Title: In re Children of Corey W.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2019 ME 4 
Docket: 
Cum-18-202 
Submitted 
 
On Briefs: November 28, 2018 
Decided: 
January 10, 2019 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILDREN OF COREY W.  
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  The mother and father appeal from a judgment of the District Court 
(Bridgton, Darvin, J.) terminating their parental rights to two of their children.1  
The father asserts that the Department of Health and Human Services’ 
placement of the children with a kinship foster family in Florida frustrated his 
ability to reunify with them, rendering the Department’s reunification plan 
noncompliant with the requirements prescribed in 22 M.R.S. § 4041(1-A)(A)(1) 
(2017).  He further contends that the court erred by approving the children’s 
out-of-state placement in its order after judicial review.  The mother challenges 
the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the court’s determination that she is 
                                         
1  The parents have a third child, who lives with another family, and the mother also has an older 
child, who resides with the child’s maternal grandparents.  Neither of these other children is a subject 
of this child protection action.  References in this opinion to the two children mean the children as to 
whom the parents’ rights have been terminated. 
 
2 
parentally unfit within the meaning of 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii)-(iv) 
(2017).  We affirm the judgment.  
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following facts are drawn from the court’s findings, which are 
supported by the evidence, and from the procedural record.2  See In re Evelyn 
A., 2017 ME 182, ¶ 4, 169 A.3d 914.  
[¶3]  In October of 2016, the Department filed petitions for child 
protection and preliminary protection orders concerning the two children at 
issue here.  See supra n.1.  The court (Dow, J.) issued a preliminary protection 
order at that time, granting custody of the children to the Department, which 
placed them with their maternal grandparents.  In February of 2017, while both 
parents were incarcerated,3 the court (Darvin, J.) issued an agreed-upon 
jeopardy order as to each parent.  The jeopardy findings included each parent’s 
untreated mental health problems, longstanding addiction and substance 
                                         
2  The record includes the court’s earlier order after a contested judicial review hearing.  See 
22 M.R.S. § 4038 (2017).  In the termination judgment, the court incorporated by reference the 
findings of fact set forth in the judicial review order.  Because the record does not include a transcript 
of the judicial review hearing or an acceptable substitute for a transcript, see M.R. App. P. 5(a), 
(b)(2)(A), (d), “we will assume that the transcript would support the trial court’s findings of fact and 
its rulings on evidence and procedure.”  Greaton v. Greaton, 2012 ME 17, ¶ 2, 36 A.3d 913. 
3  The mother was incarcerated from December of 2016 until her release in April of 2018, twenty 
days prior to the termination hearing.  The father was already incarcerated when the children were 
placed in the Department’s custody.  After he was released and then rearrested in November of 2016, 
he was finally released in February of 2017 into an inpatient substance abuse rehabilitation program.   
 
3 
abuse issues, significant criminal histories, and failure to protect the children 
from unsafe people and provide the children with a safe and secure home.   
[¶4]  In late 2016, the children’s grandparents determined that they could 
not meet the older child’s high level of specialized needs and requested that the 
Department find an alternative placement for both children.  The Department 
was unsuccessful in locating a suitable therapeutic foster placement in Maine 
where the children could be placed together.  The following April, the children 
were placed in the home of the father’s cousin and her wife in Florida, both of 
whom were already licensed foster care parents.   
[¶5]  At the time the children were placed in Florida, the father had been 
released from jail, see supra n.3, completed an inpatient substance abuse 
program, and moved into a sober house.  Asserting that the children’s 
geographic separation from him would be a barrier to reunification, in May of 
2017 the father filed a motion for the court to hold an expedited judicial review 
hearing where he could challenge the children’s out-of-state placement.4  See 
22 M.R.S. § 4038(2) (2017).  The court granted the request and, after holding a 
                                         
4  The mother also objected to the children’s placement in Florida but, due to her incarceration 
and uncertain release date, she was not in a position to pursue reunification at that time.   
 
