This opinion will be unpublished and

may not be cited except as provided by

Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN COURT OF APPEALS

A14-0801

In the Matter of the Welfare of the Child of: G. M. L. and T. M. M., Parents

Filed October 20, 2014

Affirmed

Connolly, Judge

Anoka County District Court

File Nos. 02-JV-13-1398, 02-JV-13-1268

Patricia A. Zenner, Zenner Law Office, Stillwater, Minnesota (for appellant-G.M.L.)

Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Robert D. Goodell, Assistant County 

Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota (for respondent)

Lauren R. Cains, Ramsey, Minnesota (guardian ad litem)

Considered and decided by Hooten, Presiding Judge; Connolly, Judge; and 

Johnson, Judge. 

U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N

CONNOLLY, Judge

Appellant-mother challenges the district court’s termination of her parental rights. 

Because evidence supports the district court’s findings that appellant is palpably unfit to 

be a party to the parent-child relationship and that respondent county made adequate 

efforts to reunite appellant with her child and the district court’s ultimate finding that 
2

termination of appellant’s parental right was in her child’s best interests was not an abuse 

of discretion, we affirm.

FACTS

Appellant G.M.L. is the mother of five children. In 2009, she voluntarily

transferred custody of her first three children, then 12, 10, and 6, to their paternal 

grandparents after they were removed from her custody and declared to be children in 

need of protection or services (CHIPS) because she was using methamphetamine. 

In 2011, she and T.M.M., the father of her fourth and fifth children, voluntarily 

agreed to the termination of their parental rights to the fourth child, then a year old, after 

he had been removed from their care because they were using methamphetamine. This 

child has been adopted by a cousin of G.M.L. and his wife.

Appellant’s fifth child, M., whose custody is the subject of this appeal, was born to 

her and T.M.M. on June 17, 2013.1 Appellant resumed the use of methamphetamine in 

July 2013. In August 2013, a stabbing occurred in the residence where M. was living 

with appellant and T.M.M. When T.M.M. told appellant to drive the victim to the 

hospital, she did so, leaving M. in the care of T.M.M. She later testified that she did not 

really think about who would care for M. when she left, that the person who would have 

cared for him was T.M.M., and that T.M.M. “wasn’t all there” at that time. The 

following day, T.M.M. was arrested because, after his car was pulled over, a search of his 

person revealed that he had $1,000 in cash and a dog search of his car revealed a bag 

 

1

T.M.M. voluntarily terminated his parental rights to M.
3

containing about one gram of methamphetamine, a large number of needles, and a scale 

was in his vehicle.

On September 2, T.M.M. was arrested for possession of methamphetamine when a 

neighbor reported that he was using drugs and causing problems. Two bags containing 

4.9 grams and 5.2 grams of methamphetamine were found on him. 

On September 6, a CHIPS petition was filed on M., who was removed from the 

home. On September 10, when a social worker from respondent Anoka County (the 

county) was scheduled to observe a visit of M. and his parents, appellant was unable to 

wake T.M.M. for the visit, and he threatened her when she attempted to wake him. On 

September 13, T.M.M. refused to attend a scheduled visit with M. because he did not like 

the social worker. Appellant admitted having known for several months that T.M.M. had 

been dealing methamphetamine. She claimed that she had not used methamphetamine 

for the past year, but did not comply with a request for random urinalysis (UA) tests. 

On September 17, appellant was 35 minutes late for a scheduled visit with M., 

who had already left when she arrived. Appellant told the social worker that she and 

T.M.M. had been fighting until three o’clock in the morning and that he had taken her 

phone. The social worker offered appellant information on a women’s shelter, but 

appellant declined it.

At a scheduled visit on September 19, T.M.M. became angry and agitated, then 

violent, and he was asked to leave. Appellant’s cousin and his wife, who had adopted 

appellant’s fourth child, expressed an interest in providing foster care for M., who is the 

adopted child’s full sibling. 
4

On September 24, appellant cancelled the visit she and T.M.M. were scheduled to 

have with M., saying they had car trouble. On September 30, appellant was informed 

that after a visit scheduled for the next day, M. would be placed with his sibling at her 

cousin’s home in kinship foster care.

