In a highly unusual case, the Washington Supreme Court today issued an opinion aimed at establishing the proper practice in the Court of Appeals for creating case titles in dependency and parental right termination proceedings. Apparently all three divisions of the Court of Appeals did it differently. While this case may not sound very interesting, it’s actually quite fascinating how this case came to be.
Ok, so first things first. My interest was immediately piqued before I even opened the opinion. Here’s what happened. When I get the notification email about new opinions, I click on the link to the case and it takes me to the Opinion Information Sheet that lists the opinion authors and which justices joined which opinions. It also lists counsel of record. This always includes counsel for any amicus curiae. And then there’s a link to the slip opinion.
So when I clicked on the link for this case, the Opinion Information Sheet listed 11 amici curiae, ranging from the Washington Coalition for Open Government to the ACLU to the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equity. That many amici from those types of organizations is usually an indicator that a major substantive decision on an important area of law is involved. So imagine my surprise when the first sentence read: “We granted discretionary review in this case to address a concern about inconsistent practices among the three divisions of the Court of Appeals in creating case titles in dependency and termination proceedings.” What? Kind of seems like an issue that isn’t worth all the effort that clearly went into it, right?
But really, there’s a lot going on here. First, this is an interlocutory appeal, meaning the case isn’t over below and the Supreme Court chose to get involved early. That’s highly unusual. Second, the court granted review on only the issue concerning the case title and none of the other substantive, constitutional issues raised by the petitioner.
Perhaps most importantly, though, case titles implicates privacy concerns for minors (and their parents) while the state investigates the family’s relationship to decide whether parental termination is required for the safety and well-being of the minors. As a result, the Legislature and the courts have required cases involving minors to be captioned with the initials of the minor, rather than their names.
As noted above, each of the three divisions of the Court of Appeals handled case titles for dependency and termination cases differently. Division I would change the case title to add the appealing parents’ full names. Division II would change the case title to include the initials of the appealing parents. And Division III would not change the case title at all.
The court held it was improper for the Court of Appeals to change the case title because it violated Rule 3.4 of Washington’s Rules of Appellate Procedure (RAP), which allowed a case title change only upon motion of a party or the court’s own motion after giving notice to the parties. Here, the Court of Appeals simply changed the case title name pursuant to its practice without notice to the parties. And when the mother filed a motion to remove her name from the case title, that motion was denied. The Supreme Court held that was error.
The court dropped footnote 2 to gently remind all three divisions of the Court of Appeals of the notice requirement because, the court noted, none of the divisions appear to be complying with that procedural requirement: “We emphasize that it serves an essential purpose to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard before any changes are made to the case title in dependency and termination proceeding.” Yikes.
So there you go. A four-page unanimous opinion telling the Court of Appeals they’re doing it wrong.
The Washington Supreme Court, nicely, today to the Court of Appeals.