In re G.T.

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2016 ME 2
Docket: Pis-15-259
Submitted
On Briefs: November 19, 2015
Decided: January 12, 2016
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, and JABAR, JJ.
IN RE G.T. et al.
SAUFLEY, C.J.
[¶1] The two boys who are the subject of this termination of parental rights
proceeding were ten and twelve years old when the court (Dover-Foxcroft,
Mallonee, J.) held a hearing on the third petition brought by the Department of
Health and Human Services to terminate the parental rights of their parents. Two
prior petitions had been denied, allowing their parents multiple opportunities to
learn how to parent their sons free from violence, hostility, and denigration. By the
time of the third trial, both boys suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and
other serious conditions, and they faced a life limited by their lost opportunity for a
healthy childhood. Their parents appeal from the termination of their parental
rights, challenging the court’s findings of parental unfitness and its determination
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that termination was in each child’s best interest.1 We discern no error or abuse of
discretion and affirm the judgment.
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] This family became involved in a child protection proceeding in 2003,
when G.T. was less than a year old, due to the father’s domestic violence and
mental health issues, and the mother’s neglect. The Department eventually
petitioned for the termination of the parents’ parental rights, but the court
(MacMichael, J.) determined in April 2005 that a termination of parental rights
was not in G.T.’s best interest. The court clarified, however, that the father had a
responsibility to “understand once and for all that he cannot continue his pattern of
domestic violence and denial,” that he must not behave in an abusive manner, and
that he must “do more than pay lip service to what the service providers have been
trying to teach him.” Later in 2005, J.T. was born and was immediately placed in
the Department’s custody.
[¶3] The court considered a subsequent petition for termination of parental
rights, entering a judgment in May 2006. The court found that the father had
1
The mother also argues that, due to an intellectual disability, the termination of her parental rights
violates due process or disabilities law. We do not reach this issue, however, because the court did not
make any finding that the mother was intellectually disabled, and based its judgment on her chronic
failure to protect the children from mistreatment and support them in recovering from the abuse they have
suffered. The mother did not request additional findings after the court entered its judgment, see M.R.
Civ. P. 52(b), and we cannot assume that the court found that the mother was disabled.
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physically disciplined an older child from another relationship in December 2005
by grabbing the front of the child’s jacket and his neck, and that the father had
continued to be unable “to conduct himself in a manner that demonstrates
alternatives to hurtful behavior.” The court found that, although the father had
demonstrated some willingness to participate in services, he had “not demonstrated
an ability to use what he ha[d] been taught.” The court found that he had spoken in
a “loud, angry, and threatening manner” at a meeting held to review a treatment
plan, that he had “used derogatory terms to describe the women professionals
involved in this case and to describe other women in his life,” and that he had
continued “to fail to accept accountability for his actions.”
[¶4] Nonetheless, the court found that the father had a good relationship
with G.T. and determined that the Department had not met its burden to
demonstrate the father’s unfitness. The court ordered the Department to provide
intensive in-home support for the father, and the boys were returned to their
father’s home later in 2006. The mother has lived apart from them, except during
the children’s early lives.
[¶5] The present matter began on November 15, 2013, after G.T. disclosed
at school that his father had physically abused him and his brother, and had
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threatened his life.2 The court (Cuddy, J.) granted the Department’s petition for an
order of preliminary protection requiring the removal the children from the father’s
home and their placement in the Department’s custody. Services were again
provided to the father to help him recognize the effect of his abuse on the children
and become capable of caring for them as they recover from that abuse.
[¶6] After a contested summary preliminary hearing as to the father,3 the
court (Stitham, J.) found that the father had physically and emotionally abused
each of the children. This finding was also reached in a jeopardy order entered
with both parents’ consent. A contested judicial review led to additional findings
by the court (Mallonee, J.) that the father had physically accosted G.T. at an
October 8, 2014, visit and threatened G.T. that he would surrender his parental
rights to him; had continued to be combative toward the Department, blaming the
Department for G.T.’s behavioral issues; and had been hostile in the courtroom.
[¶7] The Department petitioned for termination of the parents’ parental
rights on February 4, 2015. The court held a hearing on the petition two months
later and entered a judgment terminating both parents’ parental rights to the boys
on May 19, 2015. The court found that, despite the father’s participation in
2
The Department’s petition for a child protection order and request for an order of preliminary
protection alleged that the mother was unable to protect the children from the father’s abuse and was not
capable of caring for them independently due to cognitive limitations.
3
The mother waived the right to a summary preliminary hearing.
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services, he continues to relate to others primarily based on anger, fear, and
intimidation, including in the courtroom, and he perceives as hostile anyone who
does not unambiguously appear to him to be an ally. The court found that the
father is unable to protect the boys from jeopardy because he cannot change his
mode of interpersonal relations and behavior to prevent aggravating the children’s
distress. The court found that the children’s mother does not believe she is able to
care for the children, that she has never been able to protect G.T. from
mistreatment, and that she is unable to assist the boys in recovering from their
trauma.
[¶8] The court further found that both children suffer from post-traumatic
stress disorder as a result of their father’s hostile and violent behavior; that G.T.’s
severe needs led to his placement in a residential treatment program after multiple
failed placements; and that J.T., who has lived with his paternal aunt throughout
the proceedings, has developmental delays. Both children have been involved in
child protection proceedings during much of their lives, and as the court found,
they now desperately need safety, stability, and clarity about their futures—goals
that are actively undermined by the possibility of a return to either parent’s care.
[¶9] Ultimately, the court found that both parents were unable to protect the
children from jeopardy and that the circumstances were unlikely to change within a
time that is reasonably calculated to meet either child’s needs, 22 M.R.S.
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§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i) (2015), and it determined that, despite the children’s
affection for their parents, their best interests are served by being freed from these
parental attachments to achieve permanency, see 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a)
(2015). The parents appealed from the court’s judgment.
II. DISCUSSION
[¶10] For a court to terminate parental rights after custody has been
removed from a parent upon a finding of jeopardy, see 22 M.R.S. §§ 4035,
4055(1)(A)(1)(a) (2015), the court must find, by clear and convincing evidence, at
least one ground of parental unfitness, see 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b) (2015),
and that termination was in the child’s best interest, see 22 M.R.S.
§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(a). See In re I.S., 2015 ME 100, ¶ 11, 121 A.3d 105. We review
the entire record to determine whether it “demonstrates that the trial court
rationally could have found clear and convincing evidence in that record to support
the necessary factual findings as to the bases for termination.” In re B.P., 2015
ME 139, ¶ 16, --- A.3d --- (quotation marks omitted). “Evidence is clear and
convincing when the court could reasonably have been persuaded that the required
factual findings were proved to be highly probable.” Id. (quotation marks
omitted).
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A. Unfitness
[¶11] The evidentiary record amply supports the court’s finding that,
although the father was afforded services to assist him in becoming able to care for
his children both during the prior child protection matter and during these
proceedings, he has been unable to curtail his hostile, aggressive, and violent
behavior toward his family and others. See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i); In re
B.P., 2015 ME 139, ¶¶ 3, 10, 19, --- A.3d ---. Specifically, the court heard
testimony that the father continues to blame the Department for what he perceives
as a conspiracy against him, continues to behave in a controlling way toward the
children’s mother, and continues to deny that any issues need to be addressed. The
father has been diagnosed, through a court ordered diagnostic evaluation, with a
personality disorder not otherwise specified with borderline and narcissistic
features based on symptoms including a reactive mood; inappropriate and intense
anger that the father has difficulty controlling; stress-related paranoid ideation; a
lack of empathy; a tendency to exploit others; and arrogant, haughty behaviors and
attitudes. Given the father’s longstanding inability to make use of the years of
services provided to him to change his aggressive and controlling patterns of
behavior, and the tragic evidence of the serious detrimental effect his conduct has
had on his children’s healthy development, the court did not err in finding that the
father is unable to protect the children from jeopardy and that these circumstances
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are unlikely to change within a time reasonably calculated to meet the children’s
needs. See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i); In re Thomas H., 2005 ME 123, ¶¶ 9,
20-21, 889 A.2d 297.
[¶12] The court’s finding of the mother’s unfitness is supported by her
testimony that the children could not live with her at her existing residence and that
they should instead be reunified with their father. Despite the father’s extensive
history of abuse against the mother and these children—some of which the mother
disclosed to others—the mother in her testimony denied that the father had ever
abused the children or her. The court did not err in finding that the mother does
not believe she can care for the boys on her own or in finding that she cannot
protect the boys from their father or help them recover from the abuse they have
suffered in time to meet the boys’ needs. See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i); In
re Thomas H., 2005 ME 123, ¶¶ 9, 20-21, 889 A.2d 297.
B. Best Interests of the Children
[¶13] The court determined that the children were severely troubled by the
lack of permanency in their living situations. See 22 M.R.S. § 4003(4) (2015); In
re B.P., 2015 ME 139, ¶ 19, --- A.3d ---; see also In re Thomas H., 2005 ME 123,
¶¶ 23-30, 889 A.2d 297 (discussing the importance of permanency). The court’s
finding is supported by evidence that J.T. is agitated and prone to violence, that he
is anxious and has difficulty regulating his emotions, and that although he wants to
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return to his father’s home and misses his father, he does not think it would be safe
and fears that he will be abused again.
[¶14] The evidence similarly supports the court’s finding that the father’s
aggressive conduct hindering reunification negatively affected G.T. Specifically,
G.T. was worried, after his father accosted him during a visit at his residential
placement, that his father would never be ready to care for him in his home. The
testimony of G.T. and several other witnesses makes painfully clear that G.T.
wants to live with his father but fears being abused or disappointed, and that
waiting for a final determination has left G.T. anxious and is causing him further
harm.
[¶15] The court did not err in finding that, without termination, the children
would continue to suffer based on a false hope of reunification with parents whose
intractable patterns of conduct prevent them from providing the safety, security,
and permanence that the children demonstrably require. The boys have been
subjected to persistent violence and have been parented by a father whose method
of relating to adults—particularly women—is hostile, violent, controlling, and
entirely dysfunctional. The father has proved unable to change his aggressive
behavior, and the mother cannot protect the children from their father. The court’s
determination that termination of the parents’ parental rights is in each child’s best
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interest is supported by evidence in the record and was well within the court’s
discretion. See In re Thomas H., 2005 ME 123, ¶ 16, 889 A.2d 297.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
On the briefs:
Kimberly C. Cavanagh, Esq., Law Office of Kimberly C.
Cavanagh, Esq., Dover-Foxcroft, for appellant mother
Christopher D. Smith, Esq., Law Office of Christopher D.
Smith, Esq., Dexter, for appellant father
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General and Meghan Szylvian Asst.
Atty. Gen., Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for
appellee Department of Health and Human Services
Dover-Foxcroft District Court docket number PC-2013-21
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY