IN RE: L.F.
C.A. Nos. 27218, 27228
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
September 3, 2014
[Cite as In re L.F., 2014-Ohio-3800.]
BELFANCE, Presiding Judge.
STATE OF OHIO, COUNTY OF SUMMIT. APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT ENTERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS COUNTY OF SUMMIT, OHIO CASE No. DN 12-10-0656
Dated: September 3, 2014
BELFANCE, Presiding Judge.
{1} Appellants, George F. (“Father“) and Jennifer S. (“Mother“), appeal from a judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, that adjudicated their minor child dependent and placed him in the temporary custody of Summit County Children Services Board (“CSB“). Because Father was denied his due process right to have the adjudication and disposition of the minor child conducted within a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner, this Court reverses and remands.
I.
{2} Mother and Father are the natural parents of L.F., born August 31, 2012. CSB made contact with Mother shortly after the birth of L.F. because it had been involved with her several years earlier after the sudden death of another infant child, who was fathered by another man. Although the death of L.F.‘s older half-sibling was ultimately ruled accidental, CSB was concerned that Mother continued to suffer from depression afterward.
{4} On October 6, 2012, however, the grandmother got into a verbal altercation with the parents and threatenеd to move elsewhere with L.F. The police responded to the altercation and removed L.F. from the home pursuant to
{5} On November 5, 2012, CSB filed a prоposed case plan and requested that the trial court journalize it and make it part of the dispositional order for the child. See
{7} The primary focus of CSB‘s dependency case was whether Father‘s history as a sex offender posed a current risk of harm to his infant son. The evidence revealed that the victim of Father‘s 2009 conviction was his then 15-year-old step-daughter, who no longer lived within the vicinity of Father. Shortly after Father‘s release from prison in 2011, an APA sex offender specialist reviewed his record and performed a Static-99 risk assessment, which revealed that Father was at low risk of reoffending. Consequently, the APA did not require him to undergo any further evaluations, nor did it require him to participate in sex offender treatment.
{8} Father‘s parole officer explained that she was not concerned about Father committing a sexual offense against his infant son. The APA witnesses further explained that, after CSB became involved with Father, they supported the agency‘s recommendation that Father undergo a supplemental assessment and comply with any resulting treatment recоmmendations. Father‘s parole officer explained that she was not concerned that Father posed a threat to L.F. but that she agreed with CSB‘s recommendation for supervision to “cover [Father‘s] butt” because “any time a sex offender is around a kid,” people tend to make
{9} The three witnesses who testified about visiting the family home and observing the parents with L.F. expressed no concerns about the condition of the home or the parents’ ability to provide suitable care for L.F. In fact, they testified that L.F. appeared fine and that the parents were meeting his basic needs.
{10} CSB rested its adjudicatory case after presenting the testimony of the APA witnesses and the caseworkers. Notably, CSB had not sought a court order under
{11} Shortly after the adjudicatory hearing, the magistrate issued a brief decision that CSB had failed to prove that L.F. was dependent under
{12} On December 20, 2012, the magistrate issued a more detailed decision, explaining that CSB had failed to demonstrate a lack of parental care or that L.F., an infant boy and Father‘s biological child, was at risk of harm because of Father‘s past sexual offense against a 15-year-old, unrelated female. Based on that finding, the magistrate decided that the complaint should be dismissed. See
{13} That same day, the trial court adopted the magistrate‘s decision. By its terms, the trial court‘s judgment was stayed by CSB‘s timely-filed objection. Seе
{14} For several reasons not clear from the record, the transcript of the adjudicatory hearing was not requested or prepared in a timely manner, postponing the resolution of the objection process by nearly four months. Moreover, after the transcript was filed, CSB supplemented its objection and, for the first time, asked the court to look beyond the evidence presented at the hearing and consider the supplemental assessment that Father had obtained more than five months earlier. It argued that the supplemental assessment should be considered because it was not available at the time of the adjudicatory hearing.
{15} In his brief in opposition to CSB‘s objection, Father argued that CSB failed to meet its burden at the adjudicatory hearing. Moreover, he argued that the parents were being deprived of their due proсess rights because the agency was not making reasonable reunification efforts but was instead dragging out the objection process. He emphasized that, although the magistrate had found that L.F. was not a dependent child more than seven months earlier, their infant child had continued to live in an emergency placement, outside his parents’ custody, for most of his short life.
{16} On July 1, 2013, the trial court found that the supplemental assessment should be considered on adjudication because CSB could not have produced it in time for the adjudicatory hearing. See
{17} During August 2013, the magistrate held a supplemental hearing for CSB to present that evidence. Later that month, the magistrate issued a decision that adjudicated L.F. a
{18} Both parents filed timely written objections to the magistrate‘s 2013 adjudicatory and dispositional decisions. On December 4, 2013, the trial court overruled the parents’ objections and adopted the magistrate‘s decisions, adjudicating L.F. a dependent child, placing him in the temporary custody of CSB, and adopting the original and amended case plans.
{19} Mother and Father separately appealed and their appeals were later consolidated. Because Father‘s second assignmеnt of error has persuaded this Court that he was denied his right to due process in the adjudicatory proceedings, we confine our review accordingly.
II.
THE JUVENILE COURT COMMITTED REVERSIBLE ERROR WHEN IT VIOLATED FATHER‘S RIGHTS TO DUE PROCESS BY ORDERING UNDER THE THEORY OF “NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE” THE CONSIDERATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORTS REQUESTED BY [CSB] MONTHS AFTER THE CHILD WAS REMOVED AND THE DEPENDENCY COMPLAINT WAS FILED.
