Dept. of Human Services v. C. C.

Under ORS 419B.815 and ORS 419B.816, “once a parent has failed to personally appear at a hearing for which the parent had proper notice… the juvenile court may choose to either immediately proceed with a hearing on the dependency petition or postpone that hearing to a later date. If the court takes the latter course, nothing [in the statutes] requires the court to notify that parent of the newly set hearing date.”

Father appealed denial of a motion to set aside a dependency judgment from the juvenile court. Father assigned error to the juvenile court not providing him with proper notice of rescheduled hearing after he did not appear at the original hearing date. On appeal, Father argued that under ORS 419B.923, juvenile courts have the authority to set aside judgments for statutorily-identified reasons or on “other appropriate grounds.” Under ORS 419B.815 and ORS 419B.816, “once a parent has failed to personally appear at a hearing for which the parent had proper notice… the juvenile court may choose to either immediately proceed with a hearing on the dependency petition or postpone that hearing to a later date.  If the court takes the latter course, nothing [in the statutes] requires the court to notify that parent of the newly set hearing date.” The court found that because the face of the statute does not require the juvenile court to provide a parent notice of a hearing date that had been set over, there was no error in denying Father’s motion. Affirmed.