Waldron v. Waldron

2015 WY 64, 349 P.3d 974, 2015 Wyo. LEXIS 74, 2015 WL 1959506
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMay 1, 2015
DocketNo. S-14-0230
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 2015 WY 64 (Waldron v. Waldron) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waldron v. Waldron, 2015 WY 64, 349 P.3d 974, 2015 Wyo. LEXIS 74, 2015 WL 1959506 (Wyo. 2015).

Opinion

DAVIS, Justice.

[T1] Approximately six years after their divorce, Appellant Ryan Waldron (Father) and his ex-wife (Mother) filed separate proceedings relating to their child in Wyoming and Pennsylvania. Mother sought to terminate Father's parental rights with respect to their seven-year-old son, and Father asked the Wyoming court to instead enter orders to facilitate the exercise of his visitation rights. The district court in Sweetwater County declined to exercise jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA).1 Father objected to the district court's order, and the court [975]*975denied his objection more than two months later. Thereafter, Father filed a notice of appeal from the order ruling on the objection. }

[T2] Father's objection was in substance a motion to reconsider the order declining to exercise jurisdiction. Such a motion does not toll the time for taking an appeal. Because the only notice of appeal Father filed was untimely, we must dismiss.

FACTS

[¶8] Father and Mother divorced in May of 2007 when their son was approximately seven months old. Mother was granted primary physical custody of the child, and Father was awarded visitation. On October 29, 2010, the district court issued an order limiting him to supervised visitation at the Sweet-water County Family Resource Center. Apparently that order resulted from Father's physical abuse of his second wife while these parties' child was present, and the boy's resulting traumatization and need for counseling.

[¶4] Mother also remarried, and sometime late in the spring of 2011, she, the parties' son, and her new husband moved to Pennsylvania. Father also moved to Natro-na County from Sweetwater County. Mother ultimately filed an action seeking to terminate his parental rights in Pennsylvania, evidently anticipating that her new husband would adopt the child if that relief was granted.

[¶5] On November 1, 2018, Father filed a "Verified Motion for Contempt and Motion to Cause Visitation to Progress" in the district court in Sweetwater County. He acknowledged that Mother had commenced termination proceedings in Pennsylvania, and that a hearing had been scheduled in that case. However, he also asserted that Mother had frustrated his efforts to exercise visitation with their son, and that she was using his lack of contact with the child against him in the termination case. Father claimed that Mother's conduct violated previous court orders, and he asked that she be held in contempt, and that the court establish a new visitation schedule.

[T6] Mother responded to those motions on January 3, 2014, denying that she had interfered with Father's exercise of his visitation rights. She pointed out that he was required to make arrangements with the Sweetwater County Family Resource Center to supervise visitation with their son, but that he had done so only onee since her move to Pennsylvania, and that she had transported the boy to Wyoming for that purpose on that one occasion. Mother also noted that Father initiated only a few contacts of any kind with the child since the move, and that he quit paying child support at the end of October 2012. She contended that he filed his motions in Wyoming in response to the termination proceedings in which he had already appeared in Pennsylvania, and she asked the district court to reject his request to hold her in contempt. Perhaps more pertinent to the present appeal, Mother also asked the court to hold Father's motions in abeyance so that the court in Pennsylvania could rule on her request to terminate his parental rights.

[T7] On March 12, 2014, the judge presiding over the Pennsylvania termination action telephoned the district judge in Wyoming to discuss which forum should exercise jurisdiction over the matters before them under the UCCJEA.2 It became clear dur[976]*976ing that discussion that the parties' son had lived in Pennsylvania for well over two years, that Father had engaged counsel to represent him in Pennsylvania, and that he would have the opportunity-as part of the termination proceedings-to litigate the issues raised by the motions he filed in Wyoming.

[18] Six days later, without holding a hearing, the district judge in Sweetwater County issued an order declining to exercise jurisdiction, in which she briefly summarized her conversation with her eastern counterpart. The court determined that Pennsylvania was a more convenient and appropriate place for the parties to litigate all issues and ceded jurisdiction to the court presiding over the termination proceedings in that state.3

[¶9] Father did not appeal from the March 18, 2014 order. Instead, he filed a pleading entitled "Defendant's Objection to Order Declining Jurisdiction and Request for Hearing Regarding Jurisdiction" a week later. Despite the fact that he had filed a motion to dismiss 4 the Pennsylvania termination case, Father claimed that he was unaware that the Wyoming court would need to decide whether it should exercise jurisdiction over his motions until the March 18 order was issued.5 Although he alleged the district court deprived him of notice and an opportunity to be heard on the jurisdictional question as he argues is required under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 20-5-807(b), his objection and request for hearing only touched legal issues as to the notice and opportunity to be heard required by the UCCJEA. Nowhere did he identify evidence that might have justified the Wyoming court in exercising jurisdiction if it had notified him of its inclination to decline jurisdiction and granted him a hearing on that question.6 He also suggested that the court's exclusive continuing jurisdiction under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 20-5-302 precluded it from resorting to the forum non convemiens provisions of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 20-5-807 and, thus, from declining to exercise that jurisdiction.7

[¶10] What little can be gleaned from the record indicates that Father took the same approach during the April 11, 2014 hearing on his objection.8 On May 30, the district court entered an "Order Denying Defendant's Objection to Order Declining Jurisdiction and Request for Hearing Regarding Jurisdiction and Order Declining Jurisdiction." Father filed a notice of appeal from that order on June 26, 2014, well over three [977]*977months after the court's entry of its original "Order Declining Jurisdiction."

DISCUSSION

[111] This Court has a duty to determine whether it has jurisdiction to entertain an appeal even if no party has raised that question. We pursue that inquiry de novo because the limits placed upon the exercise of our appellate powers are matters of law. In re Estate of Nielsen, 2011 WY 71, ¶ 11, 252 P.3d 958, 961 (Wyo.2011). One of those constraints derives from the rule that we may entertain appeals only from judgments or appealable orders with respect to which an appellant has filed a notice of appeal within thirty days from the entry of that judgment or order. Id.; WRAP. 1.03 (timely filing of notice of appeal is jurisdictional); W.R.A.P. 1.04 (the types of decisions we may review on direct appeal); W.R.AP. 2.01 (setting thirty-day limit). See also Capshaw v. Osbon, 2008 WY 95, ¶ 11, 190 P.3d 156, 158 (Wyo.2008) (the filing of a timely notice of appeal is jurisdictional, and we will not consider appellate argument or issues arising from an untimely notice of appeal).

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2015 WY 64, 349 P.3d 974, 2015 Wyo. LEXIS 74, 2015 WL 1959506, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldron-v-waldron-wyo-2015.