{20} Father‘s second assignment of error is that he was denied his right to due process in the adjudication of his child. Specifically, he asserts that the trial court did not adjudicate his child within a reasonable time and that it improperly considered additional evidence during the objection process.
{21} This involuntary case began when CSB filed a complaint to allege that L.F. was a dependent child. See
{22} Because parents are entitled to due process during the adjudicatory stage of the proceedings, specific procedural protections are set forth in
Initial Adjudicatory Hearing and Decision
{23} In this case, in the initial 2012 proceedings, the magistrate substantially complied with the requirements of
{24} The trial court adopted the magistrate‘s decision that same day. Because it entered judgment during the 14-day period for filing objections to the magistrate‘s decision under
{25} An objection process will necessarily involve a certain period of time for the court reporter to prepare the transcript, the parties to develop arguments for or against the objections, and the trial court to rule on the objections. We agree with Father, however, that he was deprived of his due process right to have these objections resolved within a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner under the unique facts of this case. We begin by emphasizing that, during the initial objection process, L.F.‘s removal from his parents’ custody was still at the pre-adjudication stage of these proceedings, because the trial court had not definitely decided whether he was a dependent child. In fact, the magistrate had found, and the trial court had tentatively agreed, that L.F. was not dependent and that the complaint should be dismissed.
{26} Although the parents had agreed at the Octobеr 2012 shelter care hearing to allow CSB to remove L.F. from their custody on an “emergency basis,” that removal was “directed toward the prompt resolution of emergency custody issues” and focused on “the immediate safety and protection of [the child].” In re Careuthers, 9th Dist. Summit No. 20272, 2001 WL 458681, * 2 (May 21, 2001). That emergency placement was explicitly intended to be “limited in scope and purpose, and temporary in duration. It respond[ed] to an emergency—the immediate physical needs of the child—until the court [could] fully inquire into the facts and decide what [was] best for the child.” In re Moloney, 24 Ohio St.3d 22, 25 (1986).
{27} Because the parents were deprived of their right to custody of their infant child throughout the objection process, they had a fundamental right to a fair and expeditious resolution of the adjudication. See In re Flemming, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 63911, 1993 WL 277186, *7 (July 22, 1993). To safeguard these significant rights of the parties, the Rules of Juvenile Procedure and local rules of the juvenile court set forth requirements to ensure that
Filing of the Transcript
{28} Because CSB filed an objection to thе magistrate‘s factual finding that Father did not pose a threat to L.F. as a sex offender, it was required to support its objection with a transcript of the hearing.
Father‘s Supplemental Assessment
{30} After the transcript was filed, CSB supplemented its objections and argued for the first time that, in addition to the evidence admitted at the initial adjudicatory hearing, the trial court should consider Father‘s supplemental assessment. This set in motion further improper delay in reaching the ultimate adjudicatory decision.
{31} CSB asked the court to consider the supplemental assessment under
{33} More significantly, CSB sought bеlated admission of a supplemental assessment under the premise that the assessment itself had been properly authorized as a requirement of Father‘s case plan. However, although CSB had included that requirement in its proposed case plan, that case plan had no binding effect on Father because it had not been journalized by the trial court. See
{34} We do not dispute that the supplemental assessmеnt was relevant to the trial court‘s determination of whether, given his history as a sex offender, Father posed a current risk to his infant son. We agree that the trial court “should not be forced to experiment with the health and safety of a newborn baby where the state can show by clear and convincing evidence, that placing the child in such an environment would be threatening to the health and safety of
{35}
{36} Had CSB followed the procedure set forth in
{37} Moreover, compliance with
In any civil action concerning court-ordered treatment or services received by a patient, if the court-ordered treatment or services were ordered as part of a case plan journalized under section 2151.412 of the Revised Code or the court-ordered treatment or services are necessary or relevant to dependency, neglect, or abuse or temporary or permanent custody proceedings under Chapter 2151. of the Revised Code.
(Emphasis added.) See also In re Jones, 99 Ohio St.3d 203, 2003-Ohio-3182, paragraphs onе and two of the syllabus (reading similar language into the “communication[]” language of a prior version of
{38} As explained already, the trial court had not ordered Father to undergo the supplemental assessment. Because the court had not yet journalized a case plan and CSB failed to obtain a court-ordered assessment under
{39} As noted above, included among the procedural protections of the parties’ due process rights in
{40} Because Father was deprived his right to due process during the adjudicatory stage of the proceedings, this Court must reverse the аdjudication and subsequent disposition of L.F. Therefore, all other assignments of error have been rendered moot by this Court‘s disposition of Father‘s second assignment of error. Consequently, we need not reach the merits of Mother‘s assignments of error or Father‘s remaining assignments of error.
III.
{41} Father‘s second assignment of error is sustained. This Court did not address the merits of Mother‘s assignments of error or Father‘s remaining assignments of error because they were rendered moot by the disposition of Father‘s second assignment of error. The judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, is reversed and remanded.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded
There were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
We order that a special mandate issue out of this Court, directing the Court of Common Pleas, County of Summit, State of Ohio, to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy of this journal entry shall constitute the mandate, pursuant to
Immediately upon the filing hereof, this document shall constitute the journal entry of judgment, and it shall be file stamped by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals at which time the period for review shall begin to run.
Costs taxed to Appellee.
EVE V. BELFANCE
FOR THE COURT
CARR, J.
WHITMORE, J.
CONCUR.
APPEARANCES:
JAMES W. ARMSTRONG, Attorney at Law, for Appellant.
DEREK CEK, Attorney at Law, for Appellant.
SHERRI BEVAN WALSH, Prosecuting Attorney, and RICHARD S. KASAY, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Appellee.
SARAH NOVIK, Guardian ad Litem.