Summary
affirming termination of parental rights where mother was twice unsuccessfully discharged from outpatient substance abuse treatment, refused inpatient treatment, and was arrested four times while under Department supervision
Summary of this case from B.A. v. Fla. Dep't of Children & FamiliesOpinion
Case No. 4D02-4258.
Opinion filed June 25, 2003.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Indian River County; Paul B. Kanarek, Judge; L.T. Case Nos. 01-198 02-164.
Dawn G. Kirk, Fort Pierce, for appellant.
Crystal Y. Yates-Hammond, Fort Pierce, for appellee.
This case involves two siblings, D.C. and M.C., and an appeal by S.J., their mother, from the Order of Adjudication and Judgement [sic] of Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights of D.C. and M.C. We affirm the order as to D.C., but reverse as to M.C. and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
We affirm the termination of parental rights as to D.C. because S.J. failed to comply with the case plan presented by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF). We reverse the termination with respect to M.C., however, because S.J. was never given a case plan, nor was it shown by DCF that termination of her rights with respect to this child was the least restrictive means of protecting M.C. DCF acknowledges that S.J. had only seven months to comply with the case plan given to her for D.C. before the hearing terminating her rights to M.C. took place.
Section 39.806(1)(e), Florida Statutes (2001) requires that a parent be given twelve months within which to substantially comply with a case plan after a child has been adjudicated dependent. See § 39.806(1)(e), Fla. Stat. (2001); C.C. v. Dep't of Children Family Servs., 812 So.2d 520 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002). Here, there was not, and could not have been, evidence that M.C. was abused or neglected for a period of twelve months or that appellant failed to provide for the well being of this child because the child was taken from appellant four days after her birth. The only allegation of abuse or neglect with respect to M.C. was a single positive drug test of appellant during her pregnancy. This was not sufficient to terminate appellant's parental rights to M.C. See C.C., 812 So.2d at 522-23 (noting that "[a] parent's substance abuse alone does not establish `prospective neglect'"); see also In re C.W.W., 788 So.2d 1020, 1023-24 (Fla.2d DCA 2001) (holding the fact that a mother exposed a child to a controlled substance during pregnancy does not establish that her rights should be terminated under section 39.806(1)(c)). Although it is true that "the permanent termination of a parent's rights in one child under circumstances involving abuse or neglect may serve as grounds for permanently severing the parent's rights in a different child," see Padgett v. Department of Health Rehabilitative Services, 577 So.2d 565, 571 (Fla. 1991), appellant's rights to D.C. were not terminated prior to the termination of her rights to M.C.
Even assuming, as DCF argues, that the case plan with respect to D.C. applied as well to M.C., appellant was not given the statutory twelve-month period within which to comply. As a result, we affirm the order terminating appellant's parental rights to D.C., but reverse that part of the order that applies to M.C. and remand for appellant to be given a case plan for this child.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED.
FARMER, and KLEIN, JJ., concur.