Background
Richland County Children Services Board obtained emergency shelter care of Z.Y. in September 2024 and filed a dependency complaint based on the mother’s substance abuse and lack of responsiveness and the father’s unknown whereabouts. Father A.R. admitted dependency, and DNA testing later established his paternity. The child remained in foster care with a sibling.
After the agency moved for permanent custody, father filed motions seeking legal custody for himself, proposing his parents as potential legal custodians, and requesting visitation. The juvenile court ordered an assessment of the grandparents’ home. Neither parent nor the paternal grandparents attended the permanent-custody hearings. The magistrate denied the requested legal-custody placements, terminated parental rights, and awarded permanent custody to the agency; the juvenile court adopted that decision, and neither parent filed objections.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth District affirmed. Because father did not object to the magistrate’s decision, he waived appellate challenges to its factual findings and legal conclusions except for plain error. Although father did not argue plain error, the court reviewed the permanent-custody ruling under that standard because of the fundamental interests at stake and found no obvious error affecting his substantial rights.
The record supported findings that father had abandoned the child and demonstrated a lack of commitment: he never visited or supported the child, failed to engage with the agency, and had gone more than 90 days without contact. The evidence also supported the best-interest determination because the child was doing well, was bonded with the foster family, lived with a sibling, and needed a legally secure permanent placement; the guardian ad litem recommended permanent custody to the agency.
The court also upheld the denial of legal custody to father or his parents. Father lacked standing to claim that the court should have awarded custody to relatives, and permanent custody to the agency being in the child’s best interest foreclosed the proposed relative placement. In any event, the grandparents did not move to intervene or file their own custody motion, did not attend the hearings, apparently had not signed the required statement of understanding, had never visited the child during more than a year of agency custody, and previously had accepted placement of other grandchildren before requesting their removal.
Key Takeaways
- Failing to object to a juvenile magistrate’s decision generally waives appellate review of adopted factual findings and legal conclusions except for plain error.
- A parent’s failure to visit or maintain contact for more than 90 days supports the statutory presumption of abandonment.
- A parent cannot obtain reversal merely by arguing that a relative should have received legal custody when permanent custody to the agency was properly found to serve the child’s best interest.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the procedural importance of filing timely objections to a magistrate’s permanent-custody decision. Even in a parental-rights case, an appellate court may limit review to plain error when objections were not made below.
It also clarifies that identifying relatives as possible custodians does not require a juvenile court to prefer them over permanent custody to an agency. The controlling question remains the child’s best interest, and proposed relatives’ participation, relationship with the child, and compliance with statutory custody requirements all bear on that assessment.