4 
judicial review hearing in September of 2017,5 issued an order that allowed the 
children’s placement in Florida to continue “on a temporary basis.”  Along with 
other requirements outlined in the Department’s rehabilitation and 
reunification plan, the court ordered the father to complete “specific and 
targeted tasks to address the major outstanding concerns.”  These tasks 
included contacting the older child’s treatment professionals and completing 
Department-recommended parenting courses.  The court explained that “[b]y 
completing the required tasks and complying with the terms of this order[, the] 
father should be able to demonstrate a clear path toward reunification.”  The 
court also provided for contact between the father and the younger child, 
including “telephone and Internet based visitation . . . at least twice a week,” 
and in-person contact in Florida to be arranged and paid for by the Department.  
The court stated that at the next judicial review hearing it would consider 
whether placement of the younger child, who did not face the significant 
challenges presented by the older child, should be moved to Maine.   
[¶6]  In February of 2018, the Department filed a petition to terminate 
the parental rights of both parents, and in April, shortly after the mother was 
                                         
5  The court attempted to hold the judicial review hearing on an expedited basis, but for reasons 
that are not clear from the record, the hearing was rescheduled several times and not held until the 
fall of 2017.   
 
5 
released from federal prison, see supra n.3, the court held a two-day hearing on 
the petition.  The following month, the court entered a judgment terminating 
the parental rights of each parent.  Based on clear and convincing evidence in 
the record, the court determined that each parent was unable to take 
responsibility for the children and had failed to make a good faith effort to 
rehabilitate and to reunify with the children, and that these circumstances were 
unlikely to change within a time reasonably calculated to meet the children’s 
needs.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii), (iv).  The court also concluded that 
the mother had abandoned both children by failing to communicate 
meaningfully with the children and their foster parents and providers during 
the preceding year, and that the father had abandoned the older child by failing 
to engage and communicate with him.  See id. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(iii).  Finally, 
the court concluded that termination of the parents’ parental rights is in the 
children’s best interests.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a) (2017).   
[¶7]  In support of those determinations, the court made the following 
findings of fact, all of which are supported by competent record evidence. 
The [older child] is now 4 ½ years old.  As of the hearing date 
he had been in DHHS custody for more than 18 months and one 
third of his life. . . .  [The older child] has been receiving regular 
therapeutic counseling and special education services for more 
than one year in Florida. . . .  [H]is behavior this past year noticeably 
worsened or regressed immediately following his previous 
 
6 
communication or contact with his father . . . .  In general, [the older 
child’s] behavior has improved . . . following the cessation of direct 
communication with his father authorized by the 9/26/17 judicial 
review order.  [He] . . . expresses considerable distress at the 
thought of returning to Maine.  As of the hearing date [the older 
child] had not had any contact or communication with his father 
since July 2017 (when telephone/Skype communication was 
terminated) and has not seen his father in person since sometime 
in March 2017. . . .   
[The younger child] was a little more than 9 months old when 
this case was commenced and she is now almost 2 ½ years old. . . .  
[T]here were numerous telephone communications [between the 
father and the younger child] that did not take place as scheduled 
due to father’s failure to follow through or abide by reasonable 
contact guidelines. . . .  [T]he level of attachment and interest 
between father and daughter appears minimal. . . . [The younger 
child] has been given a formal [mental health] diagnosis . . . .  
. . . . 
The mother . . . must remain in the sober house for at least 
the next few months before she may be permitted to look for other 
housing. . . .  She is at the early stages of creating a life and support 
system outside of jail that hopefully will allow her to sustain her 
sobriety and independent living.  As of the hearing date [the 
mother] had not had any in person contact with either child in 
more than 16 months and had only brief telephone communication 
with [the older child] during a few telephone calls prior to 
April 2017.  Throughout her lengthy incarceration, she has not 
sought out any information from . . . the provider of any services for 
either child or communicated with them. . . .  
[The father] has demonstrated through his participation in 
programming and behavior that he has achieved and maintained 
sobriety over a sustained period of time. . . .  Since October 2017 
[the father] has made significant efforts to complete the parenting 
education programming required by the DHHS reunification plan 
. . . but was not able to complete all of the programs. . . .  [The father] 
 
7 
has not moved on to independent living in order to be able to 
demonstrate that he can provide suitable and stable housing for the 
children . . . .  
. . . . 
 
