Peo in Interest of XJP

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: January 9, 2025
• Docket: 24CA1012
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24CA1012 Peo in Interest of XJP 01-09-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1012 Garfield County District Court No. 20JV64 Honorable Denise K. Lynch, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of X.J.P., a Child,

and Concerning J.D.P.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VI Opinion by JUDGE MOULTRIE Welling and Brown, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced January 9, 2025

Heather K. Beattie, County Attorney, Bart Outzen, Assistant County Attorney, Glenwood Springs, Colorado, for Appellee

Cassie L. Coleman, Guardian Ad Litem

Lindsey Parlin, Office of Respondent Parent’s Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant ¶1 In this dependency and neglect action, J.D.P. (father) appeals

the judgment allocating parental responsibilities for X.J.P. (the

child) to J.R. (the maternal grandmother). We affirm the judgment.

I. Background

¶2 In 2019, the Garfield County Department of Human Services

(the Department) filed a petition in dependency and neglect based

on concerns about domestic violence between father and B.H.

(mother) and mother’s substance abuse. During that action, the

juvenile court issued a permanent protective order restricting

father’s contact with the child. The juvenile court closed the first

case in early 2020, with an allocation of parental responsibilities

(APR) to mother and certified the APR and permanent protective

order into a domestic relations case.

¶3 Just five months after the first case closed, the Department

opened a voluntary, non-court involved case due to concerns about

mother’s substance use. The Department attempted to implement

a safety plan, but after five months it filed another petition in

dependency and neglect, alleging similar concerns as the first

petition regarding the then three-year-old child.

1 ¶4 The juvenile court granted temporary custody to the

Department for placement in foster care. A few days after the

petition was filed, father allegedly attempted to forcibly remove the

child from the foster placement. Father was arrested and held in

custody on pending criminal charges, where he remained

throughout the dependency and neglect action. A second protective

order entered through the criminal case which prohibited father

from contacting the child.

¶5 One year after the filing of the petition, the mandatory

protective order in the criminal matter was amended to authorize

video contact with the child as facilitated by the Department. The

juvenile court then authorized contact but required the child’s

therapist to be present during family time.

¶6 Eighteen months after the petition was filed, the child’s

guardian ad litem (GAL) moved for an APR to the maternal

grandmother. Shortly after the GAL filed the motion for APR, the

juvenile court granted temporary custody to the maternal

grandmother. At the time the child moved to the maternal

grandmother’s home, father’s family time was limited to two

2 fifteen-minute phone calls with the child each month, supervised by

the Department.

¶7 Two years after the petition was filed and following an

evidentiary hearing on the GAL’s motion for APR, the juvenile court

granted an APR to the maternal grandmother.

¶8 Father appealed. A division of this court upheld the juvenile

court’s decision to allocate parental responsibilities to the maternal

grandmother. People In Interest of X.P., (Colo. App. No. 23CA0465,

Oct. 5, 2023) (not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(e)). The

division, however, reversed a parenting time provision of the

judgment and remanded the case “for the juvenile court to allocate

parenting time, subject to the protection orders, without delegating

decisions regarding parenting time.” Id. at ¶ 17.

¶9 On remand, the juvenile court held an additional evidentiary

hearing. The court then issued an amended parenting plan,

wherein it ordered “that father shall not have any parenting time

with [the child] at this time.”

¶ 10 Father appeals the amended parenting plan.

3 II. Parenting Time Orders

¶ 11 Allocating parental responsibilities and designating parenting

time is a matter within the sound discretion of the juvenile court.

See In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning B.R.D., 2012 COA 63,

¶ 15. When there is record support for the juvenile court’s findings,

its resolution of conflicting evidence is binding on review. Id.

However, whether a court has applied the correct legal standard

presents a question of law that we review de novo. Id.

¶ 12 Father contends that the juvenile court erred because it was in

the child’s best interest to allow him to have parenting time. The

juvenile court ordered that father was not to have any contact with

the child. The court found that the child did not know father given

the length of time he had not had contact with her. The court also

found that father’s mental health remained unstable and that he

was facing criminal charges related to allegedly attempting to

kidnap the child. The court found that the child’s emotional

development would be “significantly impaired” if she were to have

any contact with father, even by telephone.

¶ 13 The record supports the juvenile court’s findings, and we

perceive no error in the court’s legal conclusion.

4 ¶ 14 The child was five years old when the juvenile court entered

the APR. The limited family time that occurred during the

dependency and neglect action was not successful. The

Department’s caseworker testified that father’s inappropriate

conversations were “a constant theme” during family time and

resulted in sessions being ended early by the family time

supervisor. The maternal grandmother testified that the child was

treated by a psychologist for anxiety and trauma-related symptoms,

that she conferred with the child’s psychologist about the child’s

needs, and that the child’s treating psychologist recommended

against the child having contact with father. The maternal

grandmother ensured that the child had a stable routine which

helped the child feel secure.

¶ 15 The totality of father’s condition — including his ongoing

mental health concerns and his lack of relationship with the

child — created a risk of harm to the child if she were to have

contact with him. The juvenile court found that father was unfit at

the close of the first dependency action and reaffirmed that finding

at the close of the second. Father was unable to attend at least one

of the hearings because the county jail where he was being held

5 refused to leave father in a room to attend court virtually “for safety

reasons.” The juvenile court took judicial notice of father’s criminal

matter and noted that father’s mental health had “gotten worse”

since the initial APR hearing.

¶ 16 Father asserts that his “parental rights were essentially

severed” by the juvenile court’s order that he not have any

parenting time. But an APR judgment — even one that does not

allocate any parenting time to a parent — is not tantamount to a

termination judgment because father retains certain rights and

responsibilities that he would not have if his parental rights were

terminated under section 19-3-604, C.R.S. 2024. See L.L. v. People,

10 P.3d 1271, 1277 (Colo. 2000) (concluding that a guardianship

order that significantly limited contact with a parent was not

functionally equivalent to termination because the court retained

jurisdiction and the parent was able to seek a modification of the

order); People in Interest of J.M.B., 60 P.3d 790, 793 (Colo. App.

2002) (holding that a guardianship with no parental contact may be

a viable alternative to termination of a parental rights in some

cases); § 19-3-608(1), C.R.S. 2024 (stating that a termination

6 judgment divests the parent of “all legal rights, powers, privileges,

immunities, duties, and obligations with respect to” the child).

III. Other Contentions

¶ 17 Father also asserts that the court erred by awarding “sole

custody” to the maternal grandmother. This contention was

addressed in father’s first appeal, and due to the narrow scope of

the remand from his first appeal, we decline to address it.

IV. Disposition

¶ 18 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE WELLING and JUDGE BROWN concur.