Title: In Interest of JLG

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

In Interest of JLG1988 WY 124762 P.2d 42Case Number: C-88-2Decided: 10/04/1988Supreme Court of Wyoming
IN THE INTEREST OF JLG 
AND JG, MINORS. AG AND DG, APPELLANTS (RESPONDENTS),

v.

BIG HORN COUNTY 
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE AND SOCIAL SERVICES, APPELLEE (PETITIONER). No. 
C-88-2

Appeal from the District 
Court, Big HornCounty, Gary P. Hartman, 
J.

Micheal K. 
Shoumaker of Shoumaker and Murphy, Sheridan, for appellants.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Peter J. Mulvaney, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Richard E. Dixon, Asst. 
Atty. Gen., for 
appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

MACY, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     This is an appeal from 
an order of the district court that terminated the parental rights of appellants 
AG (father) and DG (mother) to their two youngest daughters. Appellants 
challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to terminate their parental rights and 
the admission as evidence of a Department of Public Assistance and Social 
Services (DPASS) file relating to the family.

[¶2.]     We 
affirm.

[¶3.]     Appellants were married 
on January 6, 1983. A daughter (JLG) was born on May 11, 1983, and another 
daughter (JG) was born on November 14, 1984. The household included these four 
persons as well as two older daughters of the father from an earlier marriage. 
In this proceeding, appellants' parental rights to the father's two older 
daughters were also terminated, but no appeal is taken from that portion of the 
district court's judgment. We include them in our discussion of this case 
because testimony from them and about them contributes to our resolution of the 
issues raised in this appeal.

[¶4.]     Although the 
application of the termination of parental rights statutes is a matter of strict 
scrutiny, our standard is that, when reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, 
this Court assumes that the evidence of the prevailing party is true, leaving 
out of consideration the evidence presented by the other party in conflict 
therewith and giving every favorable inference to the evidence of the successful 
party that may fairly and reasonably be drawn from it. TR v. Washakie County 
Department of Public Assistance and Social Services, 736 P.2d 712 (Wyo. 
1987).

[¶5.]     On February 4, 1985, 
the father held a gun to his wife's head and threatened her with it in the 
presence of the children. On October 23, 1985, the father beat his wife in the 
presence of the two youngest children. As a result of this incident, the 
children were temporarily removed from the home. However, the domestic violence 
continued. Just before midnight on November 1, 1985, police were called to the 
home to investigate a dispute and possible aggravated assault. When the police 
arrived, the mother was walking away from the trailer park where the family 
lived. She told the police she was going to the hospital for treatment of a cut 
she received in a fight with her husband. The police took the mother to the 
hospital and then returned to the trailer to check on the father. They noticed 
blood on the front steps, all over the floor in the kitchen, and down the 
hallway to the bedroom. The father had been stabbed several times with a steak 
knife by his wife. He had been at the bar earlier that evening. His children had 
called him twice, and during the second call his wife said she wanted to come 
down for a drink. Apparently, she went, and, after they arrived back home, the 
father asked her to fix his lunch for the next day. This precipitated an 
argument, and the father proceeded to get a sleeping bag so that he could go to 
sleep on the living room floor because he had to get up at 3:45 a.m. to go to 
work. The mother then turned up the volume of a portable radio. The father 
grabbed for the radio, and the mother attacked him and began stabbing him with 
the steak knife. After the mother left, the older girls helped their father up 
off the floor, and he went into the bathroom. When he saw all of the blood, he 
thought his wife had cut her wrists with a razor blade as she had threatened to 
do on a previous occasion. The children were all in the home during this 
episode. The children stayed with a neighbor that night, as did the mother. The 
father returned to the bar after being treated for superficial wounds. The 
children were placed in emergency shelter care with the neighbor by DPASS 
workers. They were later placed in foster care with the consent of appellants. 
We relate this incident in some detail because it typifies the chaotic and 
menacing environment that characterized this home.

[¶6.]     A clinical psychologist 
who had twenty-eight years of experience working with children prepared a report 
which concluded that JLG and JG, as well as the older children, were suffering 
from severe developmental delays and distortions. The developmental and 
emotional problems were more severe with the older children but posed serious 
mental health problems for all four children. The psychologist reported that 
these problems were the result of the circumstances in which the children were 
raised. Finally, he predicted that the children would be unable to cope with the 
situation in the home, and he observed that the severity of the condition of the 
older children underscored the increasing deterioration that could be expected 
in the younger children with continual exposure to the unhealthy environment in 
their home.

