Opinion
CL-2022-1161
07-28-2023
N.L.C. v. Bibb County Department of Human Resources
Appeal from Bibb Juvenile Court (JU-21-100.02)
MOORE, JUDGE
N.L.C. ("the mother") appeals from a judgment entered by the Bibb Juvenile Court ("the juvenile court") terminating her parental rights to P.H. ("the child"). We affirm the judgment.
Background
On February 15, 2021, the juvenile court entered a judgment terminating the parental rights of the mother to N.L.H., the older sibling of the child. On July 13, 2021, the mother gave birth to the child. On July 16, 2021, the juvenile court conducted a shelter-care hearing regarding the child. The juvenile court entered a shelter-care order allowing the mother to return to her house with the child, subject to supervision by the Bibb County Department of Human Resources ("DHR"). After two days of observing the mother with the child, DHR determined that the mother could not properly care for the child, so DHR obtained a pickup order, removed the child from the mother's house, and placed the child into foster care.
DHR originally established a permanency plan with the goal of returning the child to the permanent custody of the mother, and it implemented an individualized-service plan ("ISP") to achieve that goal. The mother worked toward that goal with the assistance of services supplied by DHR. On January 14, 2022, after DHR had determined that the mother had not sufficiently progressed toward the goal of reuniting with the child, DHR changed the goal of the permanency plan for the child to adoption. On April 20, 2022, DHR filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of the mother and of J.H. ("the father") to the child. The juvenile court conducted a two-day trial of the case on August 26, 2022, and September 30, 2022. On October 28, 2022, the juvenile court entered its final judgment terminating the parental rights of the mother and of the father.
In the judgment, the juvenile court found, in pertinent part:
"1.... [T]he mother of the child, is willing, but is not able to discharge her responsibilities for the child. The Court finds that extensive services were provided to the mother and that she participated in those services. However, none of the services have been able to put the mother in a position so that she is capable of independently raising and caring for th[e] child. The mother's ability to function as a parent is not high enough to permit her to raise [the] child alone. She has no family who can help. She is still in a committed romantic relationship to the father and has no plans to not be in a relationship with him. He clearly has no interest in raising this child.
....
"3.... [The mother] has participated in services but has not been successful in changing her condition to an extent that she is able to parent the child. ....
"5. The mother's low parental capability renders her unable to care for the needs of the child.
"6. Reasonable efforts by the [DHR] ... leading toward the rehabilitation of the parents have failed.
"7. The mother is not able to provide for the material needs of the child.
"8. The parents failed to maintain regular visits with the child in accordance with a plan devised by DHR.
"9. The parents failed to maintain consistent contact or communication with the child. ....
"11. Significant emotional ties exist between the child and her current foster parents, considering the length of time that the child has lived in a stable and satisfactory environment. Severing the ties between the child and his or her current foster parent or parents is contrary to the best interest of the child.
"12. There are no appropriate relative placements for the child. There are no viable alternatives to termination. Maintaining the status quo is not a viable alternative in this petition."
The mother filed a timely notice of appeal on November 10, 2022. The father has not appealed.
Issues
The mother argues (1) that the juvenile court erred in finding that
DHR had used reasonable efforts to rehabilitate her and to reunite her with the child and that those efforts had failed and (2) that the judgment terminating her parental rights is not supported by sufficient evidence.
Standards of Review
Whether the Department of Human Resources must use reasonable efforts to reunite a parent and child is a question of law that this court reviews de novo, without any presumption of correctness. Cf. J.W. v. C.B., 68 So.3d 878, 879 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011).
A judgment terminating parental rights must be supported by clear and convincing evidence, which is "'"[e]vidence that, when weighed against evidence in opposition, will produce in the mind of the trier of fact a firm conviction as to each essential element of the claim and a high probability as to the correctness of the conclusion."'" C.O. v. Jefferson Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 206 So.3d 621, 627 (Ala. Civ. App. 2016) (quoting L.M. v. D.D.F., 840 So.2d 171, 179 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002), quoting in turn Ala. Code 1975, § 6-11-20(b)(4)).
"'[T]he evidence necessary for appellate affirmance of a judgment based on a factual finding in the context of a case in which the ultimate standard for a factual decision by the trial court is clear and convincing evidence is evidence that a fact-finder reasonably could find to clearly and convincingly ... establish the fact sought to be proved.'
"KGS Steele, Inc. [v. McInish], 47 So.3d [749,] 761 (Ala. Civ. App. 2006).
