Background
H.B. was born substance-exposed on December 24, 2023, while Father (Markus K.) was incarcerated and paternity had not yet been established. The Department of Child Safety (DCS) took custody of H.B. approximately two weeks after birth and filed a dependency petition as to both Mother and Father. Father was released from prison four days after DCS took custody.
By March 2024, Father knew DCS was involved with H.B. and acknowledged he believed there was a possibility he was the child’s father, but he made no attempt to establish paternity or contact H.B. When DCS tried repeatedly to reach Father, he did not respond. Father was arrested again in late 2024 and sentenced in March 2025 to 4.5 years in prison. Genetic testing ordered in May 2025 confirmed paternity at 99.9999% probability. DCS then filed petitions to terminate both parents’ parental rights, alleging abandonment and that the length of Father’s sentence would deprive H.B. of a normal home.
The Maricopa County Superior Court held a combined dependency and termination hearing in October 2025, found H.B. dependent as to Father, and terminated Father’s parental rights on the grounds of abandonment and sentence length, further concluding termination was in H.B.’s best interests to promote permanency and stability. Father appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and the court’s application of abandonment law.
The Court’s Holding
The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of Father’s parental rights, finding reasonable evidence supported the superior court’s abandonment determination. The court held that an unwed putative father’s conduct before formal establishment of paternity is properly considered in an abandonment analysis. Relying on Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JS-8490, 179 Ariz. 102 (1994), the court reiterated that if a man has reasonable grounds to know he might have fathered a child, he must investigate that possibility and act persistently to develop a parental relationship — regardless of whether paternity has been legally confirmed.
The court rejected Father’s argument that his conduct prior to the July 2025 paternity establishment was off-limits for purposes of the abandonment analysis. Father had cited In re G.R., 255 Ariz. 444 (App. 2023), which held that dependency cannot be adjudicated before paternity is established, but the court of appeals declined to extend that ruling to termination proceedings. Because Father did not appeal the dependency finding, In re G.R. was inapplicable. The court also noted that A.R.S. § 8-533 expressly contemplates termination scenarios where paternity has not been established, reinforcing that unconfirmed paternity is not an automatic defense to abandonment.
Because the abandonment ground was independently sufficient to support termination, the court declined to address Father’s challenge to the length-of-sentence ground. Father also failed to challenge the best-interests finding on appeal, resulting in waiver of that issue under established Arizona law.
Key Takeaways
- An unwed putative father’s pre-paternity conduct is relevant and admissible in termination-of-parental-rights proceedings on abandonment grounds; formal paternity establishment does not mark the starting point for the abandonment clock.
- A man who has reasonable grounds to believe he may have fathered a child must act quickly and persistently to investigate, establish paternity, and develop a parental relationship — waiting for legal confirmation before taking any action supports a finding of abandonment.
- In re G.R.’s limitation on dependency adjudications before paternity is established does not extend to termination proceedings.
- When multiple statutory termination grounds are found, an appellate court will affirm if any one ground is supported by the evidence, and unchallenged findings (such as best interests) are deemed waived on appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies an important boundary in Arizona’s parental-rights jurisprudence: putative fathers cannot insulate themselves from abandonment findings by deferring all action until paternity is formally confirmed. Courts will look at the full timeline of a father’s conduct, including the period before genetic testing or a paternity judgment, when assessing whether he made the persistent efforts required to preserve a constitutional parental interest. Practitioners representing putative fathers in dependency or termination proceedings should counsel clients to take affirmative steps — seeking contact, initiating paternity actions, communicating with DCS — from the moment there is a reasonable basis to believe paternity exists.
The decision also signals that Arizona courts will read the termination statute’s multiple paternity-related subsections as evidence of legislative intent to prevent unestablished paternity from functioning as a blanket shield against termination on any ground. For child-welfare agencies and attorneys representing children, the ruling supports the use of conduct evidence spanning the entire period of the child’s life when building an abandonment case, even where the father’s legal status was uncertain for part of that time.