Loudoun County Dept. of Social Services v. Etzold, 920572
| Decision Date | 08 January 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 920572,920572 |
| Parties | LOUDOUN COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, et al. v. Phyllis McLeod ETZOLD. Record |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Joan E. Jennings, Asst. County Atty. (O. Leland Mahan, Leesburg, Ronald K. Ingoe, Sterling, on briefs), for appellants.
Spencer D. Ault, Leesburg (Ault & Stein, on brief), for appellee.
Present: CARRICO, C.J., COMPTON, STEPHENSON, WHITING, LACY and HASSELL, JJ., and POFF, Senior Justice.
In this case we consider the conditions under which the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to review a child custody order of an experimental family court.
In 1988 the Loudoun County Department of Social Services (Department) filed a petition in the Loudoun County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court seeking emergency removal of Kaitlyn Dixie McLeod from her mother, Phyllis McLeod. The district court granted that petition and awarded custody of the child to the Department. Several subsequent hearings were held involving foster care service plans, custody, and visitation rights.
The Loudoun County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court was designated an experimental family court by the Judicial Council of Virginia, pursuant to Code § 20-96.1, effective January 1, 1990.
On March 15, 1990, the Department filed a revised foster care service plan for Kaitlyn. In response, Phyllis McLeod Etzold 1 filed a petition asking the court to return full legal and physical custody of Kaitlyn to her. Following a hearing on May 3 and 4, the court ordered the Department to return Kaitlyn to her mother's custody on May 10, 1990 under certain conditions. 2
On May 8, 1990, Kaitlyn's guardian ad litem and Phyllis G. and H. Ronald McLeod, Kaitlyn's grandparents, who had intervened in 1989, filed an emergency petition in the Circuit Court of Loudoun County seeking to suspend enforcement of the family court order. The circuit court granted the emergency petition on May 14, 1990.
Kaitlyn's guardian ad litem, the grandparents as intervenors, and the Department filed appeals from the family court order in the Circuit Court of Loudoun County. The Department also filed a petition for termination of Phyllis Etzold's residual parental rights. On December 20, 1990, following an eleven-day ore tenus hearing, the circuit court entered an order denying Phyllis Etzold's motion for custody of Kaitlyn and granting the Department's petition for termination of residual parental rights.
On appeal to the Court of Appeals Phyllis Etzold challenged the judgment of the circuit court on both substantive and jurisdictional grounds. The Court of Appeals did not consider the alleged substantive errors, but determined that, under the provisions of Code § 17[245 Va. 83] -116.05:5(1)(b), the Court of Appeals rather than the circuit court had appellate jurisdiction of a family court order establishing custody. The Court of Appeals, therefore, vacated the judgment of the circuit court, and remanded the case to the Loudoun County Family Court for further proceedings.
The Department, the grandparents, and the guardian ad litem then filed a petition for appeal with this Court. Because the determination of the proper appellate jurisdiction for orders of experimental family courts encompassed in Code § 17-116.05:5(1)(b) is a matter of significant precedential value, Code § 17-116.07(B), we awarded an appeal. Code § 17-116.09. For the following reasons, we will reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
In 1989 the General Assembly enacted legislation that provided for the operation of experimental family courts for a two-year period. Under this legislation, the Judicial Council of Virginia designated certain juvenile and domestic relations district courts as family courts, effective January 1, 1990. The Judicial Council also designated a circuit court judge or juvenile and domestic relations district court judge as the judge of each family court.
Designated family courts considered matters within the traditional jurisdiction of juvenile and domestic relations district courts, as well as annulment and affirmation of marriage and divorce cases, otherwise committed to the jurisdiction of circuit courts. 3 However, annulment and affirmation of marriage and divorce cases were not filed in the family courts, but in circuit courts, which in turn referred a certain percentage of such cases to the designated family court. 4
In addition to providing the method by which family courts acquire jurisdiction over certain cases, the enabling legislation also specifically addressed the appellate jurisdiction and procedure to be followed for appeals of the orders of the family court. The General Assembly clearly did not intend that all appeals from family court orders follow identical appellate procedure. Code § 20-96.1(E) provided that such orders
shall be taken to either the Court of Appeals as provided in §§ 17-116.05 and 17-116.05:5, or, if not appealable to the Court of Appeals, to the appropriate circuit court as an appeal from a juvenile and domestic relations district court.
Code § 17-116.05:5 provides, in pertinent part, that:
Any aggrieved party may appeal to the Court of Appeals from:
1. Any final judgment, order, or decree of an experimental family court ... involving:
....
b. Cases originating in the experimental family courts involving the custody, visitation or civil support of a child, or spousal support, or involving the termination of residual parental rights and responsibilities when such cases are heard by a judge sitting as a judge of an experimental family court....
The Court of Appeals held that the order in this case came within the provisions of § 17-116.05:5 because all cases pending in the juvenile and domestic relations district court on the date those courts became family courts were "deemed to have 'originated' in what was from that time forward an experimental family court." The Court of Appeals reasoned that to interpret the statute otherwise would produce circumstances in which different appeal routes would be required, based on whether the filing of the cause occurred on the day before or the day after the creation of the family court, "notwithstanding the fact that the same court of record, the experimental family court, simultaneously decided both cases." Such a result, in the view of the Court of Appeals, was untenable and unworkable.
The appellants argue that the word "originating" as used in Code § 17-116.05:5(1)(b) should be given its ordinary and customary meaning, and so applied, appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals over this case is excluded because the case originated in the Loudoun County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in 1988. Hence, appellants contend that, pursuant to § 20-96.1, the appeal from the order of the family court in this case is to the circuit court and is to be considered in the same manner as any other appeal from a juvenile and domestic relations district court. We agree.
While the Court of Appeals' concern for the result of a particular interpretation of a statute may be appropriate...
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