In re R.G.M.
{¶ 1} Appellant, Muskingum County Adult and Child Protective Services (“the agency”), appeals a judgment of the Fifth District Court of Appeals reversing a legal-custody decision of the Muskingum County Juvenile Court in the agency’s favor. The court of appeals held that the juvenile court had erred in admitting and relying on a report of a psychologist who was not present at the legal-custody hearing and was not subjected to cross-examination. We conclude that under the statutory scheme governing legal-custody proceedings following a juvenile court’s adjudication that a child is an abused, neglected, or dependent child, the juvenile court was permitted to consider the psychologist’s report, even if the report constituted hearsay, and was permitted to limit testimony about the report. See
{¶ 2} Appellee, K.G., who is the mother of the children whose custody is at issue in this case, maintains that due process and fundamental fairness precluded the juvenile court from considering the psychologist’s report, because K.G. did not have an opportunity to cross-examine the psychologist who prepared it. But K.G. was not denied an opportunity to question the psychologist, and the record is devoid of facts establishing that application of the legal-custody dispositional procedures within
I. BACKGROUND
{¶ 3} K.G. gave birth to twins on September 13, 2020. The children both have the initials “R.G.M.” The children were born prematurely, each weighing less
{¶ 4} A day later, the caseworker received another call from the hospital, notifying her that K.G. was having a mental-health episode and was going to be admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric unit. Thereafter, the agency sought and was granted emergency temporary custody of the children through the Muskingum County Juvenile Court. While the children remained in the temporary legal custody of the agency, they were placed in a kinship-care arrangement with their maternal aunt. A guardian ad litem appointed for the children reported that as of November 16, 2020, the children were doing well in that placement.
{¶ 5} The juvenile court conducted a hearing on November 18, 2020. K.G. was represented by counsel at the hearing, at which the court adjudicated the children dependent under
{¶ 6} On four occasions, K.G. met with Dr. Gary L. Wolfgang, a licensed psychologist and professional clinical counselor, who performed K.G.’s psychological evaluation. Dr. Wolfgang issued K.G.’s psychological-evaluation report on January 26, 2021. On February 11, 2021, the juvenile court issued an order notifying the parties that Dr. Wolfgang’s report had been filed with the court and that counsel would be provided with copies of the report to review with their clients.
{¶ 7} On June 15, 2021, upon the agency’s request and following a hearing, the juvenile court transferred temporary legal custody of the children from the agency to their maternal aunt. The agency maintained protective supervision over the children. In the court’s entry granting temporary legal custody of the children to the maternal aunt, the court adopted as part of its findings a report by the agency that provided details from Dr. Wolfgang’s report. The agency’s report noted that Dr. Wolfgang had concluded that K.G. “ha[d] several mental health conditions, including obsessive compulsive disorder, [post-traumatic stress disorder], and generalized anxiety disorder” and that “she would need continued therapy and psychotropic medications to manage the symptoms of these conditions.” The agency’s report, which was incorporated into the court’s entry, further explained that Dr. Wolfgang’s report warned that K.G.’s “anxiety could impair if not completely limit her ability to parent” and that her prognosis for remediating those issues was “at ‘best guarded but probably poor.’ ”
{¶ 8} Shortly after the juvenile court’s temporary-legal-custody order was issued, the agency moved the court to grant the maternal aunt legal custody of the children and to terminate the agency’s protective supervision. The agency cited portions of Dr. Wolfgang’s report as bases for ongoing concerns regarding K.G.’s mental health.
{¶ 9} A hearing on the agency’s motion was held on May 17, 2022. Before the hearing, the agency provided responses to discovery requests. The responses included a list of anticipated witnesses that did not include Dr. Wolfgang. At the hearing, the agency sought to have parts of Dr. Wolfgang’s report read into the record by a caseworker with the agency. K.G.’s attorney raised the following objection:
Your honor, I’m going to object and move to strike. I understand that this is a dispositional hearing and that hearsay is
admissible, but under—more of a due process objection on fundamental fairness. If we’re going to be quoting Dr. Wolfgang, I think we need to have him here to testify just for fundamental fairness and due process.
{¶ 10} The assistant prosecutor representing the agency responded that he would only ask the witness to read from the report, which had already been submitted to the court, and would not ask the witness “to opine any further about it.” The court overruled K.G.’s objection, and when K.G.’s attorney later made a continuing objection regarding the report’s being read into the record without Dr. Wolfgang being present to testify, the court said the following:
If you believe that there is a specific need for some sort of rebuttal evidence, that’s certainly something we can address at some point, but I believe that the document in and of itself would be admissible as hearsay, the whole report, let alone what [the witness is] reading.
The court then noted and overruled K.G.’s continuing objection.
{¶ 11} At the close of the agency’s case, the juvenile court asked the parties whether there were any objections to the court’s taking judicial notice of Dr. Wolfgang’s report, which had been submitted to the court, rather than the court’s admitting it as a new exhibit. No objections were raised.
{¶ 12} Following the hearing, the court issued an entry granting legal custody of the children to the maternal aunt. The court terminated the agency’s protective supervision and awarded K.G. visitation with the children. K.G. appealed the juvenile court’s judgment to the Fifth District.
