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Appeals court hears dispute over juvenile‑court jurisdiction in DCF care‑and‑protection case
Summary
Lawyers argued whether Suffolk County juvenile court properly retained subject‑matter jurisdiction after a mother left Massachusetts with the infant; the panel questioned when Massachusetts remained the child's 'home state' under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction rules.
On April 10 the Appeals Court considered a factual and jurisdictional challenge in Department of Children and Families v. Father over whether the Suffolk County juvenile court had subject‑matter jurisdiction to proceed with a care‑and‑protection petition after the mother left Massachusetts with the newborn child.
Roberta Driscoll Weiss, representing the father, argued the juvenile court lacked ongoing jurisdiction because the mother had moved back to North Carolina with the child after a period of residence in Massachusetts; Weiss urged the appeals court to overturn the juvenile court’s subsequent orders on that ground. Weiss emphasized that factual findings needed to determine whether Massachusetts qualified as the child’s “home state” at the time the petition was filed and that the record lacked explicit, contemporaneous fact‑finding on that point.
Julie Gallup, for DCF, told the panel Massachusetts was the child’s home state under the statutory definition for a child under six months old: the child had lived in Massachusetts from birth with a parent. Gallup said the ICPC (Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children) process and subsequent child‑welfare contacts in other states did not divest Massachusetts of jurisdiction and that DCF properly pursued custody steps consistent with inter‑state cooperation.
The panel and counsel discussed numerous discrete facts in the record: the mother’s move to Massachusetts at a young age, the child’s birth in Massachusetts, mother’s termination from a shelter in April 2016, a trip to North Carolina that followed, and later interstate case‑management activity (including ICPC home‑study coordination and a removal from Georgia). Justices asked whether the juvenile court had adequate fact‑finding when judges raised the jurisdictional question repeatedly over several years but did not hold a dedicated evidentiary hearing; counsel disputed whether any later ICPC activity or interstate child‑protective involvement altered Massachusetts’s status as home state.
The panel took the matter under advisement; counsel flagged multiple transcript dates and interlocutory actions in a case record that extended over several years.
