Title: Matter of T.R.

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Matter of T.R.1986 WY 182726 P.2d 500Case Number: 86-174Decided: 10/08/1986Supreme Court of Wyoming
In the Matter of the 
Parental Rights to T.R. and J.S., a/k/a J.T.S., Minors. P.R., a/k/a P.S., 
Appellant, (Respondent),

v.

Charles W. SHANNON, 
Director of the Department of Public Assistance and Social Services in and for 
Big Horn County, Appellee (Petitioner).

Appeal from District 
Court, Big Horn County, John T. Dixon, J.

John W. Davis, 
Davis, Donnell, Worrall & Bancroft, P.C., Worland, for appellant 
(respondent).

A.G. McClintock, 
Atty. Gen., Peter J. Mulvaney, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Richard E. Dixon, Asst. 
Atty. Gen., for appellee 
(petitioner).

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

PER 
CURIAM.

[¶1.]     An appeal from a 
parental-termination decision for two young children initiated by the Big Horn 
County Department of Assistance and Social Services, is now before this court by 
brief of the appellant mother, and confession of error by the Attorney 
General.

[¶2.]     Expressly contrary to 
Matter of Parental Rights to Child X, Wyo., 617 P.2d 1078 (1980), and provisions 
of § 14-3-211(a), W.S. 1977, 1986 Replacement, as therein construed, no guardian 
ad litem for the children was appointed to represent the minors' best interest 
in the parental-rights termination litigation.

[¶3.]     Consistent with our 
earlier decision, this court in noting that the proceedings below were fatally 
defective remands the case to the district court where a guardian ad litem shall 
be appointed and a new trial conducted.

[¶4.]     This jurisdictional 
disposition does not invoke analysis or consideration by this court of 
substantive evidentiary issues discussed in the brief by the appellant to which 
the State did not have an opportunity to respond. Those concerns can be 
comprehensively reconsidered at retrial, with benefit of the additional briefing 
and review by the litigants.

[¶5.]     Reversed and remanded 
for retrial.