[¶7.]     In addition to this 
atmosphere of violence, the children were occasionally disciplined in an abusive 
manner (bruises from spanking with a belt) and were frequently subjected to 
generally abusive treatment, such as slapping, hair pulling, and being kicked in 
the posterior.

[¶8.]     On at least one 
occasion, the children were left unattended. Although the parents had adequate 
income to provide food, the children frequently went hungry when there was no 
food in the house for periods of a day or two at a time. The children were also 
poorly clothed, and neither the children's clothing nor the children themselves 
were kept clean. The record establishes that, were it not for the "parenting" 
provided by the oldest child, the other children's condition might have been 
significantly worse.

[¶9.]     Appellants were 
examined by the psychologist who had examined the children, and he determined 
that the father suffers from a paranoid personality disorder with alcoholic 
features. The assessment indicated that the father has the potential to be 
extremely aggressive with individuals whom he perceives as incapable of 
retaliation, such as his wife and children, and that the mother suffers from a 
borderline personality disorder. The psychologist concluded that this 
combination results in almost constant conflict, strife, violence, aggression, 
and inadequate planning. The prognosis for change in appellants was very guarded 
and, while he saw little chance of them hurting each other, the chances of them 
hurting the children, both physically and mentally, were diagnosed as 
probable.

[¶10.]  The trial court's findings of incidents 
of abuse and neglect are supported by the record and are sufficient to warrant 
the termination of appellants' parental rights to JLG and 
JG.

[¶11.]  As a peripheral matter, appellants also 
question the finding of the court that efforts by DPASS to rehabilitate them 
were unsuccessful. Findings of the trial court are presumed to be correct and 
will not be disturbed by this Court unless they are clearly erroneous, 
inconsistent with the evidence, or contrary to the great weight of the evidence. 
Eddy v. First Wyoming Bank, N.A.-Lander, 750 P.2d 294 (Wyo. 1988); Pancratz Company, Inc. v. Kloefkorn-Ballard 
Construction/Development, Inc., 720 P.2d 906 (Wyo. 1986).

[¶12.]  Starting in November 1985, DPASS 
developed a series of treatment plans to assist appellants in regaining custody 
of their children. The parents failed to comply with three consecutive plans 
presented to them in November 1985, December 1985, and January 1986. Neither 
parent would attend parenting classes. The mother never sought inpatient 
treatment for her mental problems as recommended by an examining clinical 
psychologist. The father completed an inpatient alcoholism program at a 
Veteran's Administration hospital but resumed drinking shortly thereafter. At 
the time of trial, appellants had done virtually nothing to prepare themselves 
for the return of their children.

[¶13.]  This evidence is sufficient to sustain 
the trial court's findings that rehabilitation efforts were unsuccessful and 
that the parents generally refused rehabilitative treatment. LP v. Natrona 
County Department of Public Assistance and Social Services, 679 P.2d 976 
(Wyo. 1984); CP v. Laramie County Department of 
Public Assistance and Social Services, 648 P.2d 512 (Wyo. 
1982).

[¶14.]  Appellants also argue that the district 
court improperly admitted a DPASS file as evidence in this case. They object to 
the evidence on the basis of hearsay. The thrust of their argument is that at 
trial the district court sustained numerous hearsay objections made by 
appellants' counsel when a DPASS casework supervisor was questioned about the 
contents of that file, especially those portions that were contributed by other 
persons. Appellants argue that the admission of that file into evidence makes 
meaningless all the objections that were sustained. We do not agree. The 
objections were sustained because the witness in question was asked to give 
hearsay testimony on the basis of his knowledge of the file. In the absence of 
an objection to the file, and absent a determination that the source of 
information or the method or circumstances of preparation of the file indicate a 
lack of trustworthiness, the file is admissible under W.R.E. 803(6).1

[¶15.]  AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

1 W.R.E. 803(6) provides 
in pertinent part:

A memorandum, report, 
record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, 
or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a 
person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business 
activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make 
the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the 
testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, unless the source of 
information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of 
trustworthiness.