Link for opinion: http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy.msbcollege.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/
Title: J.D. v. Lauderdale County Department of Human Resources and T.T.
The Alabama Court of Appeals held in J.D. v. Lauderdale County Department of Human Resources and T.T. (Alabama. Ct. App. 2011) ordered that the juvenile court vacate its judgment, comply with the requirements of § 30-3B-204, and communicate with the Texas district court to resolve the emergency, protect the safety of the parties and the child, and determine a period for the duration of the temporary order.
In the appeal the father argued that a juvenile court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to declare a child dependent. The court agreed. The child here was the subject of a Texas district court order awarding custody of the child to the father. The Texas district court had not declined to exercise its jurisdiction over the child. A juvenile court exercising temporary emergency jurisdiction under Ala. Code § 30-3B-204 did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate dependency and award custody by virtue of the limited jurisdiction provided to it. Thus, the judgment of the juvenile court was void.
The child’s mother took him from his home in Texas, where he was residing with his father, and went to Alabama. Under Texas jurisdiction the mother only had supervised visitation of the child. This directly violated Texas’s version of the UCCJEA. The child was then removed from the mother’s possession and taken into custody of Alabama’s DHR. The DHR took the child in custody and filed for emergency temporary custody because the child alleged abuse from his father.
When the father was able to show that the allegations were false and that Alabama did not have jurisdiction to file for temporary custody, because Texas did not give up jurisdiction and because the Alabama court directly violated the UCCJEA the courts rendered the trial court’s decision void.
The complete ruling in this case was that the judgment of the juvenile court was void, and this appeal was dismissed with instructions that the juvenile court vacate its August 20, 2012, judgment. That the court comply with the requirements of § 30-3B-204 by amending the orders entered under its emergency temporary jurisdiction to include the appropriate limitations on those orders, and that it communicate with the Texas district court "to resolve the emergency, protect the safety of the parties and the child, and determine a period for the duration of the temporary order."
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