Title: In re Ryder C.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 164 
Docket: 
Ken-17-72 
Submitted 
 
On Briefs: June 29, 2017 
Decided: 
July 20, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE RYDER C. 
 
 
HJELM, J.  
[¶1]  The mother and father of Ryder C. appeal from a judgment of the 
District Court (Augusta, Nale, J.) terminating their parental rights pursuant to 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a), (1)(B)(2)(a), (1)(B)(2)(b)(i), and (1-A)(E) 
(2016).  Both parents challenge the court’s findings that they are unfit and its 
conclusion that termination of their parental rights is in the child’s best 
interest.  Because the evidence supports the court’s findings and the court did 
not abuse its discretion or otherwise err in making its best interest 
determination, we affirm the judgment.  See In re Cameron B., 2017 ME 18, 
¶¶ 10-11, 154 A.3d 1199. 
 
[¶2]  Based on evidence presented during a three-day hearing held in 
December 2016 and January 2017, the court found by clear and convincing 
evidence, both directly and based on a statutory presumption of unfitness, see 
 
2 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1-A)(E),1 that the parents are unable to protect the child 
from jeopardy and that those circumstances are unlikely to change within a 
time calculated to meet the child’s needs, see id. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i).  See 
In re Robert S., 2009 ME 18, ¶ 15, 966 A.2d 894.  The court also determined 
that termination of the parental rights of the mother and father is in the best 
interest of the child, who was three years old at the time of the hearing.  See 
id.; 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a).   
[¶3]  In reaching those determinations, the court made the following 
factual findings, which are supported by the record.  See In re Mya E., 2017 ME 
93, ¶ 2, --- A.3d ---.   
[¶4]  The child was born at thirty-two weeks with serious medical and 
developmental disabilities that still profoundly affect him.  The child has been 
under the care of a cardiologist, an orthopedic surgeon, a geneticist, an eye 
doctor, a neurologist, and an ear, nose, and throat physician, in addition to his 
pediatrician.  Due to his medical needs, the child’s survival depends on 
“consistent and unwavering attention” and care from his caregivers.  
                                         
1  Title 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1-A)(E) (2016) provides:  
 
The court may presume that the parent is unwilling or unable to protect the child 
from jeopardy and these circumstances are unlikely to change within a time which 
is reasonably calculated to meet the child’s needs if . . . [t]he child has been placed in 
the legal custody or care of the department for at least 9 months, and the parents 
have been offered or received services to correct the situation but have refused or 
have made no significant effort to correct the situation. 
 
3 
[¶5]  Additionally, while he was in his parents’ care, the child suffered 
from “significant environmental failure to thrive.”  He was not adequately fed 
and, during his second year of life, essentially gained no weight.  The child’s 
medical care was compromised because his parents caused him to miss 
dozens of scheduled medical appointments.  The court accepted the 
assessment of a physician who testified that this was “one of the most severe 
cases of parental neglect” he had seen in thirty years of practice.  During that 
time, the mother also abused her prescription medications.  
[¶6]  After the child had been placed in foster care, which occurred in 
August 2015, he was returned to his mother’s custody for a trial placement.  
As the court found, that effort was “a mistake.”  During the six weeks when the 
child was with her in the spring of 2016, the mother did not take him to 
“crucial scheduled appointments”; she did not adequately feed him, causing 
him to lose weight; and she deliberately overstated to the child’s medical 
provider how much food she was giving him.    
[¶7]  The father suffers from mental health issues, but he has refused to 
participate in individual counseling as required by his reunification plan and 
has failed to submit to drug screens as requested.  He does not understand 
why the child was placed in the care of the Department of Health and Human 
 
4 
Services.  The court agreed with the father’s own assessment that he is 
presently unable to care for the child.    
[¶8]  Since being placed in foster care, the child is in “reasonably good 
health,” he has consistently gained weight, and his physiological development 
has been “spectacular.”  His foster parent meets his significant needs, such as 
providing physical and occupational therapy and taking the child to his 
medical appointments.  Both parents, on the other hand, have missed many of 
the child’s appointments, and the father has not appeared for most scheduled 
visits.  The court found that the mother’s excuses for the missed appointments 
were not credible.  Although the parents love the child, both have their own 
“incredible needs,” and neither is able to manage the demands of the child’s 
care “or even recognize what those needs are.”  
[¶9]  The court’s factual findings explain the serious needs of the child, 
the parents’ failure to make a significant effort to improve their caregiving 
abilities while the child has been in the Department’s custody, and their 
inability to assume responsibility of caring for the child.  The findings of 
parental unfitness were supported by the evidence, and the court did not 
abuse its discretion or err in determining that termination of the parental 
 
5 
rights of the mother and father will serve the child’s best interest.  See In re 
Cameron Z., 2016 ME 162, ¶¶ 17-18, 150 A.3d 805.  
 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Elyse M. Apantaku, Esq., Schneider & Brewer, Waterville, for appellant mother 
 
Thomas W. Bell, Esq., The Law Office of Thomas W. Bell, Topsham, for 
appellant father 
 
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Meghan Szylvian, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of 
the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Department of Health and Human 
Services 
 
 
Augusta District Court docket number PC-2015-3 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY