Background
Anna L. (Mother) appealed the termination of her parental rights to Violet L., born in January 2022. The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services removed Violet from Mother’s care in February 2023 after receiving a report that Mother was observed highly intoxicated and erratic while carrying the one-year-old. Mother had a long history of alcohol dependency, housing instability, and prior DUI convictions. The child was adjudicated dependent and neglected in October 2023.
Initially, Mother visited Violet consistently in her foster home and brought supplies. However, her visits ceased after January 22, 2024. Mother subsequently became homeless around Easter 2024. During summer 2024—while knowing Violet remained in foster care—Mother engaged in a series of burglaries, including breaking into a DCS worker’s home where she drank beer, showered, and stole property. She was arrested on August 15, 2024, and pled guilty to theft of property and aggravated burglary in January 2025. The trial court terminated both parents’ parental rights on June 20, 2025. Father did not appeal; Mother did.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of Mother’s parental rights. Although Mother challenged only two of five grounds on appeal—persistence of conditions and failure to manifest ability and willingness to assume custody—the court reviewed all grounds, as waiver does not apply in parental termination cases under Tennessee law.
The court found clear and convincing evidence supporting termination on all five grounds. For abandonment by failure to visit and failure to support, Mother did not visit or provide financial support during the three months preceding her incarceration (May–August 2024), and she waived any non-willfulness defense by failing to raise it in her answer. For abandonment by wanton disregard, Mother’s pattern of criminal conduct while knowing her child was in foster care—including burglaries in June and July 2024—demonstrated a wanton disregard for Violet’s welfare.
On the persistence-of-conditions ground, the court found Mother still lacked stable independent housing; her recovery program would not complete until mid-to-late 2026; she had no concrete post-program housing plan; and she refused to acknowledge her mental health issues or take responsibility for her criminal behavior despite guilty pleas. For failure to manifest ability and willingness, the court held the statute requires both ability and willingness (conjunctive), and Mother failed on both fronts: she lacked independent housing and unaddressed mental health issues prevented her ability to parent, and her refusal to accept responsibility for her actions and to address mental health concerns negated any demonstrated willingness. Finally, placing Violet with Mother would pose substantial risk of harm. The court emphasized that Violet was thriving in her pre-adoptive foster home and had developed a strong bond with her foster mother.
Key Takeaways
- Parental rights may be terminated on multiple independent grounds; a parent cannot evade termination by challenging only some grounds when they fail on others.
- A parent’s express desire to reunite with a child is insufficient to demonstrate willingness to assume custody; the law requires affirmative efforts to overcome obstacles.
- Abandonment by wanton disregard includes criminal behavior committed while a parent knows the child is in state custody, reflecting the principle that incarceration and related criminal conduct indicate a threat to the child’s welfare.
- Failure to take responsibility for one’s actions or to acknowledge and address mental health issues are critical indicators that conditions will not be remedied, supporting termination under the persistence-of-conditions ground.
- Even positive steps in a recovery program do not cure termination grounds if they occur only in a controlled environment (e.g., sober living facility) without a concrete plan for independent functioning post-program.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces Tennessee’s strict approach to parental termination cases, emphasizing that mere progress toward recovery—without resolution of underlying structural problems like housing and mental health—is insufficient to prevent termination when a child has achieved stability in foster care. The opinion clarifies that the “ability and willingness” standard requires both elements conjunctively, and that a parent’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility for criminal conduct or mental health issues substantially undermines any claim of willingness to parent safely.
The decision also illustrates the application of abandonment grounds to incarcerated or recently incarcerated parents, particularly the “wanton disregard” prong, which captures criminal behavior committed during the period a child is in foster care. For practitioners, the opinion underscores that in termination appeals, challenging only selected grounds does not limit appellate review—courts in Tennessee will consider all grounds and waiver does not apply. The case further demonstrates that trial courts may terminate rights based on persistent conditions even where a parent shows some compliance with a court-ordered recovery program if independent functioning remains unaddressed and the child is thriving in foster care.