The Utah Court of Appeals reversed a dependency adjudication because a noncustodial father’s lack of a prior relationship did not establish inability to care for his child.
The Utah Supreme Court held that it could review a post-remand parental-rights judgment but not errors predating the first appeal, then affirmed termination as strictly necessary.
The Utah Supreme Court held that terminating parental rights to facilitate an adoption requires a strictly necessary analysis, while affirming because the district court’s omission was harmless.
Applying Ross v. Kracht, the Utah Supreme Court affirmed that terminating an incarcerated father’s rights was strictly necessary to protect four children’s stability and permit their stepfather’s adoption.
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the termination of both parents’ parental rights to three children under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-309(a)(v), holding that the statute—requiring only that the child has been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months and that the parent is unfit—does not impose a reasonable-reunification-efforts requirement; that DFS’s documentation gaps did not reach the structural failure level required by MB; and that clear and convincing evidence of parental unfitness supported the district court’s termination order.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of a mother’s parental rights but reversed the termination of a father’s rights as to his two biological children. The father complied fully with every ordered service, held a job, and maintained consistent visitation; his only obstacle was stable housing blocked by his criminal history. Because DCS never sought a waiver for a sister-in-law’s disqualified home despite a written policy allowing it, and never followed through on deposit assistance when the father found an apartment one week before the termination hearing, the court held that DCS failed to make reasonable efforts and that proceeding to terminate his rights violated due process.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a Rule 41(b) dismissal of a DSS abuse and neglect petition at the close of DSS’s evidence, holding that nearly 1,500 pages of medical records admitted as business records cannot establish non-accidental injury causation without expert medical testimony, and that parental explanations introduced through DSS’s own witnesses that were consistent with accidental injury could not be rebutted by business records alone.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals held that a permanency planning order expressly ordering that legal custody of the children “shall remain with” DSS constitutes a “custody order” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7B-1104(5), giving DSS standing to file termination-of-parental-rights petitions and conferring subject-matter jurisdiction on the district court.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals remanded a termination of parental rights order for ICWA compliance after finding that the trial court had conducted the required inquiry under 25 C.F.R. § 23.107(a) as to respondent-father only; an on-the-record inquiry of respondent-mother is required regardless of her absence from prior hearings, and the termination order remains in place pending the inquiry.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated an order ceasing a mother’s reunification efforts because the trial court entered that order at a review hearing rather than a permanency planning hearing, holding that N.C.G.S. § 7B-906.1(d1) does not authorize courts to cease reunification at review hearings—that authority belongs exclusively to permanency planning hearings under § 7B-906.2(b)—while also cautioning that missed 30-day permanency planning hearing deadlines must be challenged by writ of mandamus, not appeal.
A divided North Carolina Court of Appeals held on remand that a private medical society that administered a COVID-19 vaccine to a fourteen-year-old over his objection and without parental consent was sufficiently alleged to be a state actor for a Corum constitutional claim, and that the PREP Act’s complete bar on tort remedies itself satisfies the “no adequate state remedy” element required to bring a direct claim under the North Carolina Constitution.
On remand from the North Carolina Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals held that Plaintiffs’ state constitutional claims arising from an unconsented COVID-19 vaccination administered to a minor at a school-based clinic may proceed: the private medical non-profit operating the clinic was adequately alleged to be a state actor under a joint-engagement theory, and the PREP Act’s immunity over tort claims leaves no adequate state remedy, satisfying all elements of a Corum claim.
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed termination of a mother’s parental rights to her youngest child but vacated the termination as to the oldest child, holding that the trial court failed to expressly consider the oldest child’s relative placement with her biological father—an explicit statutory factor that weighs against termination and must be addressed on the record before a best-interest determination can stand.