ARMSTRONG, P.J.
In this dissolution case, the trial court granted wife's motion to set aside the parties' dissolution judgment pursuant to ORCP 71 B(1)(d)
For purposes of our analysis, the relevant facts are primarily procedural and are undisputed.
In response to that order, husband filed an affidavit of residency on June 12, 2008, asserting, inter alia, that, although he was "going back and forth between Alaska and Oregon" working "on the slope," he and wife lived in Ashland, Oregon, during 2006 and 2007; their children were enrolled in Ashland schools during the 2006-07 academic year; and, in June 2007, wife made plans to travel from Ashland to Alaska to bring some belongings back to Oregon. Thus, husband declared, wife "certainly was a resident of Oregon from February, 2007, through August, 2007, the six months immediately preceding the filing of the petition." Husband also moved for a default judgment.
On July 11, 2008, the trial court entered an order of default based on wife's failure to appear;
On September 29, 2008, wife attempted to set the dissolution judgment aside on the grounds that (1) the Oregon court lacked jurisdiction "based on the fact that neither Party to this case presently reside, or have in fact ever claimed, to be residents of Oregon"; (2) husband's affidavit asserting otherwise was false; and (3) the form of judgment submitted for the court's signature was substantively different from the petition for dissolution originally submitted to the court.
On February 10, 2010, wife, now represented by counsel, moved to vacate the default dissolution judgment under ORCP 71 B(1)(d) on the ground that "the judgment is void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction." After further briefing by the parties, including a supplemental memorandum submitted by husband in which he raised the issue of claim preclusion, and hearings on the matter, the trial court ruled that wife's motion was not barred by claim preclusion and, ultimately, on August 16, 2010, granted wife's motion and entered an order vacating the dissolution judgment and dismissing the case. The court concluded that husband had not established that wife continuously resided or was domiciled in Oregon
Husband appealed the order vacating the general judgment and dismissing the case, and it is that appeal that is before us. However, before oral argument was held on the appeal, wife moved to supplement the record with information that, on April 19, 2011, approximately eight months after the trial court had vacated the Oregon dissolution judgment, wife had filed a "complaint for divorce" from husband in the Superior Court for the State of Alaska Third Judicial District at Kenai (the Alaska case). After oral argument, wife again moved to supplement the record with additional information about the Alaska case — specifically that the Alaska court had ordered the dissolution of the parties' marriage and a division of their assets. We granted wife's motions — treating them as motions to take judicial notice of the proffered information — and directed the parties to file memoranda addressing, inter alia, the legal significance of the Alaska case on this appeal.
In those memoranda, the parties provided the following additional, undisputed facts. In the Alaska court, husband raised the defenses of "res judicata and/or estoppel and/or lack of subject matter jurisdiction" based on the Oregon proceedings; he also moved to dismiss the complaint or, alternatively, to stay the Alaska case "pending [the] outcome of the Oregon appeal." The Alaska court denied husband's motions, concluding that res judicata was inapplicable because the Oregon dissolution judgment had been declared void and, therefore, the case had not been adjudicated on the merits; it also concluded that husband had failed to allege sufficient grounds for a stay.
At the conclusion of the trial in the Alaska case, which took place on June 20 and August 28, 2012, the Alaska court entered a divorce judgment, dated August 31, 2012, dissolving the parties' marriage and ordering a division of property. The court concluded that it had subject-matter and personal jurisdiction of the parties and the property division, based on its finding that husband is a "resident and inhabitant" of Alaska and has lived in the state for "several years." Among other things, the court awarded each party the personal marital property and vehicles in the party's possession and divided the equity in the marital home ($69,341) equally.
Neither party asserts that the proceedings in the Alaska case render this appeal moot. We agree with that conclusion. See Cyrus v. Board of County Commissioners, 226 Or.App. 1, 5, 202 P.3d 274 (2009) ("This court has an independent obligation to determine whether a case is `justiciable,' Oregon Medical Association v. Rawls, 281 Or. 293, 296, 574 P.2d 1103 (1978), and mootness is part of that inquiry."). "That obligation obtains even when a case becomes moot during
A case is not moot when the interests of the parties are adverse and "the court's decision in the matter will have some practical effect on the rights of the parties to the controversy." Brumnett v. PSRB, 315 Or. 402, 405, 848 P.2d 1194 (1993). Here, there is no dispute that the parties' rights are adverse. Moreover, if we were to determine — as husband urges us to do — that the trial court erred in vacating the default dissolution judgment entered in Oregon, that decision would have the effect of reinstating the Oregon judgment, which will have antedated the Alaska judgment, implicating principles of comity under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution.
