Calhoun v. Calhoun

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

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.

<p>Appeal from District Court, Second District; Hon. N. J. Harris, Judge.</p> <p>Application by Catherine Lambing Hummel for a wri,t of habeas corpus against Samuel J. Parrish and Caddie K. Parrish to obtain the custody of her minor child. Prom an order awarding the custody of the child to the defendants, plaintiff appeals.</p> <p>APPELLANT'S POINTS.</p> <p>The presumption is that the parent is a fit and suitable person to be entrusted with the care of his children and that the interests and welfare of said children are best subserved when under such care and control. (Wilson v. Mitchell, 111 Pac. 23, 30 L. It. A. N. S. 511; Miller v. Miller, 123 la. 165, 98 N. W. 631; Swarens v. Swarens, 97 Pac. 968; State v. Martin, [Minn.] 103 N. W. 888; Terry v. Johnson, [Neb.] 103 N. W. 318; Hibbeite v. Bains, 78 Miss. 695, 51 L. it. A. 839.)</p> <p>Before the legal right of the parent to the custody of the child will be ignored or invaded by the court, it must be established by plain and certain proofs either that the parent is unfit to be entrusted with the care of minor children or that he has abandoned the child and surrendered its care and custody to the respondents. And he who seeks to withhold the custody of a minor child from its natural parents has the burden of establishing either unfitness or abandonment. ( Wilson v. Mitchell, supra; Eibbette v. Bains, supra; Wier v. Marley, 99 Mo. 484, 6 L. R. A. 672; Norvall v. Zing-master, 57 Neb. 159, 77 N. W. 373.)</p> <p>The natural guardian of a bastard child is the mother, and unless it appears by clear and satisfactory proof that she is manifestly unsuited to give it proper training, or that she has surrendered the child to respondents substituting them in her own place so that they stand m loco parentis to the child, and that she has continued this condition of affairs so long a time that a severance of the relationship between the child and respondents would surely be detrimental to the child then clearly she is entitled t