REL: 07/22/2011
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance
sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334)
229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made
before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.
ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
SPECIAL TERM, 2011
_________________________
2100252
_________________________
C.J.
v.
Jefferson County Department of Human Resources
Appeal from Jefferson Juvenile Court
(JU-10-52875, JU-10-52876, and JU-10-52878)
PITTMAN, Judge.
C.J. ("the mother") appeals from three juvenile-court
judgments determining that her children, A.J., who was born in
1995; M.J., who was born in 1998; and Mo.J., who was born in
2001, were dependent; those judgments awarded custody of the
2100252
children to Ma.J. ("the father") and relieved the Jefferson
County
Department
responsibility
of
of
Human
providing
Resources
("DHR")
reunification
from
services
to
the
the
mother.
Because the record on appeal is inadequate for review
by
court,
this
we
transfer
this
appeal
to
the
Jefferson
Circuit Court pursuant to Rule 28(D), Ala. R. Juv. P., for a
trial de novo in accordance with Rule 28(B), Ala. R. Juv. P.
In October 2010, DHR filed dependency petitions as to the
children after Mo.J. had told her school counselor that her
mother
suffered
from
bipolar
disorder
and
had
not
been
receiving treatment or taking the proper medication to control
her medical condition.
Following a shelter-care hearing, the
children were placed by DHR in the father's home.
In December
2010, the juvenile court conducted a hearing on the merits and
entered adjudications of dependency based upon stipulations
that
the
income.
mother
did
not
have
stable
housing
or
a
stable
At the conclusion of that unrecorded hearing, the
juvenile court awarded custody of the children to the father
and ordered DHR to close the case file on the mother.
The mother appeals and asserts that she did not, in
actuality, stipulate as to any substantive issue that would
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2100252
support a determination that the children were dependent. The
juvenile court, pursuant to Rule 28(A)(1)(a), Ala. R. Juv. P.,
certified the record on appeal as adequate, although that
certification specifically notes that "no transcript" of the
hearing exists.
We have previously addressed the fact that a juvenile
court's certification of the record does not, in and of
itself, render the record adequate so as to allow appellate
review by this court. See W.E.C. v. Madison Cnty. Dep't of
Human Res., 909 So. 2d 849, 850 (Ala. Civ. App. 2005), and
R.G. v. C.M., 980 So. 2d 417, 418 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007).
In
W.E.C., we held that a certification by the juvenile court,
made pursuant to Rule 28(A)(1)(a), Ala. R. Juv. P., that the
record on appeal in that case was adequate for appellate
review was not conclusive as to the issue of jurisdiction; we
transferred the appeal in that case to the appropriate circuit
court because the appellants had challenged the correctness of
a
juvenile-court
custody
judgment
entered
after
an
untranscribed hearing.
The absence from the record of a transcript of the
December 2010 proceeding wherein factual stipulations were
3
2100252
apparently made, upon which stipulations the juvenile court
based its adjudications of dependency, renders the record on
appeal in this case inadequate for review by this court. Rule
28(B), Ala. R. Juv. P., provides that an appeal from a
juvenile court shall be to the circuit court for a trial de
novo when the record on appeal is inadequate for review by an
appellate court. Rule 28(D), Ala. R. Juv. P., provides that
"[a]n appellate court or circuit court may transfer an appeal
that it determines should have been transferred to or brought
in
another
court
to
that
other
court."
Accordingly,
we
transfer the mother's appeal to the Jefferson Circuit Court
for a trial de novo.
APPEAL TRANSFERRED.
Thompson, P.J., and Bryan and Thomas, JJ., concur.
Moore, J., concurs in the result, without writing.
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