. . . [The father] has failed to demonstrate any meaningful 
progress in understanding the needs of his children, and most 
particularly [the older child].  [The father] has communicated only 
a few times with any of [the older child’s] providers or teachers, 
including single calls with the child’s neurologist, physician and 
former therapist.  Most significantly, he failed to follow through or 
take advantage of the suggestion by [the older child’s] counselor in 
January 2018 that he write a letter to send to [the older child] that 
could be shared with [him] in counseling as a means of building a 
bridge towards resumption of contact between father and child. 
. . . [The father’s] concern that the letter would be negatively 
received by [the child] . . . is no excuse for his failure to take a critical 
step forward in repairing his relationship with his son. . . .  
 
 
[The father and mother] continue to maintain that except for 
their chronic drug use and their periods of incarceration, they 
otherwise cared for and properly parented their children, and in 
particular [the older child]. . . .  The court finds each parent’s 
recollection of [the older child’s] earlier childhood experiences and 
their parenting abilities to be particularly unreliable and not 
credible.  More importantly, their inadequate efforts to properly 
reach out and seek all available information and knowledge about 
[the older child’s] current needs and treatment services [have] 
resulted in their fundamental lack of insight and failure to 
understand their son’s profound needs.  [The older child] is at great 
risk of regression and further harm if placed in the care of either 
parent at this time and he is suffering from the weight of 
uncertainty about his future. . . .  [T]he child’s present needs 
demand certainty, stability and permanency without any further 
delay.  
 
 
8 
 
. . . Both parents have whitewashed their prior failures to 
properly parent and care for both children by attributing all 
problems to their substance abuse without proper recognition of 
their parenting deficits and the harm caused to their children. . . .  
 
. . . [The father] describes a life now that requires him to 
engage in regular activities that focus on his own needs in order to 
support and maintain his sobriety.  His lifestyle as described in his 
testimony leaves little time for the demands of active parenting, 
particularly with the high-level needs of his son . . . .  
 
. . . .  
 
. . . Despite taking several required parenting courses [the 
father] failed in his testimony to demonstrate that he actually had 
learned anything about being a parent or would do anything 
different (other than not using illegal substances) as a parent in the 
future. . . . 
(Footnote omitted.)   
 
[¶8]  Following the issuance of the judgment terminating their parental 
rights, the parents filed timely appeals.6  See 22 M.R.S. § 4006 (2017); M.R. 
App. P. 2B(c)(1).   
                                         
6  Prior to filing her appeal, the mother filed a motion with the court for additional findings of fact, 
see M.R. Civ. P. 52(b), and to reconsider or amend the judgment, see M.R. Civ. P. 59(e).  The court 
granted the motion in part, amending the language in the termination order and making additional 
findings, and denied all other relief sought by the mother.  The amended language and the additional 
findings related to the marginal amount of communication between the mother and the children and 
their foster parents, which is reflected in the quoted portion of the court’s termination order included 
in this opinion.   
 
9 
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶9]  The parents challenge the judgment terminating their parental 
rights on differing grounds.  The father contends that, by placing the children 
where he could have only limited contact with them, the Department’s 
reunification plan failed to satisfy the statutory requirements, see 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4041(1-A)(A)(1), and that the court erred by approving the children’s 
out-of-state placement in its order after judicial review.  The mother asserts 
that the evidence is insufficient to support the court’s determination of her 
parental unfitness. See id. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii)-(iv).  We address these 
contentions in turn.  
A. 
The Reunification Plan for the Father 
[¶10]  The father contends that, due to the placement of the children in 
Florida, the Department’s reunification plan—which he describes as consisting 
of “phone contact” and “occasional visits”—did not meet the requirements of 
22 M.R.S. § 4041(1-A)(A)(1).7  He further asserts that, in the judicial review 
                                         
7  In pertinent part, 22 M.R.S. § 4041(1-A)(A)(1)(c) (2017) mandates that the Department include 
in the rehabilitation and reunification plan: 
(ii) 
The changes that are necessary to eliminate jeopardy to the child while in the 
care of a parent; 
(iii) Rehabilitation services that will be provided and must be completed 
satisfactorily prior to the child’s returning home; 
 
