Father and Mother had a brief romantic interlude in early 2014, which resulted in Mother becoming pregnant and giving birth to a child in November 2014.

The relationship ended fairly quickly and Father claimed he had no further communication with Mother after they separated. He claimed he did not know Mother became pregnant as a result of the relationship or that Mother had given birth to a child, until December 2017.

Mother decided to place the child for adoption and began working with an adoption agency in spring 2017. An adoption petition was filed by the prospective adoptive parents in April 2017. Immediately after the petition was filed, Petitioners made a motion to the court to have a “commissioner” take Mother’s voluntary relinquishment of her parental rights, pursuant to Utah Code section 78B-6-124(1)(B).

The court granted this motion, allowing a representative of the adoption agency to take Mother’s relinquishment. Mother met with the representative and signed a document relinquishing her rights to the child.

The document stated that the relinquishment was irrevocable as to the Petitioners (the adoptive parents) but that Mother was not consenting to the child’s adoption by any other person or persons.

The document further stated that if, for any reason, the adoption petition was denied or dismissed, custody and control of the child should be returned to Mother.

Despite the fact that Petitioners resided in Utah County (which is in the purview of Utah’s fourth judicial district), the adoption petition had been filed in the district court in Tooele, which is in the third district.

A few months later, before the adoption was finalized, Mother filed a motion to set aside her relinquishment, asserting that she did not sign it freely and voluntarily. The court held a half-day evidentiary hearing on the motion. Following the hearing, the court denied Mother’s motion, holding that there had been no duress or undue influence and that Mother had signed the relinquishment knowingly and voluntarily.

Shortly thereafter, in January 2018, Father filed an appearance in the adoption case, motioning the court for the right to intervene in the case. A short time later Father filed a motion to dismiss the adoption petition, alleging that because it had been filed in the wrong district, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction.

After briefing and a hearing on the motion, the court denied Father’s request, ruling that it had subject matter jurisdiction. Father asked the Utah Court of Appeals for permission to file an interlocutory appeal (an interim appeal, taken before a final judgment or order is entered). The Court of Appeals granted his request.

The Father argued on appeal that Utah Code section 78B-6-105 (1)(a), which requires an adoption petition to be filed in the district in which a prospective adoptive parent resides, is not merely a venue statute, but acts as a limit on the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction. The Court disagreed.

The parties all agreed that when an adoption petition is filed in the district court, the statute mandates that it shall be filed in the district where the prospective adoptive parent resides. But the statute is silent as to the consequences for filing in the wrong district. The question was: must an adoption petition be dismissed for filing in the wrong district, or is the remedy a motion and order to change venue to the proper district?

The Petitioners pointed out that district courts have jurisdiction over adoption cases as a class, and that filing in the wrong district does not implicate a court’s subject matter jurisdiction but simply means that the error may be corrected by making a motion to have the case transferred to the proper district.

The Court noted that jurisdiction can be tricky at times. Sometimes the term jurisdiction is used to refer to the territorial reach of a court, while at other times it refers to a court’s power to issue a certain type of relief. Jurisdiction often means different things in different circumstances.

Subject matter jurisdiction is a subset of jurisdiction that is tricky in its own right. Courts are required to raise the issue of subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte (that is, on the court’s own volition, without being prompted by the parties). Subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived or forfeited. It is not subject to the typical rules of finality and preservation. If a court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, it cannot render a valid judgment on the matter. Subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any point in the proceeding, as it goes to the heart of whether a court has authority to hear a particular type of case.

Because subject matter jurisdiction is “special,” and can be raised at any time in a proceeding, it is “cabined”, or confined within certain prescribed limits. Utah’s Supreme Court has in recent years made a concerted effort to cabin subject matter jurisdiction so that, for example, attorneys cannot simply recast merits arguments as arguments about subject matter jurisdiction and expect that dog to hunt.

One important case regarding subject matter jurisdiction holds that “[w]here the court has jurisdiction over the class of case involved, judgment is not void on the ground that the right involved in the suit did not embrace the relief granted.” Chen v. Stewart, 2004 UT 82, paragraph 36, 100 P.3d 1177 (determining that the parties mischaracterized their claim as one grounded in subject matter jurisdiction in a futile attempt to avoid waiver), abrogated on other grounds by State v. Nielsen, 2014 UT 10, 326 P.3d 645.

The Utah Supreme Court has limited application of subject matter jurisdiction to two specific situations: a) where a statute places limits on the authority of the court to adjudicate a certain class of cases, and b) where there are timing and other limits on the justiciability of the proceeding before the court (such as standing, ripeness, and mootness). In re Adoption of B.B., 2017 UT 59, paragraph 21.

Neither of these situations applied in the instant case. An example of statutory limits on the authority of a court to hear a certain type, or class, of case occurs within the context of adoption. There are certain types of adoption cases in which Utah statutory law specifically mandates that juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction. For example, in cases where a juvenile court has terminated a parent’s parental rights to a child and has found that an adoption is in the child’s best interests, the juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction over that child’s adoption. See Utah Code section 78B-6-105(c). This section likely speaks to the juvenile court’s subject matter jurisdiction.

Another situation that comes to mind where subject matter jurisdiction limits the authority of a court to hear a certain type of case is with respect to custody jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). In certain situations, subject matter jurisdiction may apply with respect to the child’s home state, which is specifically defined by statute.

The Court in the instant case held that the statute requiring an adoption to be filed in the district in which the prospective adoptive parent resides is a venue statute. District courts are courts of general jurisdiction in Utah. As such, their authority to hear and rule on adoption cases as a class is not limited, except by statute or by principles of justiciability. Thus, the proper remedy for a situation where an adoption petition is filed in the wrong district is the same as for when a personal injury case or a divorce case is filed in the wrong district. This remedy is not a dismissal of the case, but rather a motion and order to change venue.

The Father made an interesting and somewhat subtle argument in the appeal, contending that the venue statute should be interpreted in a way that avoids confronting constitutional issues, under the canon of construction that prefers avoiding constitutional issues if a decision can be made on other grounds.

In this respect he argued that construing the statute as merely implicating venue and not subject matter jurisdiction raises the question of equal application of the laws. Since unwed biological fathers are held to an exacting and strict compliance with the statutory scheme when asserting their parental rights, he argued that allowing prospective adoptive parents to file an adoption in the wrong district without substantial consequence is inherently unfair and rises to the level of unequal application of the laws.

The Court did not see the statute as involving any such constitutional issue because the statute itself did not speak to the issue of the consequences for a lack of strict compliance with its provisions. It did not set out a relaxed notion of compliance. Rather, it was simply a facially valid venue statute, for which the remedy for filing in the wrong district is a motion to change venue.

The upshot of the Court’s ruling was that the case was not dismissed, but was sent back to the district court for further proceedings, presumably to be transferred to the appropriate jurisdiction.

See In the Matter of the Adoption of B.N.A.,2018 UT App. 224.

This material should not be construed as legal advice for any particular fact situation, but is intended for general informational purposes only. For advice specific to any individual situation, an experienced attorney should be contacted.