C.E.L. v. T.L. (In re B.N.A.)

This provision of the relinquishment explains why the parties are litigating about whether Utah Code section 78B-6-105(1)(a) speaks to subject-matter jurisdiction or to venue: if the statute is jurisdictional, Petitioners' petition should be dismissed, and in that event Father intends to assert that Child should be returned to Mother's custody and control.

Father emphasizes the statute's use of the word "shall," which is usually interpreted as a mandatory command, see Utah Code Ann. § 68-3-12(1)(j) (LexisNexis 2016) (defining "shall" as meaning "that an action is required or mandatory"), and argues that adoption petitioners are commanded to file their adoption petition in the proper district. This argument is correct, as far as it goes, but the legislature's use of the word "shall," in this context, fails to answer the question at the center of this dispute because it tells us nothing about what the intended consequences are for filing the petition in the wrong place. Indeed, this case nicely illustrates one reason why some legal scholars have noted that the word "shall" is "a semantic mess": because "a recurrent issue in the huge constellation of shall-must holdings" concerns "the effect of failing to honor a mandatory provision's terms," which presents "an issue for a treatise on remedies, not interpretation." Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 113, 115 (2012).

Father points out that subsection (1)(c) of the statute appears to be jurisdictional, in that it places some adoption cases within the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court, and infers therefrom that the other subsections must therefore also be jurisdictional. Father is arguably correct that subsection (1)(c) speaks to a juvenile court's subject-matter jurisdiction—that provision states that adoption proceedings "shall be commenced by filing a petition" in "juvenile court as provided in Subsection 78A-6-103(1)." See Utah Code Ann. § 78B-6-105(1)(c) (LexisNexis Supp. 2018). The referenced section of the Juvenile Court Act states that "the juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction" over "adoptions" in cases where "the juvenile court has previously entered an order terminating the rights of a parent and finds that adoption is in the best interest of the child." See id. § 78A-6-103(1)(o) (Supp. 2018). This language does appear to encompass express limits on the authority of courts other than juvenile courts to hear a particular sub-class of adoption cases. However, it does not follow that, just because subsection (c) is jurisdictional, subsections (a) and (b) must also be jurisdictional. On this issue, the title of the statute provides helpful guidance, instructing us that the statute concerns itself with "[d]istrict court venue" but with "[j]urisdiction of juvenile court." See id. § 78B-6-105; see also infra ¶ 19. As we read the statute, the legislature has placed most adoption cases within the broad subject-matter jurisdiction of district courts, but has placed one sub-class of adoption cases within the narrower subject-matter jurisdiction of juvenile courts. Within the first (broader) category, we do not perceive the legislature as having set any jurisdictional limits on the ability of any particular judicial district or individual district court to hear any of the cases that fall within their purview.

Furthermore, unlike some other comparable state statutes, see, e.g., Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-22-109 (2018) (requiring specific documents to be filed with an adoption petition), Utah's statute does not impose any requirements on petitioners to file specific documents (such as, for instance, relinquishments or consents) with adoption petitions. Father points to some of these other state statutes, and notes that courts in other states have found such requirements to be jurisdictional. See, e.g., In re JWT, 2005 WY 4, ¶¶ 5-6, 104 P.3d 93. Father's argument is unavailing here, however, because Utah's statute imposes no such requirements, and therefore we need not consider whether our legislature intended any such requirements to be jurisdictional.

In 2008, Utah Code section 78-30-7 was renumbered as Utah Code section 78B-6-105. See Title 78 Recodification and Revision, ch. 3, § 864, 2008 Utah Laws 48, 443.

The "redline" version of the bill that effected the title change did not show the new title in "redline" format, even though all proposed changes to the body of the statute were clearly marked. Father infers from this that the legislators themselves (as opposed, presumably, to legislative staff) may not have known that the title was even being changed, and therefore asserts that "the title change does not imply any legislative intent." We find Father's argument speculative—we simply do not know why the change to the title of the bill was not redlined, or whether that fact has any significance. Legislative history certainly has a role to play in helping courts interpret ambiguous statutes, see, e.g., Allred v. Saunders, 2014 UT 43, ¶ 18, 342 P.3d 204 (stating that "it is sometimes appropriate to consider legislative history when interpreting statutes"), but in order to shed any meaningful light on the question of statutory meaning, the legislative history in question must itself be "reliable," see Graves v. North E. Services, Inc., 2015 UT 28, ¶ 67, 345 P.3d 619 (stating that "[w]e may resolve ambiguities in the text of the law by reference to reliable indications of legislative understanding or intent" (emphasis added)). It is certainly mysterious that the title change was not redlined even though the rest of the proposed changes were. But without knowing more about the reasons why that happened, or about what (if any) significance that had to the legislators who considered the bill, we find Father's argument insufficiently persuasive to overcome the basic fact that, prior to 2004, the title proclaimed the statute to be jurisdictional, but that since 2004, the legislature has chosen a title that proclaims the statute to be a venue statute, at least as concerns district courts.

Even in In re adoption of S.L.F., there is some indication that—prior to our supreme court's more recent cases—this court and the district courts were conceptualizing subject-matter jurisdiction too broadly. In that case, a potential adoptive parent filed an adoption petition in Salt Lake County (in the Third Judicial District), even though she lived in Davis County (in the Second Judicial District). See In re adoption of S.L.F., 2001 UT App 183, ¶ 3, 27 P.3d 583. Later, the parent made a "motion for a change of venue," asking that the petition be transferred to Davis County. Id. ¶ 5. The Salt Lake County district court granted the motion, and transferred the petition to Davis County. Id. Had there been a jurisdictional defect of the kind Father envisions, transfer would not have been possible—indeed, the only action a court without jurisdiction can take is to dismiss the case. See, e.g., Hollenbach v. Salt Lake City Civil Service Comm'n, 2013 UT App 62, ¶ 3, 299 P.3d 1148 (per curiam) (stating that "when a court lacks jurisdiction, it retains only the authority to dismiss the action" (quotation simplified)). No party took issue with the Salt Lake County district court's decision to transfer (rather than dismiss) the case, and we did not reach the propriety of that transfer on appeal.

Father also argues that construing the relevant statute as a venue statute rather than as a jurisdictional statute would have "constitutional implications," because he points out that fathers are required to "strictly" comply with other provisions of Utah's adoption code, and argues that "it would be unconstitutional to impose a 'strict compliance' standard for biological fathers but a more relaxed standard for adoptive parents." Our conclusion herein regarding the meaning of the relevant statute—and, specifically, regarding the intended consequences of filing a petition in the wrong district—has nothing to do with requiring "strict" or "relaxed" compliance with the statutory mandates. Our conclusion is simply that the legislature intended the statute to function as a venue statute, and therefore a court does not lack subject-matter jurisdiction over an adoption petition filed in the wrong district any more than it would lack subject-matter jurisdiction over a divorce case or a tort case filed in the wrong county. We see no constitutional infirmities with the legislature's creation of a venue statute in this context, and therefore reject Father's constitutional arguments. --------