"... [F]or trial courts ruling ... in civil cases to which a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard of proof applies, 'the judge must view the evidence presented through the prism of the substantive evidentiary burden' [Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 254 (1986)]; thus, the appellate court must also look through a prism to determine whether there was substantial evidence before the trial court to support a factual finding, based upon the trial court's weighing of the evidence, that would 'produce in the mind [of the trial court] a firm conviction as to each element of the claim and a high probability as to the correctness of the conclusion.'"Ex parte McInish, 47 So.3d 767, 778 (Ala. 2008). This court does not reweigh the evidence but, rather, determines whether the findings of fact made by the juvenile court are supported by evidence that the juvenile court could have found to be clear and convincing. See Ex parte T.V., 971 So.2d 1, 9 (Ala. 2007). When those findings rest on ore tenus evidence, this court presumes their correctness. Id.
Analysis
I. Reasonable Efforts
The federal Adoption and Safe Families Act ("the ASFA"), 42 U.S.C. § 671 et seq., generally requires a state child-welfare agency receiving federal financial assistance to adopt and implement certain standards designed to limit the time that a dependent child spends in foster care. See T.W. v. Calhoun Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., [Ms. CL-2022-0694, June 2, 2023] ___So. 3d___,___ (Ala. Civ. App. 2023) (citing Ramesh Kasarabada, Fostering the Human Rights of Youth in Foster Care: Defining Reasonable Efforts to Improve Consequences of Aging Out, 17 CUNY L. Rev. 145, 157 (2013)). Section 671(a)(15)(B)(ii) generally requires a state seeking federal funding to "have a plan" requiring the use of reasonable efforts "to preserve and reunify families" and "to make it possible for a child to safely return to the child's home"; however, 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(15)(D)(iii) provides that the state plan shall also provide that reasonable efforts at family reunification "shall not be required to be made with respect to a parent of a child if a court of competent jurisdiction has determined that ... the parental rights of the parent to a sibling have been terminated involuntarily." Alabama follows the ASFA by generally requiring that the Alabama Department of Human Resources and its county agencies use reasonable efforts to reunite foster children with their families, see Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-312(b), but by also providing, as an exception to the general rule, that reasonable efforts are not required with respect to a parent when that parent's parental rights to a sibling of the child have been "involuntarily terminated." See Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-312(c)(1). At issue in this case is whether that exception applies.
The mother does not dispute that her parental rights to N.L.H., the child's older sibling, were terminated in a judgment entered by the juvenile court on February 25, 2021. The mother argues, however, that the judgment terminating her parental rights was not an "involuntary" termination. The judgment recites that, on the second day of the trial on the petition to terminate her parental rights to N.L.H., the mother submitted to the juvenile court an executed consent to the termination of her parental rights, along with a consent to the adoption of N.L.H. The judgment indicates that the juvenile court received the consents and then excused the mother from further participation in the trial. After receiving further evidence, the juvenile court concluded the trial and entered a judgment terminating the mother's parental rights. The mother maintains that, based on those circumstances, § 12-15-312(c)(1) did not relieve DHR of its duty to make reasonable efforts to reunite her with the child because the termination of her parental rights to N.L.H. should be considered voluntary. We disagree.
In State in Interest of S.R., 112 So.3d 264, 266 (La. Ct. App. 2012), the parents of a child responded to a petition to terminate their parental rights by stipulating that the allegations in the petition were true and consenting to the entry of a judgment granting the petition. When a second child of the same parents was taken into custody by a Louisiana child-welfare agency, the agency argued that it did not have to use reasonable efforts to reunite the parents with the second child based on La. Child. Code Ann. art. 672.1.C(4), a statute that excuses the duty to make reasonable efforts when "[t]he parental rights of the parent to a sibling have been terminated involuntarily." A Louisiana juvenile court determined that the statute applied and excused the Louisiana childwelfare agency from making any further efforts to reunite the second child with the parents. The parents appealed.
On appeal, the Louisiana Court of Appeal considered the issue to be whether the stipulation and consent made by the parents in the termination proceeding regarding the first child had "converted that involuntary termination proceeding into a voluntary termination of their parental rights." State in Interest of S.R., 112 So.3d at 267. The court determined that the Louisiana Children's Code distinguished between a proceeding for the involuntary termination of parental rights and a proceeding for the voluntary relinquishment of parental rights for the purpose of adoption. The parents' stipulation and consent were entered in the former type of proceeding, which had been initiated by the filing of a petition to terminate parental rights, not a petition for adoption. Under Louisiana law, once a petition to terminate parental rights has been filed, a parent may consent to the grounds for termination by personally appearing before the juvenile court and being informed of the import of the consent and consenting knowingly and voluntarily; however, the Louisiana Court of Appeal held that that does not transform the proceeding into a voluntary-relinquishment proceeding. Thus, the Louisiana Court of Appeal affirmed the order entered by the Louisiana juvenile court that dispensed with the requirement that reasonable efforts be used.
Like the Louisiana Children's Code, the Alabama Code of 1975 provides for the involuntary termination of parental rights and for the voluntarily relinquishment of a child for adoption, through two separate statutory schemes. A parent desiring to voluntarily relinquish his or her parental rights to a child for adoption purposes may execute a writing conforming to Ala. Code 1975, § 26-10A-11, signed before one of the persons authorized by Ala. Code 1975, § 26-10A-12. The voluntary- relinquishment form shall then be filed with a probate court, along with the petition for adoption. Ala. Code 1975, § 26-10A-13. Section 12-15-319(a), Ala. Code 1975, on the other hand, provides that a juvenile court may terminate the parental rights of a parent when clear and convincing evidence establishes the statutory grounds for termination. Under § 1215-319, when determining if there are grounds for termination, a juvenile court can and should consider that a parent has consented to termination, see C.C. v. State Dep't of Hum. Res., 984 So.2d 447 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007), or has voluntarily relinquished custody of a child, see § 12-15-319(a)(1) and Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-301(1), but consent or voluntary relinquishment alone, even if made knowingly and voluntarily, is not sufficient to terminate parental rights. See Montgomery Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res. v. N.B., 196 So.3d 1205, 1212 (Ala. Civ. App. 2015). The juvenile court must still base its decision on clear and convincing evidence of grounds for termination, lack of viable alternatives, and the best interests of the child. C.C., supra.
The similarities between Alabama law and Louisiana law on this issue could persuade this court to follow State in Interest of S.R. and hold that, under Alabama law, a termination-of-parental-rights proceeding results in an involuntary termination of a parent's parental rights, regardless of whether the parent has consented to their termination. Our supreme court has already recognized that Alabama law does not endorse the concept of voluntary termination of parental rights based on the mutual consent of the parents. See Ex parte Brooks, 513 So.2d 614 (Ala. 1987). However, we need not decide that issue in this case.
Our review of the entirety of the judgment terminating the mother's parental rights to N.L.H., rather than just the portion emphasized by the mother, reveals that the juvenile court did not base its decision on the mother's consent. That judgment provides, in pertinent part, that DHR had filed a petition to terminate the mother's parental rights to N.L.H. based on her inability to properly care for N.L.H.; that DHR called an expert witness who testified that the mother did not have the mental capacity to properly care for N.L.H.; that, after the juvenile court had received the mother's consent documents, the trial proceeded; and that DHR called a social worker, who testified as to the efforts that had been made to rehabilitate the mother and the negative results of those efforts. The juvenile court expressly determined that the mother could not parent N.L.H. because of her "mental deficiency," and it terminated the mother's parental rights to N.L.H. because it found that she was unable to properly parent the child, that no viable alternatives to termination existed, and that termination of the mother's parental rights would serve the best interests of N.L.H. The juvenile court did not rely on the consent submitted by the mother for its determination. Therefore, the record does not support the premise of the mother's argument that the termination of her parental rights to N.L.H. should be considered voluntary.
Pursuant to § 12-15-312(c)(1), because the juvenile court had involuntarily terminated the mother's parental rights to N.L.H., DHR had no duty to use reasonable efforts to assist the mother with rehabilitating herself and reuniting with the child. DHR nevertheless provided the mother with numerous services designed to assist her with learning how to properly parent a newborn child and to improve her circumstances so that she could safely raise the child. The mother complains that those services did not provide the mother the "intensive support" she needed, but we cannot reverse the judgment on that basis. In M.S. v. Alabama Department of Human Resources, 33 So.3d 1241, 1245 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009), this court determined that, when DHR has no duty to use reasonable efforts, any language in a judgment purporting to find that reasonable efforts were made and that those efforts had failed is "surplusage because, not being a matter that DHR was required to prove, it was not necessary to the judgment." Although it appears that DHR did not make this argument to the juvenile court, "this Court will affirm the trial court on any valid legal ground presented by the record, regardless of whether that ground was considered, or even if it was rejected, by the trial court." Liberty Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. University of Alabama Health Servs. Found., P.C., 881 So.2d 1013, 1020 (Ala. 2003). Therefore, we find no basis for reversing the judgment due to the alleged failure of DHR to use reasonable efforts to rehabilitate the mother.
