Title: In re Child of Kaysean M.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2018 ME 156 
Docket: 
Cum-18-261 
 
Submitted 
On Briefs: November 28, 2018 
Decided: 
December 6, 2018 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILD OF KAYSEAN M. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  Kaysean M. appeals from a judgment of the District Court 
(Portland, Eggert, J.) terminating his parental rights to his child pursuant to 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a) and (B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(iv) (2017).1  The father 
contends that he received insufficient notice of the termination hearing through 
service by publication and that the court erred by admitting in evidence the 
testimony of a Department of Health and Human Services supervisor.  We 
affirm the judgment. 
[¶2]  Based on competent evidence in the record, the court found by clear 
and convincing evidence that the father (1) 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; (2) is unwilling 
                                         
1  The mother did not attend the termination hearing and does not join this appeal. 
 
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or unable to take responsibility for the child within a time which is reasonably 
calculated to meet the child’s needs; (3) failed to make a good faith effort to 
rehabilitate and reunify with the child; and (4) abandoned the child.  See 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i)-(iv).  The court also found that termination of 
the father’s parental rights is in the child’s best interest.  See 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(a).  The court based its determinations on the following 
findings of fact. 
[¶3]  At the jeopardy hearing on September 11, 2017, where the father 
failed to appear but was represented by counsel, the court found that 
letters sent to the Department by the father . . . [and] presented as 
evidence show that his thoughts about his child are not based in 
reality.  In addition, he is not present today nor has he had contact 
with the Department for some time, since most recently getting out 
of jail.  He has abandoned his child. 
 
See In re Marcus E., 2017 ME 200, ¶ 5 n.3, 171 A.3d 190 (“Although [at the 
termination hearing] the court was required to make its unfitness and best 
interest determinations by a higher standard of proof than its findings in earlier 
stages of the proceedings, including the jeopardy stage, the same judge 
presided over nearly the entirety of these child protective proceedings and was 
entitled to consider the evidence presented throughout.”) 
 
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[¶4]  At the conclusion of the termination hearing held on May 7, 2018, 
where the father again failed to appear but was fully represented by counsel, 
the court found from the bench at the close of the evidence: 
[N]ot only has [the father] abandoned his child, he’s abandoned the 
proceedings themselves . . . .  All the legal efforts have been made 
and [they have not] been sufficient to get him here, and he hasn’t 
contacted the Department throughout the process . . . so he’s made 
no efforts whatsoever to be involved in the rehabilitation, 
reunification process so that he could be a parent.  And everybody, 
probably, in the criminal justice system from a judicial standpoint 
has had some contact with [the father] over time . . . .   
 
In its written order, the court found that 
[t]he last contact that the caseworker had with the father was in 
court, when he was still incarcerated, in May, 2017.  He sent some 
letters to the Department, but has had no contact with the 
Department since he was released from jail.  He has had issues of 
mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness. . . . The child is 
thriving [in a placement with a relative]. . . . [The father’s] past 
criminal history as well is an indicator that he is not an appropriate 
parent. 
 
 
[¶5]  Reviewing the factual findings supporting the court’s unfitness and 
best interest determinations for clear error, and further reviewing the court’s 
ultimate conclusion that termination is in the child’s best interest for an abuse 
of discretion, we determine that the court’s findings and conclusions are 
supported by this record.  See In re Child of Portia L., 2018 ME 51, ¶ 2, 
183 A.3d 747. 
 
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[¶6]  The father contends that his notice of the termination hearing, 
which the Department made by publication pursuant to the trial court’s order, 
was defective because there is insufficient record evidence establishing that 
publication was made “once a week for 3 successive weeks” as required by 
M.R. Civ. P. 4(g)(2).  “Whether the commencement of an action and service of 
process comport with M.R. Civ. P. 4 and the Due Process Clause of the 
Fourteenth Amendment is a question of law that we review de novo.”  Shultz v. 
Doeppe, 2018 ME 49, ¶ 15, 182 A.3d 1246. 
 
[¶7]  The father’s argument fails because the trial court record contains 
physical copies of the required notice as published for three successive weeks 
in an appropriate newspaper in April 2018, as well as an affidavit executed by 
the newspaper’s classified legal clerk attesting to that fact.  Accordingly, 
the father’s notice of the termination hearing was legally sufficient.  See id.; 
M.R. Civ. P. 4(g). 
 
[¶8]  Finally, the father contends that the court erred in failing to exclude 
from evidence, sua sponte, the testimony of a Department supervisor who had 
supervised the child’s case since May 2017, and who supervised the child’s 
caseworker.  “Because [the father] object[s] to that evidence for the first time 
on appeal, we apply the obvious error standard of review, considering whether 
 
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the admission of [the supervisor’s] testimony constituted a seriously 
prejudicial error tending to produce a manifest injustice.”  Gravison v. Fisher, 
2016 ME 35, ¶ 28, 134 A.3d 857 (quotation marks omitted).  No foundational 
error rising to that level is demonstrated on this record.  See M.R. Evid. 602. 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
James S. Hewes, Esq., South Portland, 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 
 
 
Portland District Court docket number PC-2017-39 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY