Department of Human Services v. S. W.

340 P.3d 675, 267 Or. App. 277, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 1616
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 26, 2014
DocketJ10017; Petition Number J1001702; A155971
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 340 P.3d 675 (Department of Human Services v. S. W.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Department of Human Services v. S. W., 340 P.3d 675, 267 Or. App. 277, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 1616 (Or. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinions

GARRETT, J.

Father appeals a judgment of the juvenile court that changed the permanency plan for father’s biological daughter, A, from reunification to adoption. Father raises seven assignments of error. The assignment upon which we focus is father’s contention that the juvenile court erred in concluding that the Department of Human Services (DHS, or the department) made “reasonable efforts” to reunite father with A. For the reasons that follow, we disagree with father, reject his other assignments of error, and affirm the judgment.

Father does not ask us to exercise our discretion to conduct de novo review, and we perceive no reason to do so. See ORAP 5.40(8)(c). Therefore, we “view the evidence, as supplemented and buttressed by permissible derivative inferences, in the light most favorable to the [juvenile] court’s disposition and assess whether, when so viewed, the record was legally sufficient to permit that outcome.” Dept. of Human Services v. N. P., 257 Or App 633, 639, 307 P3d 444 (2013).

A was born in July 2009, prematurely, and has severe physical problems, including “unusual facial features,” underdeveloped optic nerves in both eyes, musculoskeletal anomalies, and a congenital heart defect. In addition, A has had emotional problems throughout her life, stemming from a “diminished sense of trust in her caregivers.” She is prone to injuring herself and has violent outbursts toward others.

DHS became involved in A’s life in March 2010, when she was eight months old, and placed A in protective custody in April 2010. Since then, A has moved between her mother’s care and foster care several times because of mother’s substance abuse and physical abuse of A. Father has been absent for nearly all of A’s life. He was convicted in June 2009, one month prior to A’s birth, of delivery of methamphetamine within 1,000 feet of a school, and was on probation when A was born. In November 2009, father’s probation officer recommended to the Wasco County District Attorney that father be arrested for various probation violations, including failing to report for a urinalysis test. Six days later, father was charged with reckless driving and eluding a police officer; he was convicted of those crimes.

[280]*280When DHS opened this case in March 2010, father had been incarcerated for the previous four months. DHS actively facilitated father’s transfer into a treatment program. In May 2010, DHS workers picked father up from jail and drove him to Portland, where father entered a residential substance abuse treatment center operated by the Salvation Army. During father’s stay at that program, DHS arranged for A to visit him three times, and the department’s Addiction Recovery Team (ART) met with father on five other occasions. At those meetings, DHS encouraged father “to work his treatment program, obtain a sponsor, and work with his sponsor on the steps [of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)].” DHS also encouraged father to place himself on the waiting list for the Salvation Army’s “extended housing” services and to “explore as many job opportunities as possible.” DHS also provided father with a “letter of expectation”1 informing father that, among other things, he needed to demonstrate his understanding of the effect of his drug and alcohol use on A, complete treatment, establish and maintain a safe and stable home, curb his impulsive and criminal behavior, and learn how to safely care for A.

The juvenile court entered a judgment of jurisdiction in June 2010; the allegations as to father were that his “use of controlled substances and/or alcohol affects his ability to adequately parent [A], which places [her] at risk of harm” and, further, that father “is currently incarcerated, which disrupts and compromises his ability and availability to adequately and appropriately parent [A].”

Although some early DHS case notes observed that father was “doing well” in the Salvation Army program, later notes reflect that, more than halfway through his residency, father had “not begun the first step” and that he had “reported that reading a [treatment-related] book isn’t that relevant to him” because he did not “find it interesting.” During a September 2010 meeting between father and the [281]*281DHS team, father said that he had met with a sponsor only once and had still not filled out the required paperwork to officially designate his sponsor. Father later told DHS that he had graduated from a program, but that report is not corroborated by other evidence in the record.

When father was released from the Salvation Army program in November 2010, he stopped communicating with DHS. He surfaced long enough in December 2010 to ask the department to pay for a bus ticket so that he could visit A and her mother in Baker City, where mother was in residential treatment. DHS agreed to obtain the funds, but father disappeared again before the travel arrangements could be made. The visit did not happen.

In January 2011, approximately 40 days after his release from the Salvation Army program, father was arrested and jailed in Washington on charges of driving while intoxicated, attempting to elude police, and biting a state trooper. Father’s Oregon probation officer informed DHS that, after serving time in Washington, father would be in jail in Oregon for “quite a while” for violating probation.

Father was incarcerated in Washington from January 2011 through March 2012. The record does not indicate that DHS made contact with Washington prison officials to determine what services were available to father or whether visits by A were feasible. DHS did call father in July 2011 and informed him that A had been removed from mother again and placed in foster care. Father suggested his brother as a possible placement option, but DHS determined that that placement was not a viable option. Father also informed DHS that he would be serving 45 months in prison. In December 2011, DHS sent father another letter of expectation directing him to participate in available programs such as substance abuse treatment, parenting classes, and a moral recognition or “thinking errors” class. While in Washington, father completed about five months of substance abuse treatment and obtained a GED.

In March 2012, DHS returned A to mother’s care. At around that time, father was transferred from the Washington prison to the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities (NORCOR) to await sentencing for [282]*282his Oregon probation violation. In April 2012, father’s attorney sent father’s caseworker an e-mail note stating that “[father] would still like you to come see him. He would like pictures of his daughter and to talk about possible phone visits.” DHS met with father at NORCOR five days later and, among other things, instructed him that he could call DHS collect when he wished and that he should tell DHS when he knew where he was being transferred. There is no indication that father ever took advantage of the invitation to call. At the meeting, father asked for a picture of A. The DHS caseworker noted, however, that father “talked about [mother] rather than his daughter.”

Father was transferred to the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) in August 2012. In December 2012, DHS called father to discuss A and to inform him that A had been removed from mother again and placed in foster care for the third time.

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Bluebook (online)
340 P.3d 675, 267 Or. App. 277, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 1616, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/department-of-human-services-v-s-w-orctapp-2014.