Sarut v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

2015 Ark. App. 76, 455 S.W.3d 341, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 109
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedFebruary 11, 2015
DocketCV-14-878
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 2015 Ark. App. 76 (Sarut v. Arkansas Department of Human Services) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sarut v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 2015 Ark. App. 76, 455 S.W.3d 341, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 109 (Ark. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

RITA W. GRUBER, Judge

| Appellant, Rebecca Sarut, appeals from an order of the Washington County Circuit Court terminating her parental rights to her children: A.B.1, born April 21, 2008; A.B.2, born October 29, 2010; and A.B.3, born March 29, 2012. She contends on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support the circuit court’s decision, specifically the court’s findings of grounds for termination and potential harm. We find no error and affirm the circuit court’s order.

The events that led to the termination began in February 2013, when local law enforcement contacted the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) for assistance with appellant’s three children. Appellant and the children’s father, Franklin Boyt, were living in a hotel room in Washington County with the children. 1 Mr. Boyt had been sent |2to the hospital for an apparent drug overdose. Appellant appeared inebriated and was slurring her words and stumbling with A.B.3 in her arms. She tested positive for methamphetamine, opiates, and benzodiazepines and admitted to using methadone. The hotel room was filthy: dirty dishes with molded food, piles of dirty clothes on the floor, and piles of dirty clothes on the children’s beds. The children were dirty and eating grapes covered in kool-aid powder when DHS arrived. Appellant also had a history with DHS — a true finding of newborn illegal-substance abuse — because she and A.B.2 tested positive for amphetamines at the time of A.B.2’s birth in October 2010.

DHS assumed immediate emergency custody of the children, and the court adjudicated them dependent-neglected in an order entered March 18, 2013. The court also made a true finding against both parents for inadequate supervision and environmental neglect. The court ordered appellant to undergo a drug-and-alcohol assessment and follow the recommendations, submit to weekly random drug screens, complete parenting classes, obtain and maintain stable housing and employment, demonstrate the ability to protect the children and keep them safe from harm, and pay weekly child support in the amount of $80. The goal of the case was set as reunification.

In a review order five months later, the court found that appellant had completed many of the requirements but had missed her drug-and-alcohol assessment and had not rescheduled. The court also found that she had missed some random drug screens. Finally, the court ordered her to “we[a]n off methadone.”

IsThe court reviewed the case again in December 2013. In its order of December 20, 2018, the court found that appellant had not “we[a]ned down/off on her methadone” and was “still at Phase One after nearly 3 years of methadone treatment.” The court found that she needed to complete inpatient treatment to address her addiction to opiates. The court also determined that she had failed to maintain stable housing and to complete a drug-and-alcohol assessment.

In a permanency-planning order entered February 5, 2014, the court established concurrent goals of reunification and adoption, found that DHS had made reasonable efforts to provide family services toward reunification, and stated that appellant had made “substantial progress.” However, the court also found that appellant was still on methadone, had not completed inpatient treatment, and still had no stable housing. The court again ordered appellant to “get off methadone.”

After a second permanency-planning hearing conducted three months later, the circuit court found that, despite services offered and opportunity given, appellant still was not prepared to care for her three children, finding that she “has not gotten off methadone, has not completed inpatient drug treatment, has not submitted to drug screens, has not maintained stable employment, [and has] not obtained drug/alcohol assessment.” The court changed the goal to adoption, authorizing DHS to pursue termination of appellant’s parental rights.

At the termination hearing, appellant’s case worker Miranda Collins testified that the children had been in foster care for seventeen months, that appellant had been ordered for |4the entire seventeen months to obtain a drug-and-alcohol assessment but had failed to obtain one, and that appellant resided with her mother, whose home had been found to be inappropriate for the children after a home study was conducted for placement. Ms. Collins testified that appellant was unable to enter residential substance-abuse treatment, which the court ordered in December 2013, because she became pregnant and no facility would accept her for treatment if she was taking methadone while pregnant. Ms. Collins testified that the children were placed together in foster care and were doing very well. All three were on track developmentally and had “come a long way since coming into care.” She also testified that the children were highly adoptable and that the current foster home was a potential permanent placement for all three children. She opined that it was in the children’s best interest to terminate appellant’s parental rights, that appellant had not demonstrated the ability to parent and care for the children, and that DHS had not received the child support from appellant that the court ordered in March 2013.

Appellant testified that she had been living with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment, although recognizing that the home had been deemed inappropriate for her children, so that her mother could help while she was pregnant. She stated that she had been going to NA meetings but had no proof of that fact. She also testified that she had given birth the week before the hearing, that the child had been born positive for methadone, and that she had “signed over” her rights to the infant’s father (not Mr. Boyt). She also admitted that she was not current on her child support, stating that she was “a little bit behind on paying.” Regarding why she had failed to obtain a drug-and-alcohol assessment for almost a year and Ra half, she said she missed her appointment because she had another appointment for something (she could not remember what) and that DHS had not given her a new referral. She testified that she was still taking methadone but that she was almost “completely done with it.” Finally, she testified that she was still married to Mr. Boyt, that she had not seen him since he had been out of jail, that she hardly ever talked to him, and that he had come to the hearing with her sister and not with appellant.

The attorney ad litem recommended termination, arguing that the children needed permanency, that they had been out of appellant’s care for a good portion of their lives, and that they had been thriving in their foster home. She was concerned with appellant’s continued long-term addiction to methadone and her inability to wean herself off it.

In its oral pronouncement from the bench, the circuit court expressed concern about how appellant would be able to support her three children when she had been unable to pay court-ordered child support of only $30 per week. The court was very concerned that, after more than three years of treatment, appellant had been unable to wean off methadone. This, coupled with her failure to obtain a drug-and-alcohol assessment or complete inpatient treatment to address her addiction, convinced the court that appellant could not safely and properly parent her children. The court also recognized that appellant was still married to Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
2015 Ark. App. 76, 455 S.W.3d 341, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sarut-v-arkansas-department-of-human-services-arkctapp-2015.