II. Sufficiency of the Evidence
To sustain a judgment terminating parental rights, the record must contain a sufficient quantum and quality of evidence from which the juvenile court could have been clearly convinced that DHR had proven grounds for termination and the lack of any viable alternatives. See Ex parte T.V., 971 So.2d 1 (Ala. 2007). In this case, the mother argues that the judgment should be reversed because the juvenile court did not receive sufficient evidence of the grounds for termination set forth in the judgment and because the juvenile court did not exhaust all viable alternatives.
In the October 2022 judgment, the juvenile court found that "[t]he mother's ability to function as a parent [wa]s not high enough to permit her to raise a child alone." The juvenile court further found that "[t]he conduct or condition of [the mother] render[ed] [her] unable to properly ca[r]e for the child" and that "that conduct or condition [wa]s unlikely to change in the foreseeable future." Finally, the juvenile court found that "[t]he mother's low parental capability render[ed] her unable to care for the needs of the child." The record contains sufficient evidence to support those findings.
Before the child was born, DHR had been working with the mother for over two years to help her learn how to properly parent N.L.H. Those efforts did not overcome the evidence indicating a mental deficiency that led the juvenile court to terminate the mother's parental rights to N.L.H. When the child was born, DHR became concerned that the mother would not be able to meet the child's basic needs. DHR supervised the mother frequently during the first few days of the life of the child, guiding her on proper feeding, bathing, and sleeping techniques. Candyce Hughston, a DHR supervisor who had been involved with the mother for "at least a year" leading up to the child's birth on July 13, 2021, testified that the mother did not demonstrate the ability to care for the child independently and safely, which, she said, had led DHR to obtain a pickup order and to place the child into foster care.
Lacey Reid, a family-support specialist, testified that she had worked with the mother once a month to meet three main goals: preparing the mother's home for the child, educating the mother on how to properly care for the child, and assisting the mother with managing a household budget. Although the program was designed for 12 months, Reid had specially requested to extend the resources provided to the mother to almost 3 years, from 2019 through April 2022. In May 2022, Reid determined that she had exhausted her efforts to aid the mother and that the mother needed more intensive and more frequent services from a parenting professional to reach her goals. Reid testified that, by the last visit in April 2022, the mother had done everything she could do within her ability to improve her child-rearing skills and that she had made some progress but that the improvements were not enough for the mother to adequately parent the child, although Reid also testified that the mother demonstrated proper parenting skills while being observed.
Akeyla Holifield, who is a parent instructor with Easter Seals West Alabama, testified that she had worked with the mother from August 2021 to May 2022. Holifield testified that she had provided services to the mother that were focused on developing parent-child interaction skills, development-centered parenting skills, and family well-being skills. She stated that the mother had failed to attend any of the scheduled meetings in January, February, March, and May 2022 and that she was unsure about the number of appointments the mother had attended in April 2022. Holifield testified that, as a result of the number of consecutively missed appointments by the mother, the services being provided to the mother were terminated by the end of May 2022. When asked specifically if, considering the progress the mother had made between July 2021 and May 2022, she believed that the mother was capable of successfully parenting the child, Holifield expressed her opinion that, as of May 2022, the mother was not able to do so.
Takeisha Knox, a DHR caseworker, testified that she was assigned to the mother's case in February 2022. Knox testified that, in February 2022, she asked the mother to bring specific items to her visitations with the child, but, she said, the mother had seldom complied with that request. Knox testified that, to assist the mother with developing a sense of responsibility and to ensure that the child's needs were met, each week she provided the mother with a "letter of requested items," detailing the items that the mother was expected to bring to the next scheduled visit, such as baby bottles, diapers, and formula. According to Knox, although she had provided the letter to the mother each week, the mother had failed to bring any of the listed items during March 2022. Knox testified that, when asked about her failure to bring the items, the mother had provided explanations such as waking up late, being unable to visit the store to purchase the items, or having to prioritize bill payments. When asked if she had ever told Knox that she could not afford to provide any of the items listed on the weekly letter because she "had to pay [her] bills," the mother responded affirmatively. In addressing the mother's capability to care for the child, Knox categorically asserted that the mother was "[a]bsolutely not" capable of caring for the child. Additionally, Hughston testified that, although the mother had demonstrated some progress, she remained unable to adequately care for the child and had not satisfactorily completed the required services.
