Background
In August 2024, the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services filed a dependency and neglect petition concerning a two-month-old child. The Department alleged that the mother, K.A.C.H., struggled with mental health issues and had been placed on a mental health hold after giving birth. The child was discharged to maternal grandmother’s care under a safety plan. Mother was also a defendant in multiple criminal cases and was later found incompetent to proceed in those matters, eventually being transferred to an inpatient facility for competency restoration.
Mother denied the petition’s allegations through counsel and requested an adjudicatory jury trial, which the juvenile court continued to June 2025. Before that trial, the Department moved for summary judgment adjudicating the child dependent and neglected. Critically, the Department filed no affidavits, exhibits, interrogatory answers, or other evidentiary materials in support of its motion. At the summary judgment hearing, the Department also orally moved — for the first time — to add a no-fault statutory basis under § 19-3-102(1)(e), C.R.S. 2025. The juvenile court granted summary judgment, finding the child lacked proper parental care and was not domiciled with mother.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. The court held that the Department failed to meet its burden under C.R.C.P. 56(c) because it submitted no evidence whatsoever in support of its motion — only unsupported allegations. The only undisputed facts in the record were those conceded by mother’s own counsel: that mother had been found incompetent in her criminal cases and was residing in an inpatient competency restoration facility. The court held that those facts alone did not establish, as a matter of law, that the child would lack proper parental care if returned to mother, because a reasonable factfinder could draw divergent inferences from them.
The court further held that the conceded facts equally failed to establish the no-fault ground under § 19-3-102(1)(e) — that the child was homeless, without proper care, or not domiciled with the parent — because the Department presented no evidence about the child’s domicile or the care she was actually receiving. The court emphasized that mere allegations, unaccompanied by supporting evidence, are insufficient to satisfy a movant’s summary judgment burden, and that mother’s oral-only opposition did not relieve the Department of that burden.
Key Takeaways
- A party moving for summary judgment in a dependency and neglect proceeding must submit actual evidence — affidavits, admissions, interrogatory answers, or exhibits — not merely allegations; an unsupported motion cannot be granted regardless of whether the opposing party files a written response.
- A parent’s incompetency to proceed in a criminal case and current residence in an inpatient competency restoration facility do not, without more, establish as a matter of law that the child would lack proper parental care if returned to that parent.
- Summary judgment is a drastic remedy in dependency and neglect cases, particularly when based on prospective harm, and is warranted only when reasonable minds could draw but one inference from undisputed facts.
- An oral motion to amend a dependency petition to add a new statutory basis at the summary judgment hearing — with no amended petition filed in the record — is procedurally suspect, and the Department must still meet its evidentiary burden as to any such newly asserted ground.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that the procedural rigor of summary judgment applies fully in dependency and neglect cases, even when child welfare is at stake. County departments of human services cannot obtain an adjudication stripping a parent of custodial rights through a bare-bones motion that substitutes allegations for evidence. The ruling is a practical reminder that agencies must build a documented evidentiary record — not rely on the court’s knowledge of the case background or assume that a parent’s mental health history speaks for itself.
The case also highlights the intersection of criminal incompetency proceedings and civil child welfare adjudications. The court’s refusal to treat a finding of criminal incompetency as dispositive of parental fitness protects parents with mental health or developmental disabilities from automatic adverse outcomes in dependency proceedings based solely on their criminal case status.