Title: J.C. v. Indiana Department of Child Services

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

I N  T H E  
Indiana Supreme Court 
Supreme Court Case No. 20S-JT-235 
In the Matter of J.C. and R.C. (Minor Children);  
B.C. (Mother), 
Appellant (Respondent below), 
–v– 
Indiana Department of Child Services, 
Appellee (Petitioner below), 
and 
Child Advocates, Inc.,  
Appellee (Guardian ad Litem below).   
Decided: April 1, 2020 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, Nos. 49D09-1803-JT-347 and -348 
The Honorable Marilyn A. Moores, Judge  
The Honorable Scott B. Stowers, Magistrate  
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals 
No. 19A-JT-350  
Per Curiam Opinion 
Chief Justice Rush and Justices David, Massa, Slaughter, and Goff concur. 
 
FILED
C L E R K
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
Apr 01 2020, 11:59 am
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Per curiam.  
We agree with the Court of Appeals that a parent is not entitled to 
dismissal of a termination-of-parental-rights (“TPR”) petition due to the 
juvenile court’s failure to complete a hearing within the statutorily 
required 180 days, where the parent affirmatively waived that 
requirement, thus inviting the alleged error for which she seeks dismissal.  
Accordingly, we affirm.    
Facts and Procedural Background 
B.C. (“Mother”) is the biological mother of two children, J.C. and R.C. 
The Indiana Department of Child Services (“DCS”) filed petitions to 
terminate Mother’s parental rights regarding the children in March 2018. 
The evidentiary hearing on the petitions was completed on November 26, 
2018, more than 180 days after the petitions were filed. In January 2019, 
the court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law terminating 
Mother’s parental rights.  
On appeal, Mother presents three issues, which the Court of Appeals 
numbered as follows: Issue 1, whether the juvenile court erred in denying 
Mother’s motion to dismiss when the evidentiary hearing was not 
completed within 180 days after filing of the petitions; Issue 2, whether the 
court abused its discretion by admitting as evidence reports showing the 
results of her drug screens; and Issue 3, whether sufficient evidence 
supports the TPR judgment. Appellant’s Br. at 5. The Court of Appeals 
addressed each issue, found no reversible error, and affirmed. In re J.C., 
134 N.E.3d 419 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019).  
We grant Mother’s transfer petition to address Issue 1 only. We 
summarily affirm parts of the Court of Appeals’ opinion regarding Issues 
2 and 3. See Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).       
Discussion  
 A timely hearing on a TPR petition is required by statute. Matters of 
statutory interpretation present pure questions of law, which an appellate 
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court reviews de novo. Rodriguez v. State, 129 N.E.3d 789, 793 (Ind. 2019). 
We presume that the Legislature intends for statutory language to be 
applied in a logical manner consistent with the statute’s underlying policy 
and goals. Id.  
The statute for hearings in TPR cases provides,     
(a) [With an exception not alleged to apply here], the person 
filing the petition shall request the court to set the petition for a 
hearing. Whenever a hearing is requested under this chapter, 
the court shall: 
(1) commence a hearing on the petition not more than ninety 
(90) days after a petition is filed under this chapter; and 
(2) complete a hearing on the petition not more than one 
hundred eighty (180) days after a petition is filed under this 
chapter. 
(b) If a hearing is not held within the time set forth in 
subsection (a), upon filing a motion with the court by a party, 
the court shall dismiss the petition to terminate the parent-child 
relationship without prejudice. 
Ind. Code § 31-35-2-6 (emphasis added).  
Mother presents Issue 1 as “[w]hether the juvenile court erred in 
denying Mother’s motion to dismiss when the termination hearing was 
not completed within 180 days of the filing of the termination petitions[.]” 
Appellant’s Br. at 5. She argues that “Indiana statutory law requires 
dismissal of a TPR case if a hearing on a TPR petition is not completed by 
one hundred eighty (180) days after the filing of the termination petition” 
and “[t]he juvenile court erred by not dismissing the TPR proceeding 
since the proceeding did not conclude within the statutorily mandated 
one hundred eighty days.” Id. at 21, 24.  
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 The hearing was completed more than 180 days after the filing of the 
TPR petitions. The record shows that at a pre-trial conference on June 25, 
2018, the court scheduled the hearing for half-day sessions on September 
26 and October 10, 2018, without objection by Mother’s counsel. The order 
summarizing the June 25 conference found, “Parties waive the 180 day 
requirement.” Appellant’s App. Vol. 2 at 75 (emphasis added).   
When the hearing began on September 26, Mother did not object. After 
DCS presented some evidence, Mother’s counsel asked that the hearing be 
adjourned. Tr. Vol. 2 at 40. The court granted Mother’s request and, after 
assessing how many witnesses were left, adjourned the hearing until 
October 10 and also reserved part of October 11 for the hearing. Id. at 42. 
The hearing resumed on October 10 but was not completed that day. The 
court determined there were more witnesses left, so it adjourned the 
hearing to the next day, October 11, again without objection. Id. at 160.  
When the hearing resumed on October 11, however, Mother orally 
moved to dismiss, arguing the court failed to conclude the hearing within 
the statutory 180-day period. Id. at 162.1 The court denied that motion. At 
the conclusion of the October 11 hearing, DCS rested. The court 
determined Mother still had witnesses to present. Mother’s counsel told 
the court, “Judge, we don’t have any objection to setting it for another 
day. I would ask that we just continue the rest of the matter.” Id. at 212. 
After discussing availability, the court set the continued hearing for 
November 26, 2018. On October 18, Mother filed a motion to reconsider 
the denial of her oral motion to dismiss, but the court denied the motion 
to reconsider. The hearing concluded on November 26.      
 