The foregoing evidence establishes that, despite years of in-home services and parenting assistance, the mother had not reached a point where she could assume custody of the child. The two independent professionals who had engaged with the mother testified that, based on their personal observations of her and their assessment of her progress, the mother could not presently care for the child properly. The DHR social workers also testified that the mother could not perform simple tasks and had not demonstrated an ability to care for the child properly. Given the length of time and the efforts expended to assist the mother, the juvenile court reasonably could have been clearly convinced that the mother would likely remain unable to parent the child into the foreseeable future. The mother suggests that she would have been able to progress faster and more thoroughly with more intensive services, but, as we concluded above, DHR had no duty to provide those services or even to maintain the existing services for a longer period in the hope that the mother would eventually reach her goals.
The mother also claims that the evidence was not sufficient because DHR did not send the mother to a psychologist to assess the cause of her parenting deficiencies. The mother correctly points out that the record contains no definitive diagnosis of the condition that has prevented the mother from learning how to properly parent the child. The mother maintains that, had DHR had her assessed by a psychologist, DHR would have been able to more closely tailor its services toward resolving the issues preventing the mother from learning to properly care for the child. Although that may be true, we reiterate that DHR had no duty to assist the mother with her rehabilitation. Accordingly, the key inquiry in this case is whether sufficient evidence sustains the findings of the juvenile court despite the absence of a definitive diagnosis of the underlying condition inhibiting the mother from parenting the child.
This court has never held that a juvenile court must identify the precise cause of a parenting incapacity. Section 12-15-319(a)(2) provides that, when assessing whether there are grounds for termination, a juvenile court shall consider the "nature and duration" of a mental condition that renders a parent unable to care for the needs of a child. In construing that provision, this court has held that a juvenile court cannot terminate the parental rights of a parent who has a psychological, mental, or intellectual deficiency without concrete evidence demonstrating that the condition prevents the parent from properly caring for his or her child. See C.S.B. v. State Dep't of Hum. Res., 26 So.3d 426 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009); M.H. v. Jefferson Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 42 So.3d 1291 (Ala. Civ. App. 2010); T.J. v. Calhoun Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 116 So.3d 1168 (Ala. Civ. App. 2013) (plurality opinion); R.F.W. v. Cleburne Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 70 So.3d 1270 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011) (plurality opinion). However, those cases do not support any contention that a juvenile court must first ascertain the exact diagnosis of the condition to satisfy the clear-and-convincing evidentiary standard. As a majority of the court ruled in C.S.B., a juvenile court can determine that a parent suffers from an obvious mental deficit without expert testimony. Similarly, a juvenile court can also determine that a mental or psychological condition renders a parent unable to meet the needs of a child without expert testimony defining the condition so long as other evidence supports its determination. In this case, considering the testimony of the witnesses as summarized above, we conclude that the juvenile court received sufficient evidence to support its factual findings that the mother's condition was of such a nature and duration that it rendered her unable to properly parent the child regardless of the lack of a diagnosis or scientific description of the cause of that condition.
Finally, the mother argues that, as a viable alternative to termination of her parental rights, the juvenile court should have left the child in foster care while, with DHR's assistance, she progressed toward reunification. As we have already held, however, DHR had no duty to use reasonable efforts to rehabilitate the mother, so this argument lacks merit. In some of this court's cases, in which a parent is close to completing rehabilitation, this court has reversed judgments terminating parental rights with directions for the juvenile court to allow the parent to finish the rehabilitation process and then to assess whether the parent could be reunited with his or her child at that time. See, e.g., K.J. v. S.P., 78 So.3d 994, 997 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011); J.R.L. v. M.B., 86 So.3d 398, 404 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011) (plurality opinion). In this case, however, the evidence does not support any finding that the mother's rehabilitation was imminent. The mother had consistently demonstrated the inability to properly care for a child since at least 2019 and, although she had made some progress, no evidence suggested that she would be able to independently care for the child in the foreseeable future with or without aid from DHR. The juvenile court could have determined that maintenance of the status quo was not a viable alternative to the termination of the mother's parental rights, especially considering that the child had bonded with her foster parents, who intended to adopt her. See M.W. v. Houston Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 773 So.2d 484, 487 (Ala. Civ. App. 2000) (indicating that a child's need for permanency and stability must overcome a parent's fruitless attempts at rehabilitation).
Conclusion
We conclude that the juvenile court did not commit any reversible error in terminating the parental rights of the mother. Therefore, we affirm the judgment.
AFFIRMED.
Thompson, P.J., and Edwards, Hanson, and Fridy, JJ., concur.