Turning to the merits, husband argues that wife's motion to vacate the default judgment under ORCP 71 B(1)(d) for lack of jurisdiction was barred by claim preclusion and the trial court should have rejected it on that basis. He contends that the rule of claim preclusion articulated by the Supreme Court in Bloomfield v. Weakland, 339 Or. 504, 123 P.3d 275 (2005), "applies to all claims, even the claim that a court lacked subject matter jurisdiction," citing Lincoln Loan Co. v. City of Portland, 340 Or. 613, 136 P.3d 1 (2006), cert. den., 549 U.S. 1208, 127 S.Ct. 1333, 167 L.Ed.2d 80 (2007), for the latter proposition. Wife responds that claim preclusion is inapplicable in this context, because, although "a default judgment can preclude relitigation of a question of subject matter jurisdiction in a subsequent action before a different tribunal, * * * claim preclusion does not apply to the same claim raised in the same proceeding before the same tribunal." (Emphasis in original.) We agree with wife.
"We review the trial court's conclusions with respect to preclusion for errors of law." OEA v. Oregon Taxpayers United, 253 Or.App. 288, 299, 291 P.3d 202 (2012). In Bloomfield, the Supreme Court explained the doctrine of claim preclusion:
339 Or. at 510-11, 123 P.3d 275 (emphasis added); see also id. at 511, 123 P.3d 275 ("This court also has held that a person who was not a party to an earlier action but who was in `privity' with a party to that earlier action can also be barred on claim preclusion grounds from bringing a second action."). Thus, it is evident that claim preclusion operates to bar a party, if certain requirements are satisfied, from relitigating, in a separate action, a claim that was or could have been brought in the prior action. See also Lincoln Loan Co., 340 Or. at 621, 136 P.3d 1 ("[T]he doctrine of claim preclusion generally bars a party from challenging in a separate proceeding issues that were or could have been determined in a prior, litigated action between the same parties.").
(Footnote omitted.)
Similarly, although husband is correct that claim preclusion can apply to the issue of subject matter jurisdiction, Lincoln Loan Co., 340 Or. at 621, 136 P.3d 1 (so stating, subject to limited exceptions), that is of no consequence where, as here, the doctrine is inapposite in the first place. In Lincoln Loan Co., the issue was whether the plaintiff could maintain a declaratory judgment action seeking to set aside a final appellate judgment that had issued in a prior action on the ground that the "Court of Appeals `does not lawfully exist.'" Id. at 615, 136 P.3d 1. The Supreme Court held that claim preclusion barred the latter action. Applying Bloomfield, the court reasoned that the plaintiff had "`prosecuted one action against a defendant through to a final judgment binding on the parties' and plaintiff now is `prosecuting another action against the same defendant where the claim * * * is one which is based on the same factual transaction that was at issue in the first * * *.'" Id. at 619, 136 P.3d 1 (quoting Bloomfield, 339 Or. at 510-11, 123 P.3d 275; ellipses in Lincoln Loan Co.). The court then went on to address the plaintiff's argument that claim preclusion did not apply because subject-matter jurisdiction was at issue, that is, whether the court had had subject-matter jurisdiction to enter the earlier judgment, an argument the court ultimately rejected. Id. at 630, 136 P.3d 1. It follows that Lincoln Loan, like Bloomfield, provides no support for husband's position that claim preclusion bars a ORCP 71 B(1)(d) motion advanced in the very action that produced the judgment that is asserted to be preclusive.
Our recent decision in Oregon Taxpayers United is consistent with the rule that, although "[t]he doctrines of claim preclusion, issue preclusion, and law of the case have the shared purposes of preventing harassment by successive proceedings, preventing inconsistent adjudications, and promoting economy of resources in the adjudicative process," 253 Or.App. at 300, 291 P.3d 202, claim preclusion is the pertinent doctrine when the question of "relitigation" arises in the context of separate actions. We held, for
Id. at 300, 291 P.3d 202 (citing Drews v. EBI Companies, 310 Or. 134, 140-41, 795 P.2d 531 (1990)) (emphasis added).
In sum, the doctrine of claim preclusion, upon which husband solely relies, is inapplicable in this context.
Affirmed.
Subsection (4) of the statute provides that "[r]esidence or domicile under subsection (2) or (3) of this section is sufficient to give the court jurisdiction without regard to the place where the marriage was solemnized or where the cause of suit arose." ORS 107.075(4).