in the Interest of D.N. and D.N., Children

405 S.W.3d 863, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 12815, 2013 WL 4734562
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 9, 2013
Docket07-12-00508-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by61 cases

This text of 405 S.W.3d 863 (in the Interest of D.N. and D.N., Children) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
in the Interest of D.N. and D.N., Children, 405 S.W.3d 863, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 12815, 2013 WL 4734562 (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinions

OPINION

MACKEY K. HANCOCK, Justice.

Appellant, Martha, appeals the trial court’s order terminating her parental rights to her two daughters, D.N. and D.N. On appeal, Martha contends the evidence is insufficient to support the trial court’s order of termination. We will reverse.

Factual and Procedural History

Emergency Removal and First Petition for Termination

In February 2010, the Spearman Police Department was alerted by a local day care facility that two girls, D.N. and D.N., ages two years and ten months, respectively, at the time, had been left at the facility and no suitable arrangements had been made for them to be picked up. The day care facility delivered the girls into the custody of police, and the police department contacted the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (the Department), which then took emergency custody of the girls and placed them in a foster home where they have remained since that time. At the time, the younger D.N. was experiencing severe respiratory distress. She was hospitalized the day after she arrived at the foster home and would have to undergo heart surgery a couple of months later to repair a hole in her heart.

We learn that the girls’ father, Angel, had moved to Odessa some time earlier and their mother, Martha, had left town days before the emergency removal and claimed to have left the girls in the care of a family friend. Martha had known that the younger D.N. was ill and had been prescribed breathing treatments every four hours for at least a month. Martha had administered only one treatment before leaving town without providing the breathing treatment machine or prescribed breathing medication for D.N. Martha explained that the family friend had breathing treatment supplies for her own children and could simply use her supplies for the younger D.N. in the meanwhile; it is unclear which medicine, if any, had been provided or administered to the younger D.N. during this time. When, it seems, the family friend experienced some injury, illness, or condition which rendered her no longer able or willing to care for the girls, she delivered the girls to the day care and never returned to pick them up. Martha, who was still out of town at that point for uncertain purposes, explained that she talked by telephone to her cousin’s wife and the day care staff to try to arrange for the cousin’s wife to pick up the [867]*867children. The day care facility refused to release the girls into the custody of someone who had not been identified as a person authorized to pick them up, a set of circumstances which left the girls in the day care facility’s custody. The Department filed its first petition seeking termination of the parents’ parental rights on February 8, 2010.

We also learn that, both before and after Department intervention, Martha had engaged in a variety of criminal activity, resulting in arrests relating to controlled substances and to a number of assaults. Martha’s continued inability or refusal to abide by the terms of community supervision imposed in connection with her criminal activity ultimately resulted in her being sentenced months later, in January 2011, to five years’ incarceration.

Despite Martha’s incarceration and her continued aggressive behavior, as suggested from a report of a fight in prison, it appears the Department remained willing to work with the family. To that end and following a hearing in July 2011, the trial court entered an agreed order on August 2, 2011, in which the Department was named permanent managing conservator but both Martha and Angel were named possessory conservators and retained rights of possession and access.1 The order denied the Department’s request for termination of parental rights as relief “not expressly granted” and expressly incorporated a specific Department-designed schedule of weekend visitation meant to facilitate visitation between the girls and their out-of-town father. However, in the months that followed the trial court’s order, Angel participated in only two of the ten scheduled visits and made only what appears to be minimal effort to cooperate with the Department. Martha remained incarcerated.

Second Attempt to Terminate

After Angel’s lack of cooperation and participation, the Department seemed to [868]*868have abandoned any goal of reunification when, on April 10, 2012, it filed its second petition seeking termination in the form of its “Petition to Modify” in which it again sought termination of both parents’ rights. The Department sought termination of Martha’s parental rights on eleven independent bases. See Tex. Fam.Code Ann. § 161.001(1)(A)-(F), (K), (L), (N), (O), (Q) (West Supp.2012).2 The Department sought termination of Angel’s rights on the basis of constructive abandonment.3 See id. § 161.001(1)(N).

Following the hearing on September 24, 2012, and by order signed October 31, 2012, the trial court granted the Department’s petition seeking termination of Martha’s rights on the following five bases: (1) that she knowingly placed or knowingly allowed the children to remain in conditions or surroundings which endangered their physical or emotional well-being; (2) that she engaged in conduct or knowingly placed the children with persons who engaged in conduct which endangered their physical or emotional well-being; (3) that she constructively abandoned the children who had been in the permanent or temporary managing conservatorship of the Department for not less than six months and (a) the Department had made reasonable efforts to return the children to her, (b) she had not regularly visited or maintained significant contact with the children, and (c) she had demonstrated an inability to provide the children with a safe environment; (4) that she failed to comply with the provisions of a court order that specifically established the actions necessary for her to obtain the return of the children who have been in the permanent or temporary managing conservatorship of the Department for not less than nine months as a result of the children’s removal from the parent under Chapter 262 for the abuse or neglect of the children; and (5) that she knowingly engaged in criminal conduct which has resulted in her conviction of an offense and confinement or imprisonment and inability to care for the children for not less than two years from the date of filing the petition. See Tex. Fam.Code Ann. § 161.001(1)(D), (E), (N), (O), (Q).

Contentions on Appeal

On appeal, Martha challenges the sufficiency of the evidence as to each predicate basis for termination and as to the trial court’s best interest determination. She contends that, when the Court does not consider the previously presented evidence [869]*869of acts or omissions occurring before the trial court’s August 2, 2011 order denying termination, there is insufficient evidence to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Martha’s conduct toward the girls satisfied the requisite predicate act or omission under section 161.001(1). The Department responds that the record reveals sufficient evidence of material and substantial changes in circumstances such that the trial court could consider evidence predating its earlier denial. See id. § 161.004.

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Bluebook (online)
405 S.W.3d 863, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 12815, 2013 WL 4734562, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-the-interest-of-dn-and-dn-children-texapp-2013.