Johnson v. Johnson

2010 UT 28
This opinion is subject to revision before final
publication in the Pacific Reporter.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH
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Ina Marie Johnson, 	No. 20080274
Petitioner and Appellee,
v.
F I L E D
Neldon Paul Johnson,
Respondent and Appellant. 	May 7, 2010
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Fourth District, Provo Dep’t
The Honorable Steven L. Hansen
No. 004401468
Attorneys: 	Rosemond G. Blakelock, Provo, for petitioner
Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Robert D. Dahle, Sandy, for
respondent
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On Certification from the Utah Court of Appeals
PARRISH, Justice:
INTRODUCTION
¶1 	Defendant Neldon Johnson appeals the district court’s
denial of his motion to vacate his divorce decree for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction. 	The district court concluded that
the court that granted the divorce decree terminating the
marriage of Neldon and Ina Johnson lacked subject matter
jurisdiction because the parties were never legally married. It
nevertheless judicially estopped Mr. Johnson from asserting lack
of subject matter jurisdiction because he had admitted the
existence of the marriage in the original divorce proceeding,
thereby preventing Ms. Johnson from initiating a timely action to
establish a statutory marriage under Utah Code section 30-1-4.5
(2007). 	Because we hold that the original court did in fact have
subject matter jurisdiction, we affirm the dismissal of Mr.
Johnson’s 60(b) motion to vacate the divorce decree.

No. 20080274 	2
FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
¶2 	The Utah Fourth District Court granted a divorce decree
ending the marriage of Neldon and Ina Johnson in June 2001. 	At
that time, the parties stipulated to a $2,800,000 property
settlement, which required Mr. Johnson to pay Ms. Johnson
$8,333.33 a month, secured by a note and trust deed on Mr.
Johnson’s company’s real and personal property and inventory.
Except for a $25,000 court ordered penalty, Mr. Johnson has paid
Ms. Johnson nothing under the property settlement. 	Mr. Johnson
has filed many challenges to the divorce decree since stipulating
to it, all of which have been denied. 	These challenges were made
as collateral attacks to the divorce decree rather than appeals
from it.
¶3 	In September 2007, Mr. Johnson filed a Motion to Vacate
the Decree and Amended Decree of Divorce under Utah Rule of Civil
Procedure 60(b) on the grounds that the district court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the divorce as the
parties were never legally married, a fact that neither party now
denies. 	Mr. Johnson now appeals the district court’s ruling
denying the motion to vacate.
¶4 	When Ms. Johnson filed for divorce, her complaint
alleged that the parties had been married on May 3, 1964. 	Mr.
Johnson admitted in his answer that this was true. 	In reality,
however, although the parties had intended to get married on May
3, 1964, car troubles prevented them from carrying out their
plan. 	Instead, the Johnsons spent several days away and when
they returned, they told their friends and family that they had
married, even though no actual marriage ceremony had taken place.
Approximately one year later, Mr. and Ms. Johnson were married in
a religious ceremony, but never took steps to have their marriage
legally recognized.
¶5 	The district court denied Mr. Johnson’s motion to
vacate. 	Although the court found that the parties were never
married and held that the court that issued the divorce decree
lacked subject matter jurisdiction, it denied the motion to
vacate on the basis that judicial estoppel prevented Mr. Johnson
from raising the parties’ lack of marriage so long after the
issuance of the original decree. 	We conclude that the original
district court had subject matter jurisdiction to grant the
divorce decree and therefore affirm. 	We have jurisdiction over
this matter pursuant to Utah Code section 78A-3-102(3)(j) (2008).

3 	No. 20080274
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶6 	“A denial of a motion to vacate a judgment under rule
60(b) is ordinarily reversed only for an abuse of discretion.”
Dep’t of Social Servs. v. Vijil, 784 P.2d 1130, 1132 (Utah 1989).
However, “the propriety of [a] jurisdictional determination, and
hence the decision not to vacate, becomes a question of law upon
which we do not defer to the district court.” 	Id. 	Thus, the
district court’s decision to deny Mr. Johnson’s motion to vacate
on the basis of a lack of subject matter jurisdiction is a
question of law, and we accordingly afford no discretion to that
decision. 	See id.
ANALYSIS
THE DISTRICT COURT HAS JURISDICTION OVER DIVORCES AND THUS HAS
SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION TO DETERMINE THE RIGHTS OF PARTIES
WHO SUE IN DIVORCE
¶7 	The original district court had the authority to
determine whether Mr. and Mrs. Johnson met the statutory grounds
for divorce and thus had subject matter jurisdiction over their
divorce proceedings. 	In Caffall v. Caffall, we determined that a
court issuing a divorce decree for a marriage later found to be
void did not have subject matter jurisdiction to do so because no
marriage existed. 	303 P.2d 286, 288 (Utah 1956). 	We now
conclude that this reasoning erroneously expanded the meaning of
subject matter jurisdiction and accordingly overrule Caffall.
¶8 	“Subject matter jurisdiction . . . is the authority of
the court to decide the case.” 	Chen v. Stewart, 2004 UT 82,
¶ 38, 100 P.3d 1177. 	“The district court has original
jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal, not excepted in
the Utah Constitution and not prohibited by law.” 	Id. (quoting
Utah Code Ann. § 78-3-4 (2003)). 	Usually, “in order to challenge
subject matter jurisdiction, [a party is] required to challenge
the authority of the court to hear the underlying case.” 	Id.
¶9 	The concept of subject matter jurisdiction does not
embrace all cases where the court’s competence is at issue.
“Where the court has jurisdiction over the class of case
involved, judgment is not void on the ground that the right
involved in the suit did not embrace the relief granted.” 	Perry
v. McLaughlin, 754 P.2d 679, 682 (Utah Ct. App. 1988). 	Rather,
the concept of subject matter jurisdiction relates to “the

No. 20080274 	4
relationship between the claim and the forum that allows for the
exercise of jurisdiction.” 	Chen, 2004 UT 82, ¶ 35. 	Instances
where a court lacks subject matter jurisdiction include when a
federal court is asked to adjudicate matters of state law with no
diversity of citizenship, Stephens v. Wal-mart Stores, 2010 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 35506, *4 (M.D. Ga. 2010); when a state court is
asked to adjudicate a matter of administrative law when the
parties have not exhausted their administrative remedies, Housing
Auth. v. Snyder, 2002 UT 28, ¶¶ 9, 11, 44 P.3d 724; or when the
statute permitting a party to sue another party requires
statutory compliance, as with notice of claim requirements for
suit against governmental entities, Thomas v. Lewis, 2001 UT 49,
¶ 20, 26 P.3d 217. 	In these instances, the court cannot
adjudicate the case because it has not been given the authority
to do so.
¶10 	Because parties can raise subject matter jurisdiction
at any time during a proceeding, it makes sense to cabin the
issues that fall under the category of subject matter
jurisdiction. 	See Chen, 2004 UT 82, ¶ 36 (finding that parties
mischaracterized their claim as a lack of subject matter
jurisdiction in order to avoid waiver); cf. State v. Norris, 2007
UT 5, ¶ 9, 152 P.3d 305 (finding that a defendant’s
constitutional challenge to the statute under which he was
convicted did not raise a challenge to the court’s subject matter
jurisdiction). 	For this reason, most of our cases that have
addressed subject matter jurisdiction have considered the
authority of the court to adjudicate a class of cases, rather
than the specifics of an individual case. 	In Career Service
Review Board v. Utah Department of Corrections, for instance, we
held that the Career Service Review Board (the “Board”) did not
lose subject matter jurisdiction over a career service employee
as a result of the factual intricacies of the case. 	942 P.2d
933, 941-42 (Utah 1997). 	A statute clearly gave the Board
jurisdiction over appeals from reprimand decisions of the
department of corrections. 	Id. at 941. 	Because the Board had
statutory authority to consider the appeal, we determined that
the specific facts went to the merits rather than to whether the
Board had subject matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal in the
first place. 	Id. at 942. 	We came to a similar conclusion in
Chen, when we held that a challenge to the court’s authority to
appoint an interim CEO in the context of a company dispute did
not raise an issue of subject matter jurisdiction. 	2004 UT 82,
¶ 49. 	Rather, because the court had the authority to hear the
underlying dispute, the challenge was more properly characterized

5 	No. 20080274
as a challenge to the court’s exercise of its equitable powers.
Id. ¶ 50.
¶11 	Opinions from other jurisdictions are consistent with
this approach. 	For example, without considering subject matter
jurisdiction, Texas courts have held that “a divorce judgment,
unappealed, and regular on its face, is not subject to a
collateral attack in a subsequent suit.” 	Johnson v. Ventling,
132 S.W.3d 173, 178 (Tex. Ct. App. 2004)(quoting Putegnat v.
Putegnat, 706 S.W.2d 702, 703-04 (Tex. App. 1986)) (refusing to
allow district court to reverse a divorce decree four years after
it was entered even though the parties stipulated that they had
never been married because the district court lost jurisdiction
to modify the decree after the thirty-day appeals period had
lapsed). 	And although an Ohio court has ruled that its domestic
relations court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a
divorce when there was no underlying marriage, that ruling
concerned a court of special jurisdiction rather than, as is the
case here, a court of general jurisdiction. 	Donovan v.
Templeton, No. 16204, 1997 Ohio App. LEXIS 2617 at *5-8, (Ohio
Ct. App., May 9, 1997). 	Further, while the Ohio Court of Appeals
allowed the matter to be characterized as subject matter
jurisdiction, it found that a lack of subject matter jurisdiction
premised on “technical or procedural irregularity” is waived if
not promptly raised, unlike subject matter jurisdiction
concerning the court’s “general authority to decide cases within
a class.” 	Id. at *7 (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶12 	The limited definition of subject matter jurisdiction
applied in other cases differs significantly from our holding in
Caffall, where we held that a district court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction to adjudicate a divorce if no underlying marriage
exists. 	303 P.2d at 288. 	Because the district court clearly has
the authority to adjudicate divorces, looking to the specific
facts of a particular case is inconsistent with our usual
definition of subject matter jurisdiction. 	The court of appeals
in Van Der Stappen v. Van Der Stappen points out that the Caffall
holding is “inconsistent with the generally announced and
fundamental legal proposition that ‘subject matter jurisdiction
is the authority and competency of the court to decide the case,’
without which, the court may not validly act.” 	815 P.2d 1335,
1339 n.5 (Utah Ct. App. 1991) (quoting Dep’t of Social Servs. v.
Vijil, 784 P.2d 1130, 1132 (Utah 1989)). 	Unlike cases where a
party has not exhausted its administrative remedies or has failed
to comply with statutory prerequisites to suit, “[t]he discovery
that the parties never had a valid marriage [does] not . . .

No. 20080274 	6
divest the court of its authority to resolve the dispute between
them.” 	Id. at 1339 n.8. 	As a result, the holding in Caffall
“unnecessarily blurs the distinction between a mistake as to the
exact nature of the subject matter in dispute and the court’s
ultimate authority and competence to decide the dispute.” 	Id.
Just as a court adjudicating a contract dispute has the authority
to determine that no contract exists without losing subject
matter jurisdiction over the dispute, a court has the authority
to adjudicate a divorce claim even if the court later determines
that no marriage ever existed. 	We therefore overrule our holding
in Caffall and hold that because courts of general jurisdiction
have the authority to adjudicate divorces, we will not invalidate
a divorce decree on the grounds that the “right involved in the
suit did not embrace the relief granted.” 	See Perry, 754 P.2d at
682.
¶13 	In this case, the district court had subject matter
jurisdiction to adjudicate Ms. Johnson’s petition for divorce.
Because Mr. Johnson’s motion to vacate the divorce decree under
rule 60(b) was premised on the erroneous assumption that the
original district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to
adjudicate the divorce, the motion was properly denied. 	Although
the district court based its denial of the 60(b) motion on other
grounds, we are free to affirm the dismissal on any grounds
apparent from the record. 	See First Equity Fed., Inc. v.
Phillips Dev., LC, 2002 UT 56, ¶ 11, 52 P.3d 1137.
CONCLUSION
¶14 	We hold that the original district court that issued
the Johnsons’ 2001 divorce decree did not lack subject matter
jurisdiction. 	We accordingly affirm the district court’s denial
of Mr. Johnson’s rule 60(b) motion to vacate his divorce decree.
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¶15 	Chief Justice Durham, Associate Chief Justice Durrant,
Justice Wilkins, and Justice Nehring concur in Justice Parrish’s
opinion.