FOR PUBLICATION

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT:    ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE:

JOHN R. McKAY     JAMES L. LOWRY
Hickam and Hickam    Kendall Wood Lowry & Kessinger
Spencer, Indiana    Danville, Indiana

IN THE MATTER OF C.S.,           )
    )
LILAC PARKER,                         )
                                      )
    Appellant-Respondent,             )
                                      )
        vs.                           )    No. 67A01-9807-JV-252
                                      )
PUTNAM COUNTY OFFICE OF FAMILY        )
AND CHILDREN, and CHRISTINE LANE,     )
                                      )
    Appellees-Petitioners,            )
                                      )
LARRY SIMPSON,                        )
                                      )
    Appellee-Respondent.              )

MATTINGLY, Judge

C.S. was the subject of a CHINS proceeding and thus the guardianship proceedings were conducted in the absence of subject-matter jurisdiction.
    The initiation of a CHINS proceeding places the subject matter of child custody exclusively within the juvenile court's jurisdiction to adjudicate, and no other court may exercise such jurisdiction while that CHINS proceeding is pending. Alexander v. Cole, 697 N.E.2d 80, 82-83 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998). When the Putnam Circuit Court accepted the guardianship petition and subsequently addressed the guardianship in its hearings on March 5 and May 28, 1998, it was purportedly acting in its capacity as a probate court. However, on the date of those hearings, the custody of C.S. was exclusively within the juvenile court's jurisdiction to adjudicate because C.S. was still the subject of a CHINS proceeding. The petition and the hearings were therefore a nullity to the extent they purported to address the guardianship of C.S. The trial court could not properly accept the guardianship petition and the evidence yielded by those hearings could not provide a basis for the grant of Grandmother's guardianship petition.See footnote 3 Furthermore, the trial court improperly relinquished

its CHINS jurisdiction over C.S. to the extent that action was premised on the grant of the guardianship order.

IN THE MATTER OF C.S.,    )
            )
LILAC PARKER,    )
            )
    Appellant-Respondent,    )
            )
        vs.    )    No. 67A01-9807-JV-252
            )
PUTNAM COUNTY OFFICE OF FAMILY    )
AND CHILDREN, and CHRISTINE LANE,    )
            )
    Appellees-Petitioners,    )
            )
LARRY SIMPSON,    )
            )
    Appellee-Respondent.    )

SULLIVAN, Judge, dissenting

    The majority holds that the Putnam Circuit Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter an order granting Grandmother's petition that she be appointed the guardian of C.S. This holding is premised upon the conclusion that the guardianship petition should have been dismissed because the CHINS matter was pending. This conclusion seems to rest, in turn,

upon the idea that a guardianship and a CHINS disposition are mutually inconsistent. They are not.
    I.C. 31-34-20-1(4) (West's Code Ann. Supp. 1998) provides that a CHINS dispositional decree may “[a]ward wardship to a person or shelter care facility." The statute, however, specifically precludes a guardian so appointed from consenting to an adoption of the child. I.C. 31-34-29-1(4).
    Be that as it may, wardship carries with it the creation of a relationship of guardian and ward. See I.C. 29-3-1-6 (West Code Ann. 1994) (defining “Guardian”). Furthermore, “ward” is defined as the state of being in guardianship. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2575 (1993).
    In this sense, I believe that a juvenile court may well have subject matter jurisdiction coexistent with that of a probate court with regard to appointment of a guardian. Although the Putnam Circuit Court, perhaps, should have transferred the formal request for appointment of a guardian to the CHINS cause number and made the appointment in that cause, the order is not rendered invalid for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In setting aside the guardianship order and reinstating the CHINS proceeding, the majority unnecessarily elevates form over substance.
    I would affirm the order appointing Christine Lane as guardian of C.S. subject, however, to the caveat that such appointment does not include the right of the guardian to consent to adoption of the child.

proceedings." Id. We believe the unique nature of the CHINS proceeding requires a similar separation from matters of probate jurisdiction.

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