1 To the extent Mother’s transfer petition invites consideration whether she was denied the 
right to a hearing within 90 days under I.C. § 31-35-2-6(a)(1), that issue is waived. It was not  
raised in Mother’s oral motion to dismiss on October 11, 2018. See Tr. Vol. 2 at 162. Nor does it 
appear in her Statement of the Issues or Summary of the Argument in her brief of appellant, 
which refer only to the 180-day period. The topic sentence for the relevant part of her 
Argument refers only to the 180-day period, and the internal summary in that part of the 
Argument refers only to the 180-day period. See Appellant’s Br. at 5, 21, 24, & 28; see also Ind. 
Appellate Rule 46(A)(4), (7), & (8).           
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Mother invited the Court of Appeals to follow language in two child-in-
need-of-services (“CHINS”) cases which Mother cites for the proposition 
that statutory time limits are strict and mandatory and cannot be waived: 
In re J.R., 98 N.E.3d 652 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. not sought; and In re T.T., 
110 N.E.3d 441 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. not sought. Both addressed the 
statute governing CHINS hearings. It provides the juvenile court shall 
complete a factfinding hearing within 60 days after the CHINS petition is 
filed, though the court may extend the time to complete the hearing for an 
additional 60 days if all parties consent to the additional time; it also 
provides that if the hearing is not held within those times, the court, on 
motion, “shall dismiss” the case without prejudice. I.C. § 31-34-11-1.  
Specifically, J.R. held that a juvenile court erred by not granting the 
parents’ motion to dismiss a CHINS case where the hearing was not 
completed within 60 days and the parties had not agreed to extend that 
period. J.R. reasoned that the statutory term “shall” is mandatory. 98 
N.E.3d at 655. And, it added, “if we were to allow the deadline to be 
ignored here, trial courts could habitually set these matters outside the 
time frame and there would be no consequence whatsoever[.]” Id.  
Citing and extending J.R., the Court of Appeals in T.T. held that a 
juvenile court erred by not granting the parent’s motion to dismiss where 
the hearing was not completed within 120 days of the CHINS petition’s 
filing. T.T. stated,  
This lack of allowance for an additional extension of time 
indicates that the General Assembly intends to require that a 
factfinding hearing must be completed within 120 days of the 
filing of a CHINS petition regardless of any act or agreements 
of the parties. To allow the parties to agree to dates beyond the 
maximum 120-day limit would thwart the legislative purpose 
of timely rehabilitation and reunification of families that are 
subject to CHINS proceedings. 
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110 N.E.3d at 443.2    
The Court of Appeals held in Mother’s case that J.R. and T.T. do not 
control because they applied the statute for CHINS hearings, not the 
statute for TPR hearings. In re J.C., 134 N.E.3d at 428. “More importantly,” 
it continued, “Mother not only failed to object to the setting of the hearing 
outside the statutory timeframe, she affirmatively waived the deadline 
on the record.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, it continued,                 
To permit Mother, after having affirmatively waived the 180-
day deadline, to seek dismissal based on the trial court's failure 
to complete the hearing within 180 days would effectively 
allow her to “sandbag” the trial court. This would allow a 
parent to take advantage of invited error. . . . Although we do 
not suggest that Mother engaged in such “sandbagging” here, 
the result is the same: she waived the statutory deadline, then 
sought dismissal after the court acted on her waiver. Under 
such circumstances, Mother cannot complain that the hearing 
was held outside the statutory timeframe.   
Id. (citations and paragraph break omitted).     
We disagree with the first part of the Court of Appeals’ analysis to the 
extent it suggests that because CHINS cases and TPR cases are governed 
by different statutes, appellate opinions decided under the CHINS statute 
are ipso facto inapplicable in deciding TPR cases, including issues related 
to deadlines for hearings. Given the statutes’ similarity, opinions decided 
under one statute should inform a court when applying the other, as the 
following analysis shows.      
 
2 Mother also cites In re M.S., 124 N.E.3d 1234 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), which relied on the above-
quoted language from J.R. and T.T. and held a juvenile court erred in denying a parent’s 
motion to dismiss a CHINS case even though she had requested the continuance that resulted 
in the hearing being set beyond the 120-day time period and all parties agreed to waive the 
120-day deadline. That opinion, though, was vacated by the grant of transfer. See In re M.S., 
140 N.E.3d 279 (Ind. 2020).  
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J.R. and T.T. are easily distinguished from Mother’s case. In J.R., “both 
parents timely objected to the extension of the factfinding deadline 
beyond the initial sixty days and moved to dismiss before the final 
hearing was held.” In re M.S., 140 N.E.3d 279, 283-84 (Ind. 2020). That is 
not the case with Mother, who affirmatively waived the 180-day 
requirement and did not object until after the hearing was well under 
way. And the facts set forth in T.T. “gave no reason for DCS’s request for 
continuance: the mother in that case simply acquiesced.” Id. at 284. In the 
present case, Mother did not simply acquiesce; she affirmatively waived 
the 180-day requirement. Accord id. (noting the parent in M.S. “moved for 
a continuance for a good reason” and “also explicitly waived both the 
sixty and 120-day periods.”).  
Moreover, in light of our opinion in M.S., J.R. and T.T. might be argued 
and resolved differently if decided today. In M.S., we held that despite the 
deadlines in the CHINS statute, Indiana Trial Rule 53.5 allows a court, for 
good cause shown, to continue a hearing beyond those deadlines. Id. at 
284-85. Neither J.R. nor T.T. examined whether good cause existed for 
continuing the hearing beyond the statutory deadline.  
Further, we agree with the Court of Appeals that relief is not available 
to Mother, who affirmatively waived the 180-day statutory timeframe and 
thus invited any alleged error. The invited-error doctrine is based on the 
doctrine of estoppel and forbids a party from taking advantage of an error 
that she commits, invites, or which is the natural consequence of her own 
neglect or misconduct. Durden v. State, 99 N.E.3d 645, 651 (Ind. 2018). 
Where a party invites the error, she cannot take advantage of that error. 
Witte v. Mundy ex rel. Mundy, 820 N.E.2d 128, 134 (Ind. 2005). In short, 
invited error is not reversible error. Booher v. State, 773 N.E.2d 814, 822 
(Ind. 2002); C.T. v. Marion Cty. Dep't of Child Servs., 896 N.E.2d 571, 588 
(Ind. Ct. App. 2008), trans. denied.    
Mother acknowledges she “affirmatively waived the 180-day 
requirement[.]” Trans. Pet. at 7. Having affirmatively waived that 
requirement and invited the court to conduct the hearing without regard 
to it, Mother cannot later successfully invoke it as a basis for reversal. 
Accord In re N.C., 83 N.E.3d 1265, 1267 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017) (finding a 
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parent in a TPR case could be afforded no relief on appeal where, when 
the hearing was being scheduled, the court reporter proposed a hearing 
date 222 days after the petition’s filing and the parent’s counsel 
responded, “That sounds good.”), trans. not sought. Mother contends that 
“to allow the parties to agree to dates beyond the maximum 180-day limit 
would thwart the goals of timely permanency for children in the best 
possible environment, judicial economy, parents’ constitutional rights, 
and closure for all parties.” Appellant’s Br. at 28. Yet Mother presents this 
argument only after having invited any error.        
Conclusion  
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed for the reasons stated above.  
Rush, C.J., and David, Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.  
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL LA N T  
Valerie K. Boots 
Matthew D. Anglemeyer  
Marion County Public Defender 
Appellate Division 
Indianapolis, Indiana  
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL LE E IN D IA NA  D E P A RT ME NT  O F CH I L D  
S E R VI CES    
Curtis T. Hill, Jr.  
Attorney General of Indiana 
Robert J. Henke 
Deputy Attorney General  
Indianapolis, Indiana  
A TT O R N E Y F O R  A PP E LL E E C HI L D A D VO C A TES,  I N C . 
DeDe K. Connor  
Indianapolis, Indiana