In the Interest of L.C., Minor Child ( 2022 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 21-1942
Filed March 30, 2022
IN THE INTEREST OF L.C.,
Minor Child,
D.H., Mother,
Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Union County, Monty W. Franklin,
District Associate Judge.
A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to a child.
AFFIRMED.
Shireen L. Carter of Shireen Carter Law Office, PLC, Norwalk, for appellant
mother.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Ellen Ramsey-Kacena, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee State.
Meggen Weeks, Afton, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor child.
Considered by Bower, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Chicchelly, JJ.
2
VAITHESWARAN, Judge.
A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to a child born in
2014.1 She does not challenge the grounds for termination cited by the district
court. She simply contends termination “was not in the child’s best interests.” See
Iowa Code § 232.116(2); In re L.B., 2022 WL 495312, at *1, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___
(Iowa 2022) (“The paramount concern in a termination proceeding is the child's
best interests.”).
The mother was involved with welfare agencies in two States. Initially, the
State of Nebraska ordered the child removed from her custody based on her
methamphetamine use and “severe” domestic violence episodes. The child
remained out of her mother’s care for approximately two and a half years.
The State of Iowa filed a child-in-need-of-assistance petition in 2019, citing
the mother’s admission to methamphetamine use and the child’s “observations of
drug use by her parents.” The mother had already agreed to removal of the child
from her custody. She also stipulated to the child’s adjudication as a child in need
of assistance.
The mother entered a residential substance-abuse treatment program, but
the department of human services reported she left “treatment unsuccessfully”
after just twenty days “due to her aggressive behaviors.” She subsequently went
“in and out of outpatient treatment.”
1 The juvenile court terminated the father’s parental rights in response to an earlier
termination petition. The court of appeals affirmed the order. See In re L.C.,
No. 21-0891, 2021 WL 3660871, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 18, 2021).
3
Eventually, the mother entered another inpatient treatment program and
was “successfully discharged” from that program. She followed up with extended
outpatient treatment. The department employee assigned to the case testified the
mother was “headed in [the] direction” of reunification. Indeed, the department
reported she was “doing excellent” and “multiple providers [were] contacting the
department to ask that [she] be allowed another chance.” Given these
encouraging developments, the department advocated for “more time” to facilitate
reunification with the child. But the department cautioned the mother, “[o]ne little
thing could end it because this has gone on so long, and we have seen this pattern
of kind of sobriety and then using again, sobriety, using again.” The district court
approved the request for more time.
The department afforded the mother semi-supervised visits with her child.
Then, in preparation for a transition to overnight visits, the department
administered a sweat patch test. That test was positive for methamphetamine.
The department renewed its request for termination of parental rights, reasoning:
It is clear that [the mother] care[s] deeply for [the child], however it is
concerning that [the mother] seems to be participating in a pattern
that has been established early in this case and in their Nebraska
case. [The mother] has a stable home, a stable job, and a newly
established support system within her church. [The mother] was
believed to be sober, however the positive drug screen is extremely
concerning considering [the mother’s] substance abuse history and
the length of this case.
A department supervisor testified, “the positive drug screen, . . . that was kind of
the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The department noted that the child had
“been in foster care for 28 months in Iowa and just as long in Nebraska,” resulting
in “more than half of her seven years of life in and out of home placement.”
4
The district court agreed. The court stated:
For eighteen months after [the child] was removed, [the mother]
ignored her parental responsibilities and obligations to [the child] and
only when the threat of termination of her parental rights was
imminent did she take those responsibilities and obligations
seriously. And after termination of her parental rights was taken off
the table by dismissal of the termination Petition concerning her, [the
mother] once again tested positive for the use of methamphetamine.
This is exactly what transpired following [the child’s] removal in
Nebraska. It is time to end this pattern and eliminate the stress,
emotional harm, drama, and trauma from [the child’s] life and give
her the opportunity to be a child without these damaging concerns.
[The child’s] need for safety, certainty, structure, consistency,
stability, and permanency far outweighs any potential negative
effects that might be caused by termination of [the mother’s] parental
rights.
On appeal, the mother “acknowledges that her progress in this case has
been inconsistent.” Nonetheless, she suggests her improved circumstances
militate in favor of giving her another chance. She dismisses the positive sweat
patch test as “unreliable in the circumstances of this case specifically due to [her]
work environment and employment conditions,” and she asserts she was
otherwise “able, safe, and appropriate to have [the child] returned to her care on
the day of the termination proceedings.”
The district court rejected the argument that the mother’s exposure to paint
and chemicals at work could have resulted in a positive drug test. The court
reasoned:
[I]f a sweat patch has been exposed to outside contamination, it may
show positive for methamphetamine but not amphetamine, and the
only way a sweat patch test result will show positive for both
methamphetamine and amphetamine is if the person has had
methamphetamine in their body which has been metabolized or
broken down to produce amphetamine. Therefore [the mother’s]
explanation for the positive test is not credible and she had to have
used methamphetamine for the result of sweat patch test to be
positive for methamphetamine and for amphetamine.
5
The court’s findings are supported by the testimony of the department supervisor,
who stated, “In speaking with a doctor who does the screening . . . [,] some sort of
contaminant would only show a presence of methamphetamine and not
amphetamine. A person or individual would have had to have metabolized that
methamphetamine to show the presence of amphetamine.”
On our de novo review, we agree with the district court that the child’s safety
would have been compromised had the child been returned to her mother’s
custody. In other words, termination was in the child’s best interests.
AFFIRMED.