Justia Oklahoma Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the termination Respondent-appellant Billy McCall's (Father) parental rights to K.P.M.A. (Child). Child was born out-of-wedlock to T.Z. (Mother) in 2012. Prospective adoptive parents, petitioners-appellees Marshall and Toni Michelle Andrews had had physical custody of the child since she was released from the hospital after birth. On appeal of his termination, father argued: (1) whether his due process rights were violated; (2) whether he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the termination proceedings; and (3) whether the trial court's determination was supported by clear and convincing evidence. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court concluded that termination of the natural father's parental rights was improper because the natural father's due process rights were violated, and the termination of the natural father's parental rights was not supported by clear and convincing evidence. View "In re Adoption of K.P.M.A." on Justia Law

A daughter was appointed special guardian for her parents. Two lawyers entered an appearance on behalf of the parents and alleged that the parents had selected them as nominated counsel. The daughter sought to be named guardian and then a nephew and niece of the parents sought to be named guardians. Upon agreement of the parties an independent guardian was named. Hearings were held and an order issued that: (1) rejected the two lawyers as nominated counsel for the parents; and (2) denied a motion to reconsider a previous denial of a motion for unsupervised visitation by the nephew and niece and change of guardian to the nephew and niece. The allegedly nominated attorneys commenced an appeal which the Supreme Court retained. The trial court also denied a motion for emergency relief to change supervised visitation. A request for extraordinary relief from supervised visitations was filed during the appeal and the request was consolidated with the appeal. Subpoenas duces tecum were quashed relating to the wards' trusts. An additional request for extraordinary relief was filed during the pendency of the appeal based upon the order quashing the subpoenas, and we treat that proceeding as a companion case. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court held that there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court's decision that nominated counsel had a conflict of interest and were not independent, and that Petitioners failed to show that the trial court committed an abuse of discretion or acted in excess of its authority when it denied an emergency motion to modify the supervised visitation, and that while the trial court incorrectly ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to issue subpoenas duces tecum to a trustee of a ward's trust, it must hold a hearing on the objections to the discovery request and adjudicate which parties are entitled to participate in the discovery and determine whether a sustainable objection to discovery exists pursuant to the Discovery Code. View "In the Matter of the Guardianship of Berry" on Justia Law

Debbie Roca (Houston) and Carlos Roca divorced in 1990. The decree of divorce included a child support computation which obligated Roca to pay the sum of $403.70 each month. After ten years of non-payment Houston cited Roca for contempt, alleging Roca had willfully failed to comply with the decree's child support mandates. A jury found the defendant guilty of indirect civil contempt, and he was sentenced to six months incarceration. Additionally, the trial judge imposed a judgment for past due child support in the amount of $85,392.77. In a 2000 judgment, the trial court determined that the principal arrearage owed was $55,400.27. This sum was set as the purge amount. Additionally, the judgment imposed statutory interest on the principal arrearage at a rate of ten percent per year. Neither party appealed this ruling. Following his incarceration, Roca paid $5,000 of the purge fee and was released from custody. The trial court conditioned Roca's release on his payment of $850.00 per month toward current and past due child support. Roca made payments for approximately two years, and on April 16, 2003, the trial court entered an order establishing a reduced purge fee of $40,215.87. The parties also entered into an agreed order lowering Roca's monthly child support payment to $193.74 per month. This order became effective May 1, 2003. The trial court lowered the cumulative monthly payment for current and past due child support from $850.00 to $600.00. The Oklahoma Department of Human Services began administering child support collections for the Roca case in 2003. Roca made monthly payments of $600.00 between June 2003 and August 2009. His support obligation terminated at the end of May 2005, when the parties' child reached the age of majority. In 2009, Roca filed a motion asking the district court to enter an order finding he had satisfied the principal child support arrearage; he further requested termination of the wage assignment. Roca later withdrew the motion and submitted a notice which asserted "all of his court-ordered child support payments" had been paid. The notice acknowledged owing some amount of accrued interest, but maintained that the remainder of his child support obligation had been paid in full. Houston filed an objection, claiming for the first time that all of Roca's previous payments should have been applied in the following order: (1) current child support, (2) interest on the judgment, and finally (3) the principal arrearage. According to Houston's calculations, Roca still owed $84,147.26. A default order was entered adopting the figures presented by Houston. The trial court sustained Roca's motion to vacate. Houston appealed the lower court's ruling and COCA reversed. COCA concluded that the facts of this case required application of the common law rule also known as the United States Rule. By applying the United States Rule, COCA found that Roca's payments should be credited first to current child support, second to accrued interest, and last to the principal balance of past-due child support. Roca appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court vacated COCA's order, finding that Title 43 O.S. Supp. 2002 section 413 and DHS rules required payments made through the Centralized Support Registry in this case to be allocated first to current obligations, second to past due amounts, and finally to interest on the principle balance. View "Roca v. Roca" on Justia Law

Parents who adopted special needs children challenged decision by the Department of Human Services (DHS) to provide a lower assistance subsidy for the children than the assistance subsidy that would be paid if the children were in a foster placement. The decision was upheld upon administrative review by DHS and sustained by the district court and Court of Civil Appeals. Parents filed a petition for certiorari, seeking review of the Court of Civil Appeals' decision. The Supreme Court concluded DHS was attempting to apply a predetermined fixed amount of subsidy without allowing adoptive parents to show greater need up to the amount provided for special needs children in foster care. This was contrary to the policy and purpose of the statutory law providing and regulating financial assistance to people who undertake parental responsibility and care of special needs children. The opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals was therefore vacated and the district court order sustaining the decision of the Department of Human Services was reversed. The case was remanded to the Department of Human Services for redetermination of the monthly subsidy amount. View "Troxell v. Oklahoma Dept. of Human Services" on Justia Law

