In Re Gabriella D.
Case Details
- Judge(s)
- Justice Cornelia A. Clark
- Status
- Published
- Procedural Posture
- appeal; Tennessee Supreme Court reversed Court of Appeals and reinstated trial court judgment
Related Laws
No specific laws identified for this ruling.
Outcome
Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court's dismissal of the foster parents' petition to terminate parental rights, finding that while grounds for termination were proven, termination was not in the children's best interests.
Excerpt
The Tennessee Department of Children's Services ("DCS") removed three children from the custody of their parents and placed them with foster parents in March 2012 because one of the children, an infant, was severely malnourished. By July 2012, the children's mother was cooperating with DCS and complying with a permanency plan that set the goal for the children as reunification with their mother or another relative. The mother continued to comply with the permanency plan for the next sixteen months that the children were in foster care. On the day the children were scheduled to begin a trial home visit with the mother, July 31, 2013, the foster parents filed a petition in circuit court seeking to terminate the mother's parental rights and to adopt the children. After the foster parents filed their petition in circuit court, the juvenile court, which had maintained jurisdiction over the dependency and neglect proceeding, ordered DCS to place the children with the mother for the trial home visit. The circuit court trial on the foster parents' petition did not occur until September 2015. By that time, the children had resided with the mother on a trial basis for two years without incident. The mother, DCS, and the guardian ad litem appointed by the juvenile court in the dependency and neglect proceeding opposed the foster parents' petition. The foster parents and a guardian ad litem appointed by the circuit court sought termination of the mother's parental rights. After the multi-day trial, the trial court dismissed the petition, finding that the foster parents had proven a ground for termination by clear and convincing proof but had failed to establish by clear and convincing proof that termination is in the children's best interests. The foster parents appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. We granted the mother's application for permission to appeal and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court's judgment dismissing the fost
Similar Rulings
A mother appeals the juvenile court's termination of her parental rights to two of her children. The trial court terminated the mother's parental rights on the findings that the petitioner, Tennessee Department of Children's Services, had proven the ground of severe abuse and that it was in the best interests of the children that the mother's parental rights be terminated. The mother appeals, contending that the finding that termination was in the best interests of the children was not supported by clear and convincing evidence. We affirm.
This appeal concerns the termination of a mother's parental rights to four of her children. The trial court found that the Tennessee Department of Children's Services ("DCS") established several grounds for terminating the mother's parental rights and that termination of her rights was in the children's best interests. On appeal, the mother contends that the trial court erred when it terminated her rights because the evidence is insufficient to prove any ground for termination or that termination of her parental rights is in the children's best interests. We have determined that DCS proved grounds for termination and that termination of the mother's parental rights was in the best interests of the children. Accordingly, we affirm the termination of the mother's parental rights.
In this parental termination case, maternal Grandparents sought termination of both Mother's and Father's rights on the grounds of: (1) abandonment by willful failure to support and (2) abandonment by willful failure to visit. The trial court found no grounds for termination as to Mother and only one ground—failure to support—as to Father. The trial court however found that it was not in the child's best interest to terminate Father's rights. We affirm the trial court's judgment in all respects.
The juvenile court did not err by granting permanent custody of appellant's child to a children services agency where appellant was then incarcerated serving a four-year prison term and where the child's best interest was served by granting permanent custody to the children services agency due to the uncertainty regarding appellant's illicit drug use, employment, income, and housing following her release from prison.
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