Opinion
No. 3-332 / 02-1558.
Filed June 25, 2003.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, James A. Weaver, District Associate Judge.
C.H. appeals the juvenile court's denial of his motion to reopen the record from the adjudication of E.H. and K.H. as children in need of assistance. AFFIRMED.
Jeffrey Johnson, Muscatine, for appellant-father.
Esther Dean, Muscatine, for mother.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bruce Kempkes, Assistant Attorney General, Richard Phillips, County Attorney, and Korie Shippee, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
William Creasey of Goedken Creasey, Muscatine, for minor child.
Considered by Sackett, C.J., and Huitink and Vogel, JJ.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Chad appeals the juvenile court's denial of his motion to reopen the record from the adjudication of E.H. and K.H. as children in need of assistance.
On December 24, 2001, E.H. and K.H. were adjudicated as children in need of assistance pursuant to Iowa Code section 232.2(6)(c)(2) (child is likely to suffer harm due to parent's failure to exercise care in supervising child) (Supp. 2001). The dispositional order entered on February 27, 2002, continued the children's out-of-home placement. In March of 2002 Chad appealed the adjudication. While the appeal was pending, Chad filed a motion to reopen the juvenile court record on August 5, 2002, arguing incriminating testimony at the adjudicatory hearing was false. The juvenile court denied the motion to reopen the record on August 22, 2002, resulting in this appeal. On November 15, 2002, the child-in-need-of-assistance adjudication was affirmed. In re E.H., No. 2-777/02-0453 (Iowa Ct.App. Nov. 15, 2002).
Notice of appeal was filed September 20, 2002.
Chad now argues, "The juvenile court erred in refusing to reopen the record for additional evidence."
II. Standard of Review.
The question of whether to reopen the record for additional evidence is within the court's discretion. In re J.R.H., 358 N.W.2d 311, 318 (Iowa 1984); see also In re E.H. III, 578 N.W.2d 243, 245-46 (Iowa 1998) (reviewing evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion). In order to show an abuse of discretion, a party must show the juvenile court's action was unreasonable under the attendant circumstances. In re J.L.L., 414 N.W.2d 133, 135 (Iowa 1987).
III. The Merits.
Chad maintains the juvenile court abused its discretion by not reopening the record to receive evidence about allegedly perjured testimony at the child-in-need-of-assistance adjudicatory hearing. The State argues Chad's failure to obtain a limited remand when he appealed the adjudicatory order means the juvenile court never had jurisdiction to rule on his motion to reopen the record, and accordingly, this court has nothing to review on appeal.
That the State initially resisted the motion to reopen the record on the merits and did not resist on jurisdictional grounds until now does not defeat the argument. Christie v. Rolscreen Co., 448 N.W.2d 447, 450 (Iowa 1989) (distinguishing subject matter jurisdiction and authority to hear a particular case and acknowledging a party can at any time raise a court's lack of authority to hear a case, just like a party can at any time raise subject matter jurisdiction).
Generally, a trial court loses jurisdiction over the merits of a controversy when an appeal is perfected. In re B.L., 470 N.W.2d 343, 347 (Iowa 1991). However, a trial court can retain jurisdiction to proceed on collateral issues not affecting the subject matter of the appeal. Id. "Matters that are not directly involved in the appeal may be dealt with by the juvenile court during the appeal process." Id.
In this case, it is doubtful the juvenile court had jurisdiction to entertain the motion to reopen the record because of the pending appeal challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. Id.; Wernet v. Jurgensen, 241 Iowa 833, 836, 43 N.W.2d 194, 196 (1950) (stating "an order appealed from cannot ordinarily be thus amended as to matters of substance"). The exculpatory evidence Chad sought to introduce if the record was reopened would not have been a collateral issue unrelated to the appeal because sufficiency of the evidence was one of the issues on appeal. Consequently, the juvenile court should not have considered Chad's motion to reopen the record.
Even if the juvenile court did have jurisdiction to consider Chad's motion to reopen the record, we find no abuse of discretion in its decision denying it. The adjudication was based on unreasonable supervision of Chad's children, E.H. and K.H. The court found Chad sexually abused another child living in the home, and Chad's failure to obtain treatment resulted in his inability to supervise E.H. and K.H. Chad wanted to present evidence of conversations he had exonerating him of the sexual abuse. We agree with the juvenile court that the offered evidence lacked credibility.