Court has “status” jurisdiction to terminate rights of parent who lacks minimum contacts with Vermont.

In re R.W., 2011 VT 124 (Burgess, J.)

This termination of parental rights case presents novel jurisdictional questions because the parents and children are citizens of Sri Lanka and, although mother and the children have been residents of Vermont for a number of years, father continues to reside in Sri Lanka and has never been to Vermont.  The Department for Children and Families (DCF) petitioned to terminate father’s residual parental rights.  The family division concluded it lacked personal jurisdiction over father.  DCF argues that even though father lacks minimum contacts with Vermont, the court has jurisdiction to adjudicate the status of his children, who were within the court’s jurisdiction.  We reverse the court’s decision as to both parents and remand the cases.

 The critical question in this appeal is whether a child’s relationship to her parents is adjudication exempt from the “‘minimum contacts” test.  “Status cases” are exempt from the United Supreme Court’s jurisprudence that established the minimum contacts test as the basis for jurisdiction for both in personam and in rem case. “[C]cases involving the personal status of the plaintiff, such as divorce actions, could be adjudicated in the plaintiff’s home State even though the defendant could not be served within that State.”  Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 201 (1977) (citing Pennoyer, 95 U.S. at 733-35).  The Supreme Court has not defined status jurisdiction or explicitly recognized its application to any type of case other than divorce. In Vermont, we have applied status jurisdiction in divorce actions, but not to other situations, such as custody. 

We conclude that status jurisdiction applies to cases involving termination of parental rights.  Much like the marriage relationship, severance of a parent’s legal relationship to his or her child requires state intervention and is a matter of state concern.  Thus, a child’s home state has jurisdiction to adjudicate the status of a child present there even if the parents lack minimum contacts with the forum.