The biological father of H.M.W. and K.D.W. was in prison. He refused a writ of habeas corpus to attend the trial terminating his parental rights. When the case was called, Father's counsel requested a jury trial in absentia. In response, the State requested termination by default. Without ruling on these requests, the trial court heard testimony without a jury concerning the best interests of the children and potential harm to the children from continuing Father's parental relationship. In the end, the trial court denied the request for jury trial in absentia and granted the State's request for default termination. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the termination, but ruled that Father's refusal to appear resulted in a consent termination rather than a default judgment. Father appealed that outcome. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that the trial court erred in terminating Father's parental rights without a jury trial, and the Court of Civil Appeals erred in affirming that judgment. Accordingly, both courts' decisions were vacated or reversed, and the matter remanded for a new trial. View "In the matter of H.M.W." on Justia Law

A Decree of Divorce entered August 1, 2008, granted the parties a divorce and awarded the appellee (Mother) alimony, to be paid periodically for seventy-two months, plus child support. The appellant (Father) lost his job and had not found other employment. Father filed a motion to modify the Decree of Divorce to reduce the amount of child support and to discontinue the support alimony. Father requested that his income be imputed at minimum wage. Mother objected on the grounds that Father either resigned his job voluntarily or committed acts that led to his dismissal, such as failing to appear at work for three days. Mother's position was that because Father's actions caused his changed circumstances, he should not be relieved of his court ordered obligations. The district court denied the motion on the ground that the decrease in income was temporary and was due to appellant's voluntary act of resigning his job. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, stating that appellant's voluntary decision to resign based on his own misconduct did not relieve him of his obligation to pay child support. The Supreme Court granted the appellant's petition for certiorari and found that the trial court made no finding that Father acted in bad faith and there was no evidence that Father resigned his job in order to avoid his support obligations under the divorce decree. The court's denial of the motion to modify was against the clear weight of the evidence. The order denying the motion to modify was therefore reversed and the case remanded to the trial court for recalculation of the Father's support obligations in light of his changed circumstances. View "Garcia v. Garcia" on Justia Law

Petitioner wife filed for divorce in 2007. The trial court disposed of the marital estate and found it to include a third home the parties occupied during marriage as well as two rental properties the husband purchased with his separate funds for the benefit of his two daughters from a previous marriage. Husband appealed the trial court's ruling and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the issue of whether the trial court's inclusion of the two rental properties as part of the marital estate was against the clear weight of the evidence. After review, the Court held that: (1) the husband rebutted the presumption by clear and convincing evidence that the two rental properties, purchased with the husband's separate funds, were intended as a gift to the marital estate because husband and wife took title as joint tenants; and (2) as a result their inclusion by the trial court in the marital estate was against the clear weight of the evidence. View "Smith v. Villareal" on Justia Law

In May 2006, Appellant Samantha Million brought suit against her male cousin, Appellee Jay Scott Million, alleging multiple acts of sexual abuse against her when she was a minor, during the years1980 through 1983. The trial judge, acting as factfinder, concluded that the applicable statute of limitations had run and therefore the appellant's claim was untimely filed. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the evidence was sufficient to support the trial court's ruling that the statute of limitations had indeed run in 1989, a year after Appellant reached the age of majority. View "Million v. Million" on Justia Law

The appellant wife and the appellee husband owned a business together. The business had been the sole property of the wife until shortly before the parties' marriage, when the husband bought a forty-nine percent interest in the business for five-thousand dollars. The wife filed for divorce five years later. During the pendency of the divorce, the wife terminated the husband from the marital business. Husband, still a co-owner of the marital business and receiving the benefits of this ownership, started a competing business. The trial court, in determining the value of the husband's share of the business did not consider any loss in value to the marital business because of the husband's competing business. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review this matter and held that the trial court should have, in settling the value of the business for property settlement purposes, included any loss in business value because of the husband's competing business. The only issue presented on appeal was whether the trial court erred in its valuation of the marital business. The Court reversed and remanded the case to the trial court for a valuation of the parties' marital business : "Such a determination must include its value as of the date that the husband purchased a share of the business, as well as any offset to the valuation of husband's share of the business because he received money from the business during the pendency of the divorce. . . .These questions must all be covered by the trial court the second time around. The evidence, taken as a whole, shows that the valuation of [the business], and thus the husband's portion of the property settlement, was against the clear weight of the evidence." View "Colclasure v. Colclasure" on Justia Law

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services filed a "Motion to Determine [Child Support] Arrearage" and a "Motion to Modify [reduce] Child Support" in its administrative court on behalf of the father of children receiving child support services. The mother moved to dismiss the motion to modify based on provisions of the parties' settlement agreement which had been incorporated into their divorce decree. The administrative law judge issued an order transferring the matter to the district court and filed it in the divorce action. Mother moved to dismiss the motion to modify in the district court. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss, holding that the parties' agreement failed to demonstrate an intent to be free from the statutory provisions governing modification of child support. The order was certified for immediate appeal and the Supreme Court granted certiorari review to resolve the following issues: (1) was a motion to modify properly before the district court; and (2) did the four corners of the divorce decree in this matter demonstrate the parties' intent to be free of the statutory provisions concerning modification of support? The Supreme Court concluded that the procedural vehicle utilized to place the motion to modify child support before the district court was authorized by statute. Additionally, the parties clearly demonstrated their intent that there be no modification of child support without their mutual assent and it was error for the district court to hold to the contrary. View "Scungio v. Scungio" on Justia Law