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.
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 2 of 8

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 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 3 of 8

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. 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 4 of 8

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). 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 5 of 8

Mother invited the Court of Appeals to follow language in two child-inneed-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.
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 6 of 8

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 abovequoted 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).
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 7 of 8

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 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JT-235 | April 1, 2020 Page 8 of 8

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 T T O R N E YS F O R A P P E L L A N T

Valerie K. Boots

Matthew D. Anglemeyer 

Marion County Public Defender

Appellate Division

Indianapolis, Indiana

A T T O R N E YS F O R A P P E L L E E I N D I A N A D E P A R T M E N T O F C H I L D

S E R V I C E S 

Curtis T. Hill, Jr. 

Attorney General of Indiana

Robert J. Henke

Deputy Attorney General 

Indianapolis, Indiana 

A T T O R N E Y F O R A P P E L L E E C H I L D A D V O C A T E S , I N C .

DeDe K. Connor 

Indianapolis, Indiana