Hamman v. County Court in & for the County of Jefferson

753 P.2d 743, 12 Brief Times Rptr. 578, 1988 Colo. LEXIS 52, 1988 WL 31127
Supreme Court of Colorado·Decided April 11, 1988·No. 87SC14·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinions

VOLLACK, Justice.

The petitioner, John Hamman (the father), petitioned this court for certiorari review of the district court’s affirmance of the county court’s order granting a name change to Hamman’s daughter at the request of his ex-wife. We granted certiorari to address two issues. First, we must determine whether the county court has jurisdiction to rule on the name change of a minor child of divorced parents under section 13-15-101, 6 C.R.S. (1973). Second, we must decide whether the county court abused its discretion or exceeded its jurisdiction when it granted a name change for a minor child at the request of the custodial parent, when the parents were divorced, and the non-custodial parent was not given notice or an opportunity to be heard. We conclude that the county court did have jurisdiction under section 13-15-101, but that the non-custodial parent was entitled to notice. We therefore conclude that the court erred in ordering the name change requested by the custodial parent without providing notice to the non-custodial parent. We reverse the district court’s affirmance and remand with directions to the district court to remand to the county court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

The petitioner and the respondent entered into a common law marriage in 1977. In the same year, a child was born of the marriage; the child’s name was Arlene Hamman. When the parents’ divorce decree was entered in 1982, the respondent was given custody of the daughter. The father was given reasonable visitation rights and child support obligations. Subsequently, the respondent remarried and began using her new husband’s surname of Bolton. In 1986, the respondent filed a petition1 in Jefferson County Court pursuant to sections 13-15-101 and -102, 6 C.R. S. (1978), requesting a name change for her daughter Arlene Hamman, who was eight years old at the time. She requested that the daughter’s name be changed to Arlene Bolton.

On the same day that the petition was filed, a hearing was held in the county court. The judge elicited testimony from both Mary Bolton and Arlene Hamman. Mary Bolton gave the following testimony:

Q [the judge] Where is her father?
A [Mary Bolton] In Greeley.
[745] Q What is her father’s position with regard to her name change?
A He doesn’t feel like he really wants her to, but she [Arlene] said then she can’t change it until she gets older.
Q So he is opposed?
A Right, but she wants to do it very badly.
Q Tell me what the custody and support situations are.
A I have full custody of her. He pays child support of $145.00 a month, and he sees her every other weekend, depending upon if he has the time.
Q So with knowledge that he opposes it—
A Right.
Q —you are going ahead?
A Right, and she wants to go ahead and do it, too.

The county court granted the petition for the name change at the hearing. The notice by publication requirements of section 13-15-102 were met.2 The father did not receive actual notice of the petition or the hearing. Hamman did not know his daughter’s name had been changed until a week or two later when Arlene told him that her surname had been changed to Bolton.

When Hamman learned that his daughter’s surname had been changed, he filed a motion to intervene under C.R.C.P. 24. The motion was denied by the county court. The father then filed a petition in the nature of a writ of prohibition under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) in Jefferson County District Court, asserting that the county court had exceeded its jurisdiction, abused its discretion, and denied his due process rights. The district court entered a written order affirming “the orders of the County Court granting the petition for the name change and denying the Plaintiff’s Motion to Intervene.” The father filed a petition for writ of certiorari with this court, and we granted certiorari on two issues.

II.

The first issue we address is whether the county court has jurisdiction to rule upon a petition requesting a name change for a minor child when the child’s parents are divorced. The father presents alternative arguments, suggesting that the county court cannot have jurisdiction over a child’s name change because that jurisdiction creates a conflict with either the Children’s Code or Colorado’s Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act. We disagree.

A.

The father contends that only the juvenile court or a district court hearing juvenile matters has exclusive original jurisdiction of a name change petition, based on the statutory definition of “residual parental rights and duties” and the portion of the Children’s Code3 which provides:

19-1-104. Jurisdiction. (1) Except as otherwise provided by law, the juvenile court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in proceedings: ... (e) To terminate the legal parent-child relationship, including termination of residual parental rights and duties, as defined in section 19-1-103(24); ...

8B C.R.S. (1986) (emphasis added).

Section 19-1-103(24) states:

“Residual parental rights and responsibilities” means those rights and responsibilities remaining with the parent after legal custody, guardianship of the person, or both have been vested in another person, agency, or institution, including, but not necessarily limited to, the responsibility for support, the right to consent to adoption, the right to reasonable visitation unless restricted by the court, and the right to determine the child’s religious affiliation.

8B C.R.S. (1986). The father argues that these two provisions of the Children’s Code require the conclusion that only the juvenile court has jurisdiction to rule upon the [746] name change of a minor child. We disagree.

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Hamman v. County Court in & for the County of Jefferson, 753 P.2d 743, 12 Brief Times Rptr. 578, 1988 Colo. LEXIS 52, 1988 WL 31127 (Colo. 1988).

753 P.2d 743 (Hamman v. County Court in & for the County of Jefferson) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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Hamman v. County Court in & for the County of Jefferson
753 P.2d 743 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1988)