Superior Court 7/15/08 - P.T. & K.T. v. M.H.

P.T. & K.T. v. M.H.
No. 900 WDA 2007 2008 PA Super 155 Atlantic: n/a Filed: 7/15/2008
Appeal from the Order of April 13, 2007, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Family Court Division, No. FD 99-003698-005.
Before: BENDER, BOWES, AND TAMILIA, JJ.
Opinion by: BOWES, J.
Appellants, P.T. and K.T., appeal the order dated April 13, 2007, and entered April 16, 2007, wherein the trial court denied their motion for standing to file a complaint for custody pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S. § 5303 in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Family Division, but granted standing in an ongoing dependency proceeding in juvenile court. We affirm.

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On appeal, Appellants raise the following issues for our review:

1. Whether the [Family Division] trial court erred in denying Appellants’ Motion for Standing to file their Complaint for Primary Custody of [A.H.]?

2. Whether the [Family Division] trial court erred in not informing Appellants of their right to counsel and not appointing counsel for Appellants for all proceedings related to their legal status in relation to Child and otherwise when Appellants allege that they were legal custodians and stood in loco parentis to Child?

¶ 7 We first address our appellate jurisdiction. Mother and CYF both
challenge whether the Family Division trial court’s order was an appealable
final order under Pa.R.A.P. 341. Mother and CYF discuss the order in the
context of the underlying dependency proceeding. Mother asserts, “The
April 13, 2007 order does nothing more than oblige [Appellants] to litigate
their custody claim as part of the ongoing dependency proceedings.”
Mother’s brief at 7. Similarly, CYF posits, “The order does not dispose of
[Appellant’s] custody claims, it merely requires [Appellants] to litigate those
claims in the dependency proceeding in Juvenile Court.” CYF brief at 8.
¶ 8 We disagree with both contentions because each ignores that the order
being appealed was not entered in the dependency case. Rather, the order
appealed herein was entered in response to Appellants’ motion for in loco
parentis standing to file a custody complaint in the Family Division action.
While Appellants did participate in the dependency action, albeit on a limited
basis, they never sought to intervene in those proceedings. Simply stated,
the April 13, 2007 order effectively dismissed Appellants’ custody complaint,
precluded them from litigating their custody claim, and confined Appellants
to participation in the dependency proceeding’s dispositional stage. As the
April 13, 2007 order did, in fact, dispose of Appellants’ custody claim filed in
the Family Division, we find that the order is final.3 Cf. Carpenter v.
Carpenter, 474 A.2d 1124, 1126 (Pa.Super. 1984) (since order vacating
earlier award of temporary custody and staying custody proceedings on
ground that Massachusetts court was already exercising its jurisdiction, the
appellant was precluded from litigating the case in Pennsylvania, and order
appealed was a final order). Thus, the appeal is proper.