In re T/R/E/M Children

[Cite as In re T/R/E/M Children, 2019-Ohio-1427.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO
HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO
IN RE: T/R/E/M Children : APPEAL NO. C-180703
TRIAL NO. F13-1187z
:
: O P I N I O N.
Appeal From: Hamilton County Juvenile Court
Judgment Appealed From Is: Affirmed
Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: April 17, 2019
Roger W. Kirk, for Appellant Mother,
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Patsy Bradbury,
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Appellee Hamilton County Department of Job
and Family Services,
Raymond T. Faller, Hamilton County Public Defender, and Marianne Jones Ford,
Assistant Public Defender, Guardian ad Litem for minor children.
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
BERGERON, Presiding Judge.
{¶1} In this parental termination case, guardians ad litem appointed for
both Mother and her children took the position below that her parental rights should
be terminated. Those conclusions comport with the evidence contained in the
record, which chronicles a multitude of problems that ultimately led to the
termination decision. While the circumstances are certainly unfortunate, we fully
believe that the best interests of the children will be served by placing them in the
custody of the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services (“HCJFS”),
and we accordingly affirm the trial court’s decision.
I.
{¶2} This case involves a mother and her eight young children. Both fathers
are effectively out of the picture—neither showed any interest in reunification
services and both failed to visit their children in over a year.
{¶3} HCJFS first came into contact with Mother and her children after two
of her children were diagnosed with “failure to thrive” and were so dangerously
underweight that they had to receive food through IVs to help gain weight. After this
incident, HCJFS met with Mother to discuss the children’s medical needs,
emphasizing that the health of the two malnourished children would not get better
unless Mother took the children to appointments and picked up the prescribed
formula. Notwithstanding this meeting, the weight of the two children failed to
improve; at one point, they weighed so little that they fell off the applicable growth
chart. The doctor’s urgent requests to ensure that the children met their physical
caloric needs and to obtain the prescribed formula appeared continually lost on
Mother.
{¶4} After these events, in May 2013, HCJFS filed a complaint for
temporary custody, alleging that four of Mother’s children were abused, neglected,
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and dependent. During the pendency of the case, Mother gave birth to her fifth
child, and HCJFS amended the complaint to include that child. At various hearings,
the magistrate heard testimony regarding Mother’s inability to address the special
needs of her children, which jeopardized their health. In November 2013, the
magistrate adjudicated two of the children abused and neglected and all other
children dependent, thereby granting HCJFS temporary custody of all five children.
{¶5} Less than a year later, Mother regained custody of her children with
orders of protective supervision for a 19-month stint. However, after an incident
involving her six- and seven-year-old children, where employees of Findlay Market
found the children wandering alone afterhours, HCJFS filed for temporary custody
of Mother’s children for the second time. Mother was subsequently convicted for
child endangerment for this episode.
{¶6} By August 2016, the magistrate had adjudicated Mother’s then-seven
children dependent, based on Mother’s continued inability to grasp the extraordinary
needs of her children. In addition to what we have surveyed above, Mother’s oldest
child exhibited significant behavioral problems, including assaulting school staff and
attempting to flee the school, and he exhibited emotional disabilities and ADHD
symptoms. Despite these problems, once necessitating the child’s hospitalization,
Mother described the child as mature and entrusted him to care for his siblings. She
also rebuffed the need for prescribed medication to address his conditions.
{¶7} Mother responded in similar vein to the special needs of her two
children who have cerebral palsy, necessitating speech, occupational, and physical
therapy. Mother contested their attendance at therapy so vehemently that the court
intervened to obtain the needed medication and surgeries. On another occasion,
Mother failed to pick up their prescribed leg braces. Based on Mother’s reoccurring
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incapacity to address her children’s needs, the court granted HCJFS temporary
custody once again of all seven children.
{¶8} In June 2017, seeing no improvement on the horizon, HCJFS filed for
permanent custody of all Mother’s children, adding Mother’s eighth child to the
complaint after his birth. The extensive hearings included similar testimony
concerning Mother’s inability to understand or respond to the special needs of her
children. Uncontrolled behavioral problems arose as well. During scheduled visits
at Family Nurturing Center, for instance, Mother could not manage the children’s
often violent behaviors, including hitting, kicking, running away from the visiting
space, and throwing things at other siblings. After the Family Nurturing Center staff
had to place two of the children in a therapeutic hold on multiple occasions to
prevent injury to themselves and others, the visits were split between the eight
children to provide a more manageable and safer environment. But Mother’s
behavior became disruptive at times as well, and combined with the children’s
behavioral problems, prompted Family Nurturing Center to suspend visits for a time.
{¶9} After considering the testimony concerning Mother’s failure to
comprehend the extraordinary needs of her children and inability to manage the
children, even after HCJFS provided services to address those issues, the magistrate
granted permanent custody to HCJFS. Upon reviewing the magistrate’s decision and
hearing from Mother’s guardian ad litem that she does not “believe it’s in the
mother’s best interest to have the children remanded to her,” the juvenile court
upheld granting permanent custody to HCJFS. Mother appeals this order
terminating her parental rights, claiming it is in the best interests of the children to
be raised by her.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
II.
{¶10} On appeal, Mother’s sole assignment of error challenges the weight
and sufficiency of the evidence presented to support the juvenile court’s decision to
award permanent custody to HCJFS. A juvenile court’s determination on a motion
for permanent custody must be supported by clear and convincing evidence. In re
W.W., 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-110363 and C-110402, 2011-Ohio-4912, ¶ 46. We
review the weight and sufficiency challenges through slightly different lenses.
{¶11} When reviewing a challenge to the manifest weight of the evidence, we
must find that the juvenile court lost its way and created such a manifest miscarriage
of justice that we must reverse the judgment and order a new hearing. In re A.B.,
G.B., and J.B., 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-150307 and C-150310, 2015-Ohio-3247, ¶
16. In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we must scrutinize the
record to determine if the juvenile court had sufficient evidence on each element
before it to satisfy the clear-and-convincing standard mandated under R.C. 2151.414.
Id. at ¶ 15.
{¶12} We start from the premise that children have a basic right to be raised
by their natural family, and for that reason, termination of parental rights should be
invoked only as a measure of last resort. R.C. 2151.414 supplies the statutory
framework for us to evaluate the propriety of the termination of parental rights.
Under R.C. 2151.414(B)(1), a juvenile court may grant permanent custody of a child
to an agency if the court determines by clear and convincing evidence that (1)
permanent custody is in the child’s best interest and (2) one of the circumstances
provided in R.C. 2151.414(B)(1)(a) through (e) applies. In re J.G.S., 1st Dist.
Hamilton Nos. C-180611 and C-180619, 2019-Ohio-802, ¶ 34. The court must
consider all relevant factors within R.C. 2151.414(D)(1) to determine whether
permanent custody is in the best interest of the child.
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{¶13} On the best-interest inquiry, Mother insists that the best interests of
the children will be served in her custody because she is a loving parent and she
understands the special needs of her children. The juvenile court, however, walked
through each of the best-interest factors, and chronicled clear and convincing
evidence that granting permanent custody to HCJFS was in the children’s best
interest.
{¶14} To highlight a few of the factors identified by the juvenile court, the
court emphasized Mother’s lack of contact with her children. She has not visited her
children in over a year (with one exception), and when she did visit previously, she
engaged in such disruptive behavior and created such risks of harm to the children
that Family Nurturing Center had to suspend all visits for a time because it could no
longer offer a safe environment for the visits. See R.C. 2151.414(D)(1)(a). More to
the point, the children capable of expressing a view declared that they would prefer
to remain with their foster families than with Mother, and the GAL appointed for the
children echoed that sentiment. See R.C. 2151.414(D)(1)(b).
