SUMMARY: The court upheld the juvenile court’s order terminating a father’s parental rights to both children where the child who suffered the alleged abuse was under the father’s care when the alleged abuse occurred. The injuries were of a type that would not have normally occurred in the absence of abuse, the father admitted to squeezing the child, and “he was convicted of child abuse for injuring [his child] and sentenced to 12 months in jail as a result.” Although, Jesse had “not yet experienced actual injury or physical harm, a court need not wait certain disaster to come into fruition before taking protective steps in the interest of a minor child.”
A court may terminate a parent’s rights if the parent has “’substantially and continuously or repeatedly neglected and refused to give the juvenile or a sibling of the juvenile necessary parental care and protection.’” A finding of “abuse or neglect may be supported where the record shows (1) a parent’s control over the child during the period when the abuse or neglect occurred and (2) multiple injuries or other serious impairment of health has occurred which ordinarily would not occur in the absence of abuse or neglect.” There was clear and convincing “proof that the neglect and failure to protect Gracie provided grounds for termination of Andrew’s parental rights to Gracie’s sibling, Jesse.” There was testimony that Gracie’s injuries occurred during a time where Gracie was not under anyone else’s care besides the parents, and no evidence was introduced to indicated that anyone else besides the parents could have caused the injuries, and that Gracie’s injuries were not accidental. Also, the father was “convicted of child abuse and sentenced to 12 months in jail.”
Termination was also found to be in the best interests of the children. Testimony indicated that “there were still barriers to [the father’s] reunification with his children.” The caseworker “could not recommend that the children be returned to” their father because the visits were still supervised, and the father had “only recently acknowledged that his actions could have conceivably injured Gracie, and because [he] was still learning to manage his anger.” The caseworker also testified that the children’s aunt and uncle were “willing to be a permanent home for the children” and that the children call them “’mom and dad.’”
Although, Jesse had “not yet experienced actual injury or physical harm, a court need not wait certain disaster to come into fruition before taking protective steps in the interest of a minor child.” The “severity of Gracie’s injuries” and the father’s lack of progress on the case plan indicates that termination is in both children’s best interests.