10 
order issued in September of 2017, the court erred by “condition[ing the] 
return of the children to [a foster placement] in Maine on a showing of [the 
father’s] parental fitness.”  These deficiencies, he argues, require us to vacate 
the order terminating his parental rights to each child.   
[¶11]  The nature of these contentions leads to two observations about 
how they might bear on this appeal from a termination judgment.  
[¶12]  First, to the extent that the father directly challenges the judicial 
review order containing the court’s limited ratification of the Department’s 
decision to place the children in foster care in Florida, his contention is not 
cognizable on appeal.  An order after judicial review, which is governed by 
22 M.R.S. § 4038 (2017), is deemed interlocutory by operation of statute and 
                                         
(iv) Services that must be provided or made available to assist the parent in 
rehabilitating and reunifying with the child, as appropriate to the child and family, 
including, but not limited to, reasonable transportation for the parent for visits and 
services, child care, housing assistance, assistance with transportation to and from 
required services and other services that support reunification; 
(v) 
A schedule of and conditions for visits between the child and the parent 
designed to provide the parent and child time together in settings that provide as 
positive a parent-child interaction as can practicably be achieved while ensuring the 
emotional and physical well-being of the child when visits are not detrimental to the 
child’s best interests; 
(vi) Any use of kinship support, including, but not limited to, placement, supervision 
of visitation, in-home support or respite care; [and] 
(vii) A reasonable time schedule for proposed reunification, reasonably calculated 
to meet the child’s needs.  
 
 
11 
therefore cannot be appealed.  See id. § 4006 (“Orders entered under this 
chapter under sections other than 4035 [jeopardy orders], 4054 [termination 
orders] or 4071 [medical treatment orders] are interlocutory and are not 
appealable.”); cf. In re Children of Nicole M., 2018 ME 75, ¶ 11, 187 A.3d 1 
(holding that “a permanency plan order is treated by operation of statute as an 
interlocutory order and is therefore not itself appealable”); In re L.D., 2015 ME 
123, ¶¶ 16-17, 123 A.3d 990 (holding that the court’s child placement order is 
statutorily interlocutory and not appealable).  Instead, we may consider the 
father’s challenge to the children’s continued placement in Florida, as ordered 
by the court after judicial review, only as that issue bears on the court’s later 
determination that he is parentally unfit.  Cf. In re Children of Nicole M., 2018 ME 
75, ¶ 11, 187 A.3d 1 (stating that an appeal of a termination order “cannot be 
used as a vehicle to directly challenge” a permanency plan order, but instead 
may be considered in the context of the court’s best interest analysis pertaining 
to termination). 
[¶13]  Second, although the Department is statutorily obligated to 
develop a rehabilitation and reunification plan, see 22 M.R.S. § 4041(1-A)(A)(1), 
the “failure to satisfy [this] obligation[] does not preclude a termination of 
parental rights,” In re Doris G., 2006 ME 142, ¶ 16, 912 A.2d 572, and a 
 
12 
deficiency in the plan or its implementation may be considered by the court 
only as a factor in its parental unfitness analysis, see In re Hannah S., 2016 ME 
32, ¶ 12, 133 A.3d 590.  Moreover, the court “is not required to address the 
extent of the Department’s reunification efforts in its finding that [the parent] 
is unfit” if competent record evidence supports the court’s finding of at least 
one ground of parental unfitness by clear and convincing evidence.  In re Emma 
S., 2018 ME 8, ¶ 5, 177 A.3d 632.  Therefore, even if evidence shows that the 
Department did not fulfill its statutory duty to develop a proper rehabilitation 
and reunification plan, such a failure is not dispositive of a termination petition. 
[¶14]  We therefore must consider the father’s assertions only in the 
context of the court’s conclusion that the father is parentally unfit, and we look 
to the record as a whole to determine if it supports the court’s conclusion.  “We 
review for clear error the court’s findings of fact on parental unfitness.”  In re 
Child of James R., 2018 ME 50, ¶ 11, 182 A.3d 1252.   
[¶15]  Competent record evidence supports the court’s determination 
that the father was unfit to parent the older child for reasons unrelated to the 
children’s foster placement in Florida.  The court found, for example, that 
despite clear instructions from both the court and the Department that he 
contact the older child’s treatment professionals, who represent a variety of 
 
13 
disciplines, on a specific schedule, the father did not do so.  Nor did the father 
complete the parenting education classes recommended by the Department or 
timely follow the recommendation of the child’s therapist to write a letter to 
the child as a way to begin repairing their damaged relationship.  And although 
each rehabilitation and reunification plan required him to provide safe and 
stable housing for the children, at the time of the hearing the father chose not 
to live in a place that was suitable for the children, but rather continued to 
reside in a sober house that the Department had deemed inappropriate for 
reunification.    
[¶16]  The prevailing theme of these aspects of the father’s unfitness is, 
as the court found, his “fail[ure] to demonstrate any meaningful progress in 
understanding the needs of his children, and most particularly” those of the 
older child, whose needs are profound.  The father could have satisfied each of 
these requirements, along with others, no matter the child’s location, in order 
to rehabilitate and reunify.  That he failed to do so supports the court’s 
determination that he is statutorily unfit to be a parent to the older child.  See 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii)-(iv).  
[¶17]  Likewise, the court’s determination of the father’s parental 
unfitness with regard to the younger child—also for reasons unrelated to that 
 
14 
child’s placement in Florida—is supported by competent evidence in the 
record.  In addition to finding that the father had failed to provide safe and 
stable housing and complete the required parenting courses, the court found, 
based on clear and convincing evidence, that the father had not taken full 
advantage of the opportunities that were available for contact, even if those 
opportunities might have been more limited than if he had been in closer 
geographical proximity to the child.  Moreover, with considerable support in 
the record, the court found that the father’s “inability to recognize [his] 
parenting deficits creates a substantial risk of harm to . . . [the younger child].”  
Thus, the court did not err by determining that the father was unfit to parent 
the younger child pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii), (iv). 
B. 
The Mother’s Parental Unfitness 
[¶18]  The mother challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting 
the court’s determination of parental unfitness on three statutory bases.  See 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii)-(iv).  She focuses principally on evidence that 
she had “participated in all of the services offered” during her sixteen-month 
period of incarceration and, following her release, had taken “all possible steps” 
to address the Department’s requirements for reunification.   
 
15 
[¶19]  “Where the court finds multiple bases for unfitness, we will affirm 
if any one of the alternative bases is supported by clear and convincing 
evidence.”  In re M.B., 2013 ME 46, ¶ 37, 65 A.3d 1260.  
[¶20]  Although the court recognized that the mother had participated in 
therapeutic programming during her incarceration, the court found that she 
had only recently been released from prison, that the conditions of her federal 
probation required her to live in a sober house for up to five months,8 and that 
she must “first develop a support structure that will sustain her sobriety in the 
future.”  As the court found with respect to the father, the court also found that 
the mother had not made material progress in understanding the children’s 
needs, particularly those of the older child, and that she had “whitewashed” her 
fundamental parenting deficiencies and showed no insight into the effect of 
those deficits on both children.  Given these supported findings and the court’s 
determination that “[e]ach child’s present need for certainty simply cannot wait 
for her to develop and demonstrate her future capacity to parent,” the court did 
not err by concluding that the mother was unwilling or unable to take 
                                         
8  The terms of the mother’s federal probation required her to reside in a sober house for 160 days 
following her release from prison.  The Department determined that the sober house does not 
constitute safe and stable housing.   
 
16 
responsibility for the children within a time reasonably calculated to meet the 
children’s needs.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(ii). 
[¶21]  Because the court’s determination of this ground of parental 
unfitness by clear and convincing evidence is supported by competent record 
evidence, we need not address the mother’s challenges to the two other types 
of parental unfitness found by the court.  See In re M.B., 2013 ME 46, ¶ 37, 65 
A.3d 1260. 
The entry is:  
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Charlene Hoffman, Esq., Portland, for appellant Father 
 
Thomas L. Richard, Esq., Rioux, Donahue, Chmelecki & Peltier, LLC, Portland, for 
appellant Mother 
 
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 
 
 
Bridgton District Court docket number PC-2016-14 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY