Background
L.M.H. was adopted by Father and his wife in 2019. By 2024, the child was in a residential treatment facility due to severe behavioral, mental health, and delinquency problems, and the parents were unwilling to have her return home. Warren County Children Services filed a dependency and neglect complaint, and the juvenile court placed L.M.H. in agency custody. The court then conducted an income-examination hearing at which Father appeared pro se. The magistrate found Father voluntarily unemployed, imputed income, and ordered him to pay child support—treating him as L.M.H.’s biological parent in the decision.
Father objected, and his newly retained counsel filed supplemental objections challenging the income imputation. However, neither set of objections invoked R.C. 2151.361(B), which grants juvenile courts discretion over whether adoptive parents must pay child support when a child is in agency custody. The trial court overruled the objections and Father did not appeal. Months later, Father moved under Civ.R. 60(B) to vacate the support order, arguing for the first time that R.C. 2151.361(B) applied.
The Court’s Holding
The Twelfth District affirmed the denial of the Civ.R. 60(B) motion. The court acknowledged that R.C. 2151.361 grants juvenile courts discretion on whether to require adoptive parents to pay child support when a child is in agency custody, and that the magistrate’s failure to apply the correct statute was arguably an error. However, the court held that Civ.R. 60(B) cannot be used as a substitute for a timely appeal. Father had the opportunity to raise the R.C. 2151.361(B) issue in his objections to the magistrate’s decision and in a timely appeal from the trial court’s order, but failed to do so. His subsequent Civ.R. 60(B) motion was an impermissible attempt to relitigate issues that should have been raised earlier.
The court further noted that even if the motion were timely, Father would need to demonstrate entitlement to relief under one of Civ.R. 60(B)’s specific grounds, and the misapplication of the wrong statute does not automatically constitute “any other reason justifying relief” under Civ.R. 60(B)(5).
Key Takeaways
- Under R.C. 2151.361(B), Ohio juvenile courts have discretion over whether adoptive parents must pay child support when the adopted child is in agency custody—a different standard than applies to biological parents.
- Civ.R. 60(B) cannot be used as a substitute for a timely appeal; issues that could have been raised in objections to a magistrate’s decision or on direct appeal are not proper grounds for 60(B) relief.
- A magistrate’s misidentification of a parent as “biological” rather than “adoptive” does not automatically entitle the parent to 60(B) relief if the parent failed to correct the record at the hearing or in timely objections.
Why It Matters
This decision is critical for practitioners in juvenile court. R.C. 2151.361 gives adoptive parents a potential argument that biological parents do not have: that the court should exercise its discretion not to require child support when the adopted child is in agency custody. But this argument must be raised at the first opportunity—at the income-examination hearing, in objections to the magistrate’s decision, or on direct appeal. Waiting to raise it in a Civ.R. 60(B) motion is too late. The case also highlights the importance of pro se parents retaining counsel before, not after, critical hearings. Had Father been represented at the income hearing, the R.C. 2151.361(B) issue would likely have been raised and preserved.