{¶15} The juvenile court also considered the custodial history of the children,
emphasizing that seven of the children have been in the temporary custody of HCJFS
for more than 12 months. See R.C. 2151.414(D)(1)(c). Further, the juvenile court
stressed the children’s need for legally secure placement based on their young ages
and Mother’s little progress in understanding or providing for her children’s
extraordinary needs. See R.C. 2151.414(D)(1)(d).
{¶16} Reinforcing this evidence, Mother’s guardian ad litem ultimately
acknowledged that she agreed with the magistrate’s decision and believed permanent
custody with HCJFS was in the best interests of the children. See R.C.
2151.414(D)(1)(b). While not dispositive, this conclusion is certainly worthy of
weight in the best-interest analysis.
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{¶17} Turning to the second half of the analysis, the juvenile court elected to
utilize R.C. 2151.414(B)(1)(a), finding that the children cannot be placed with either
parent within a reasonable time and should not be placed with either parent. To
reach this result, the court had to consider the criteria established by R.C.
2151.414(E), which delineates several factors, at least one of which must be present.
{¶18} In this case, the juvenile court found by clear and convincing evidence
that following the placement of all eight children outside their home, and despite
reasonable case-planning efforts by HCJFS to assist Mother in remedying the
conditions that led to the removal, Mother failed to remedy the underlying
conditions that prompted the placement at the outset. See R.C. 2151.414(E)(1).
While Mother asserts that she did everything asked of her under the case plan, R.C.
2151.414(E)(1) concerns itself not with adherence to a case plan, but with the parents’
ability to substantially remedy the conditions that caused the children to be removed
from their home in the first place. In re W Children, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-
180620, 2019-Ohio-690, ¶ 39 and 41.
{¶19} At the heart of this case lies Mother’s inability or failure to address the
special needs of her children, in addition to a litany of problems noted above. The
record overflows with evidence of the children’s significant needs. Malnourishment,
cerebral palsy, and behavioral issues have confronted her children. After repeated
failures by Mother to attend medical appointments, HCJFS intentionally met with
Mother, emphasizing that the children’s health depended on Mother getting the
children to their scheduled appointments and obtaining their prescribed medication.
Yet this advice fell on deaf ears, as the children’s weight did not improve and hit a
weight so low that it was not on the growth chart. Although the doctors continued to
show concern, noting that both children “appeared emaciated” and “showed very
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
little interaction,” Mother repeatedly forgot to pick up the children’s prescribed
formula.
{¶20} Even after Mother began parenting-education courses, mental-health
treatment, and other case-management services, she still did not grasp the
significance of addressing her children’s needs. The two oldest children both have
multiple disabilities, including ADHD, PTSD, and oppositional defiant disorder. In
the face of violent behavior by one of the children, Mother continued to claim that he
did not need his prescribed medication. Mother’s inability to handle her children’s
significant special needs became even more apparent when visits at Family
Nurturing Center were suspended, despite the four or five facilitators present to help
control Mother and the children’s outbursts.
{¶21} Regardless of the extent Mother utilized and completed the services,
clear and convincing evidence supports that Mother demonstrated little or no benefit
from them and has not substantially remedied the conditions that caused her
children to be removed from her home in the first place. See R.C. 2151.414(E)(1).
{¶22} Sufficient evidence supports the juvenile court’s findings that one of
the conditions set forth in R.C. 2151.414(B)(1) applied to each child. Moreover, we
cannot conclude that the court lost its way or committed a manifest miscarriage of
justice in resolving that permanent custody be granted to HCJFS based on our
review of the record.
{¶23} Following our review of these unfortunate circumstances, clear and
convincing evidence supports the juvenile court’s findings, and the court’s decision is
not against the manifest weight of the evidence. We accordingly overrule Mother’s
sole assignment of error and affirm the juvenile court’s judgment.
Judgment affirmed.
CROUSE and WINKLER, JJ., concur.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Please note:
The court has recorded its own entry on the date of the release of this opinion.
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