People ex rel. S.A.G. v. B.A.G.

Decision Date01 June 2021
Docket NumberSupreme Court Case No. 20SC314
Citation487 P.3d 677
Parties The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, IN the INTEREST OF Minor Child: S.A.G.; and S.A.G., Minor Child, Petitioners, v. B.A.G. and A.W.D., Respondents.
CourtColorado Supreme Court

Attorneys for Petitioner the People of the State of Colorado: Denver City Attorney's Office, Kristin M. Bronson, Denver City Attorney, Laura Grzetic Eibsen, Assistant City Attorney, Tierney A. Shea, Assistant City Attorney, Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Petitioner S.A.G.: Law Office of Gina G. Bischofs, P.C., Gina G. Bischofs, Guardian ad litem, Arvada, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent B.A.G.: Henson Law, LLC, Chelsea A. Carr, Patrick R. Henson, Denver, Colorado

Attorney for Respondent A.W.D.: Susan C. Baker, El Prado, New Mexico

En Banc

JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 The night before S.A.G.'s third birthday, he crossed a street alone and wandered into a gas station parking lot. The police found him inside, by the refrigerator section, and took him into protective custody. S.A.G.'s family had arrived in Colorado only a few weeks prior, and his parents insist that they were temporarily visiting from Arkansas, where they have since returned. A Colorado juvenile court asserted jurisdiction over the resulting dependency and neglect proceeding and eventually terminated the legal relationship between S.A.G. and his parents.

¶2 This opinion, announced the same day as People in Interest of B.H., 2021 CO 39, ––– P.3d ––––, addresses when Colorado courts have the power to terminate parental rights if Colorado isn't a child's home state. That jurisdictional question turns on how we interpret Colorado's codification of the Uniform Child-custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act ("UCCJEA").

¶3 A.W.D. ("mother") and B.A.G. ("father") argue that the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction when it terminated their parental relationships with S.A.G. A division of the court of appeals agreed, reasoning that the UCCJEA's temporary emergency jurisdiction provision did not authorize the termination order. The division also concluded that the juvenile court had not acquired UCCJEA initial custody (non-emergency) jurisdiction because the court had not communicated with any court from S.A.G.'s home state and, therefore, no home-state court had declined jurisdiction.

¶4 We affirm in part on other grounds and reverse in part. In keeping with the plain language of the statute, we hold that UCCJEA temporary emergency jurisdiction exists only to protect abandoned children or to prevent mistreatment or abuse in emergencies. The juvenile court did not have temporary emergency jurisdiction when it terminated parental rights here because S.A.G. was not then abandoned and no emergency then existed. Thus, the division was right to vacate the termination judgment. However, the division erred by requiring the juvenile court to communicate with an Arkansas court without further analysis. Since it is possible but not certain that Arkansas had home-state jurisdiction over S.A.G. on the date of the termination order, we conclude that the juvenile court should have conducted a full analysis of its non-emergency jurisdiction, including the requisite factfinding. The results of that analysis will dictate whether the juvenile court must contact an Arkansas court on remand.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶5 On November 15, 2017, a woman spotted a toddler, S.A.G., crossing the street alone and then entering a gas station parking lot. Denver police found the child inside the gas station, dirty but unharmed.

¶6 They searched the area and, at the motel across the street, they were flagged down by S.A.G.'s parents. His mother said that she had fallen asleep with S.A.G. in her arms around 9:30 p.m. in their motel room. His father reported that he had left the room to buy a drink from a vending machine and S.A.G. was missing when he returned.

¶7 The police thought that mother and father were behaving hysterically and suspected that father was high. The officers asked to search the motel room. Father refused to let the police inspect the entire room—he claims they were being rude—so the police sent S.A.G. to the hospital instead of returning him.

¶8 The next day, Denver Human Services ("DHS") placed S.A.G. with a foster family. At a family crisis center, mother tested positive for methamphetamine and the police arrested father on an out-of-state warrant.

¶9 Two days after the gas station incident, DHS filed a petition pursuant to section 19-3-502, C.R.S. (2020), alleging that S.A.G. was dependent or neglected. The parents conceded that S.A.G.'s environment was injurious to his welfare, so the juvenile court adjudicated him dependent and neglected. See § 19-3-505(7)(a), C.R.S. (2020). The court ordered parents to comply with treatment plans per section 19-3-508(1)(e)(I), C.R.S. (2020).

¶10 DHS filed a motion to terminate mother's and father's parental rights in September 2018, citing insufficient compliance with the plans. See § 19-3-602, C.R.S. (2020). After a six-day trial that stretched from November 2018 to April 2019, the juvenile court terminated the parents' relationship with S.A.G. because they hadn't reasonably complied with their plans, they were unfit parents, and they wouldn't become fit within a reasonable time. See § 19-3-604(1)(c), C.R.S. (2020).

¶11 According to parents, one obstacle to compliance with their Colorado treatment plans was geographic — they live in Arkansas and were in Colorado only temporarily. The record offers conflicting explanations for why they were in Colorado but suggests that they had been here for only a few weeks before the police found S.A.G. at the gas station. S.A.G. was born in Illinois but otherwise lived his entire life in Arkansas until his parents brought him to Colorado.

¶12 The juvenile court knew from the outset that S.A.G. and his parents were from another state. At the first hearing, mother's attorney told the court that mother "does not reside here. ... [H]er residence is in Arkansas." At another early hearing, mother reiterated, "I currently permanently reside in Arkansas. And this is affecting my home life there, being here, spending money in hotels, having to work day-to-day just to make stuff meet ...." Similarly, father's counsel told the court that "parents have been clear ... since this case opened that they were in Colorado temporarily[,] that Arkansas was their home where all of their supports are, and they wanted to get back there as soon as possible because they didn't think they could get stable here."

¶13 Despite this jurisdictional issue, the juvenile court did not explicitly discuss the UCCJEA until May 2018, six months into this proceeding. When father's attorney then told the court that "Arkansas was [S.A.G.'s] home state" and asked "if there's any way to transfer jurisdiction," the court agreed that "we're not the home state" but decided that "[w]e wouldn't be able to transfer jurisdiction since there was no case open in Arkansas." The court concluded that it had jurisdiction because "[i]t's only if we end with anything other than a termination that we wouldn't have jurisdiction, is my understanding."

¶14 The UCCJEA issue emerged for a second and final time when DHS announced it would seek to terminate mother's and father's parental rights. DHS advised the court that, to comply with the UCCJEA, the court needed to ask parents whether S.A.G. had been the subject of any prior custody proceedings. Parents informed the court that this was the first. The court entered an oral termination order on April 19, 2019, concluding that "the child is within the jurisdiction of Denver Juvenile Court due to the fact that the incident that brought this to the attention of the department occurred in Denver." It issued a written order several weeks later.

¶15 On appeal, father argued that the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the UCCJEA when it terminated his parental rights. People in Int. of S.A.G., 2020 COA 45, ¶ 12, ––– P.3d ––––.

¶16 A division of the court of appeals agreed, reasoning that, to terminate parental rights pursuant to temporary emergency jurisdiction, "(1) the order [must] state[ ] that it will become final and (2) Colorado [must] become[ ] the child's home state." Id. at ¶ 25. Because neither condition had been met, "the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction to terminate parental rights under temporary emergency jurisdiction." Id. at ¶¶ 25–26, 28.

¶17 Looking for other jurisdictional hooks, the division turned to non-emergency UCCJEA jurisdiction, which can be achieved four different ways: "home-state" jurisdiction, "significant-connection" jurisdiction, "more-appropriate-forum" jurisdiction, and "last-resort" jurisdiction. Id. at ¶¶ 20, 26. The division concluded that, when the case began, Arkansas, not Colorado, was S.A.G.'s home state, so the juvenile court didn't have home-state or last-resort jurisdiction. Id. at ¶ 28. The division also rejected significant-connection and more-appropriate-forum jurisdiction because those "require that a home state court decline jurisdiction before another state's court can invoke it" but "no affirmative act ha[d] been taken to communicate with a court" in Arkansas. Id. at ¶¶ 29–30.

¶18 Having ruled out every possible source of jurisdiction, the division vacated the termination judgment and ordered the juvenile court to try to obtain significant-connection or more-appropriate-forum jurisdiction by contacting an Arkansas court. Id. at ¶ 37.

¶19 We granted the People and the guardian ad litem's ("GAL") joint petition for certiorari to review the division's judgment that the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the UCCJEA when it issued the termination order.1

II. Analysis

¶20 After identifying the standard of review, we examine the purpose and structure of the UCCJEA. Then, we consider whether the juvenile court had either temporary emergency or non-emergency jurisdiction under the UCCJEA when it...

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    • United States
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    • January 13, 2022
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