{¶ 13} The Fifth District reversed the juvenile court’s judgment, holding that K.G.’s right to due process was violated when the juvenile court admitted and relied on Dr. Wolfgang’s report without K.G.’s having had an opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Wolfgang. 2023-Ohio-685, ¶ 24, 28 (5th Dist.). In reaching that conclusion, the court of appeals relied on this court’s decision in In re Hoffman, 2002-Ohio-5368, in which we determined that “[i]n a permanent custody proceeding in which the guardian ad litem’s report will be a factor in the trial court’s decision, parties to the proceeding have the right to cross-examine the guardian ad litem,” Hoffman at syllabus. Although the court of appeals recognized that Hoffman involved a permanent-custody determination and the right to cross-examine a guardian ad litem—factors that are not present in this case—it reasoned that the analysis in Hoffman supported applying the case outside the permanent-custody context. 2023-Ohio-685 at ¶ 19-24. The agency appealed the appellate court’s judgment to this court, and we accepted discretionary review. See 2023-Ohio-2348.
II. ANALYSIS
{¶ 14} The agency contends that this court’s decision in Hoffman does not support the Fifth District’s reversal of the juvenile court’s judgment. It also argues that due process does not require an opportunity to cross-examine the preparer of a psychological-evaluation report in a legal-custody proceeding. The record and the procedural history of this case do not support K.G.’s arguments concerning her rights to due process or to confront the agency’s witnesses. And we agree with the agency that the court of appeals erred in its application of Hoffman.
A. Procedures in legal-custody dispositional hearings
{¶ 15} Chapter 2151 of the Ohio Revised Code aims “[t]o provide for the care, protection, and mental and physical development of children . . ., whenever possible, in a family environment.”
{¶ 16} Although parents have a fundamental right to parent their children, a child has basic rights to adequate care and to be free from abuse and neglect. See In re Schmidt, 25 Ohio St.3d 331, 335 (1986). Therefore, a parent’s rights begin to wane once his or her child is found to have suffered from abuse, neglect, or dependency. See In re Brayden James, 2007-Ohio-2335, ¶ 21-22. Juvenile courts are afforded broad discretion in fashioning a disposition following the adjudication of a child as being abused, neglected, or dependent, because the courts are charged with protecting the best interests of children. See
{¶ 17} By granting legal custody to the maternal aunt in this case, the juvenile court awarded the aunt “the right to have physical care and control of the child[ren],”
{¶ 18} In K.G.’s legal-custody proceeding, the juvenile court was explicitly authorized under
B. K.G.’s right to procedural due process at the legal-custody hearing
{¶ 19} K.G. argues that the procedures the juvenile court employed under
{¶ 20} The court of appeals, however, determined that K.G. was entitled to the same procedural protections as those afforded the parents in Hoffman, 2002-Ohio-5368, and conducted no further analysis. See 2023-Ohio-685 at ¶ 24 (5th Dist.). But the parents in Hoffman were seeking to prevent the termination of their parental rights in a permanent-custody proceeding and were therefore entitled to “ ‘ “every procedural and substantive protection the law allow[ed],’ ” ” Hoffman at ¶ 14, quoting In re Hayes, 79 Ohio St.3d 46, 48 (1997), quoting In re Smith, 77 Ohio App.3d 1, 16 (6th Dist. 1991).
{¶ 21} The court of appeals erroneously determined that K.G.’s interests were “ ‘sufficiently analogous’ ” to those of parents in permanent-custody proceedings. 2023-Ohio-685 at ¶ 22, quoting In re A.K., 2012-Ohio-4430, ¶ 23 (9th Dist.). It supported that position with language in
{¶ 22} We have recognized that
{¶ 23} And there are more reasons why Hoffman, 2002-Ohio-5368, does not support the proposition that K.G. had a right to cross-examine Dr. Wolfgang. Hoffman involved a different type of report—one prepared by a guardian ad litem. Hoffman at syllabus. A guardian ad litem plays a specific role in abuse, neglect, and dependency cases, see
{¶ 24} Unlike the mother in Hoffman, K.G. was not prevented from questioning Dr. Wolfgang regarding his report. The agency did not need Dr. Wolfgang to testify at the hearing for the report to be admitted, as K.G. conceded at the hearing. Moreover, more than a year had elapsed between when the report
{¶ 25} Finally, the record is devoid of any evidence that K.G. was harmed when the juvenile court considered Dr. Wolfgang’s report under the procedures set forth in
III. CONCLUSION
{¶ 26} The court of appeals erred in determining that K.G. was entitled to the same due-process rights as those afforded parents in permanent-custody proceedings. The record does not demonstrate that K.G. was denied an opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Wolfgang, the author of the report relied on by the juvenile court, nor does it explain why cross-examination would have been beneficial, let alone critical, to K.G.’s case. K.G.’s due-process rights were not violated when the
{¶ 27} The judgment of the Fifth District is reversed, and this matter is remanded to that court for consideration of K.G.’s remaining assignment of error.
Judgment reversed
and cause remanded.