Dept. of Human Services v. T. J. N.
Annotate this CaseIn the case before the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon, the parents of three children under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services (DHS) appealed the juvenile court's decision to change the placement preference for their children from the mother's home to foster care. However, while the appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals, the juvenile court issued additional decisions determining that substitute care was still the appropriate placement preference for the children. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal as moot due to these subsequent judgments, ruling that it could not conclude without speculation that the challenged judgments would have a practical effect on the parents' rights. The Supreme Court of the State of Oregon reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals, finding that the Court of Appeals had incorrectly placed the burden on the parents to prove that the appeal was not moot, rather than on DHS to prove that it was. However, the Supreme Court found that the juvenile court's subsequent dismissal of the dependency cases altogether did render the appeals moot, as the parents and the children were no longer wards of the court and the original substitute-care placement determination no longer had a practical effect on the parties. The Supreme Court therefore dismissed the appeals as moot.
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