An ambiguous decree which stated in one place that wife's alimony would end upon her remarriage, and in another place that it would end upon husband's remarriage, was ambiguous enough to deserve correction of this conflict as a "clerical error," nunc pro tunc, the Court of Appeals found in White v. White, 17 VLW 48 (6/11/02).
Continue reading "White v. White: DECREES – CORRECTION OF ERRORS. " »
Many a court clerk will look at anything that says “Final Order,” or “And This Order Is Final,” and treat it as an ended cause, with all that that entails. But what about a final order that disposes of only one claim, by one party, when another claim, by the other party, is still pending? The fact that the judge issued what she called a “final order” gratifying the ex-husband’s petition to eliminate alimony for cohabitation that did not mean that the mother’s simultaneously-pending petition to increase child support (because husband had received a lot of money) was also killed off.
The perennial question of whether a post-trial order improperly tries to modify a final decree beyond the 21-day deadline, or only enforces it, was reviewed in the context of a Prince William judge’s extending the deadline he had set for a husband to buy the marital home from the wife. It is true that the court granted this extension on May 25 after a March 15 decree. Apparently the extension was only put into the formal new decree on July 15, but it was all right to extend that deadline retroactively when the judge realized his oversight. It still was not a modification but only an enforcement, because this extension was the only way to preserve the rights that had been decreed in the original decree and ensure compliance. Williams v. Williams, unpublished, 20 VLW 1504 (4/11/06).
The Court of Appeals in Robbins v. Robbins, 48 Va. App. 466, 632 S.E.2d 615, 21 VLW 265 (8/1/06), revisited a subject that has been kicked around several times before, the re-valuation of real estate that has increased dramatically in value while the litigation went on. In doing so it provided welcome clarification on just what the “law of the case doctrine” is and is not.
21 VLW 1392 (4/10/07)
The concurrent-jurisdiction overlap between juvenile and circuit courts is always good for tangled procedural situations and lengthy appellate-court analyses. In one of those cases in which the circuit court grants a divorce saying that it leaves the matters of child custody, child support and alimony alone so that the juvenile court can handle them, the Court of Appeals has a number of instructive things to say. It was held that the support order from the juvenile court that was shoved aside when divorce proceedings were filed persisted. On this appeal the Court of Appeals held that the nonsuit of the divorce case “restores authority” to the JDR court support order that existed before the divorce case was filed.
The Court of Appeals reversed an alimony award because, although it was in a contested case, the trial judge did not comply with the §20-107.1(F) requirement of written findings supporting the award and its amount. The judge did a lot, but not precisely what the statute requires or not enough, according to the opinion at 22 VLW 295 (8/7/07). The wife argued that it had not in fact been a contested case, because the husband consented (in the end) to alimony, but the Court of Appeals applied “contested” in the traditional sense and pointed out that, although the parties resolved many issues by stipulation before trial, they went to trial on this issue.
What happens after a local DSS tries to terminate a father’s parental rights, father loses in juvenile court, appeals for trial de novo in circuit, and then as soon as it gets to a hearing, the DSS nonsuits? If there is a refiling should that be in circuit court? No, it has to be in juvenile court, the Court of Appeals points out, as required by the jurisdictional statutes.
The concurrent-jurisdiction overlap between juvenile and circuit courts is always good for tangled procedural situations and lengthy appellate-court analyses. In one of those cases in which the circuit court grants a divorce saying that it leaves the matters of child custody, child support and alimony alone so that the juvenile court can handle them, the Court of Appeals has a number of instructive things to say. In Ipsen v. Moxley, ___ Va. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, 21 VLW 1392 (4/10/07), it was held that the support order from the juvenile court that was shoved aside when divorce proceedings were filed persisted. On this appeal the Court of Appeals held that the nonsuit of the divorce case “restores authority” to the JDR court support order that existed before the divorce case was filed.
Fredericksburg DSS v. Brown, 15 VLW 351 (8/29/00).
The long-standing principle that jurisdictional defects can't be
waived, and can be raised at any time, is once again popular with the
Court of Appeals. In a parental rights termination case, the mere
presence of entrustment agreements and the entry of agreed orders
approving the entrustments don't add up to enough to validate a circuit
court's termination of parental rights, because it is a matter of
jurisdiction.
Continue reading "PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATION -- JURISDICTION -- ENTRUSTMENTS. " »
A circuit court order denying a motion to dismiss on res judicata grounds, and remanding a support case to juvenile court for paternity blood tests and further proceedings, is not appealable. Such an order is interlocutory, the Court of Appeals explained in Whitaker v. Day, 32 Va. App. 737, 530 S.E.2d 924, 15 VLW 162 (7/11/00). This non-final order does not "adjudicate the principles of the cause."
