statedinfra, regarding the application to file a private dependency petition.

Rule 1320 provides that “Any person, other than the county agency, may present an application to file a private petition with the court.”A Rule 1320 application must outline the identity of the applicant, the allegedly dependent child, and the child's parent or guardian, and an explanation of the relationship between the applicant and the child.It also must contain “(5) a concise statement of facts in support of the allegations for which the application for a petition has been filed [and](6) a statement that the applying person has reported the circumstances underlying this application to the county agency or a reason for not having reported the circumstances underlying the application.”See...