On October 10, the county filed a petition to terminate appellant’s parental rights. 

On October 21, appellant had a positive UA result, although she initially denied that she 

had used methamphetamine.

On November 29, when appellant was arrested for allowing T.M.M. to drive her 

uninsured vehicle, she admitted that she had two bags of methamphetamine concealed in 

her vagina.2 Appellant entered a residential chemical-dependency program in January 

2014, completed the program in February, and entered an extended treatment program in 

March. She continued to have a relationship with T.M.M., who voluntarily terminated 

his parental rights to M. just before the trial.

Following trial, the district court terminated appellant’s parental rights to M. She 

challenges the termination, arguing that evidence did not support the district court’s 

findings that appellant is palpably unfit to be a parent to M. and that the county provided 

reasonable efforts to reunite appellant and M. and that the district court’s ultimate finding 

that termination of appellant’s parental rights is in M.’s best interests was an abuse of 

discretion.

3

 

2 At the time of trial, felony charges resulting from this incident had not been resolved.

3 Appellant also appears to argue that: (1) a parent is presumptively fit to care for that 

parent’s children, see, e.g., In re Welfare of A.P., 535 N.W.2d 643, 647 (Minn. 1995); 
5

D E C I S I O N

1. Finding of Palpable Unfitness

The district court concluded that appellant’s parental rights should be terminated 

under Minn. Stat. § 260C.301, subd. 1(b)(4) (2012), providing that one ground for 

termination is a finding that 

a parent is palpably unfit to be a party to the parent and child 

relationship because of a consistent pattern of specific 

conduct before the child or of specific conditions directly 

relating to the parent and child relationship either of which 

are determined by the court to be of a duration or nature that 

renders the parent unable, for the reasonably foreseeable 

future, to care appropriately for the ongoing physical, mental 

or emotional needs of the child. 

This court will “affirm the district court’s termination of parental rights when at least one 

statutory ground for termination is supported by clear and convincing evidence and 

termination is in the best interests of the child, provided that the county has made 

reasonable efforts to reunite the family.” In re Welfare of Children of S.E.P., 744 

N.W.2d 381, 385 (Minn. 2008) (citations omitted). While the reviewing court “give[s] 

considerable deference to the district court’s decision to terminate parental rights,” it will 

also “closely inquire into the sufficiency of the evidence to determine whether it was 

clear and convincing.” Id.

 

(2) if a parent’s rights to other children were involuntarily terminated, that parent is 

presumptively unfit, see Minn. Stat. § 260C.301, subd. 1(b)(4) (2012); and (3) because 

appellant’s parental rights to her other children were not involuntarily terminated, she is 

presumptively fit to be a parent. This argument is fallacious: in a hypothetical syllogism, 

no valid conclusion can be drawn from a denial of the antecedent.
6

M., born in June 2013, was nine months old at the time of trial. The district court 

found by clear-and-convincing evidence that, during those nine months: (1) appellant 

resumed using methamphetamine; (2) appellant left M. in a residence where a stabbing 

had just occurred while she drove the victim to the hospital, leaving M. in the care of 

T.M.M., who was not “all there” and who was later charged with the assault; 

(3) appellant admitted knowing that T.M.M., who lived with her and M., had been 

dealing methamphetamine; (4) appellant refused to provide a specimen for a UA, 

although she claimed she had not been using methamphetamine; (5) appellant missed one 

scheduled visit with M. because she was 35 minutes late, and declined information on a 

women’s shelter although she said she and T.M.M. had been fighting, and called to 

cancel another visit because she and T.M.M. were having car trouble; (6) appellant’s UA 

was positive for methamphetamine, but she denied she had been using the drug; (7) when 

appellant was arrested for allowing T.M.M. to drive her uninsured vehicle, she admitted 

she had two bags of methamphetamine concealed in her vagina, resulting in felony 

charges; (8) four months after M. was taken from her home, appellant entered a treatment 

program, admitting that she had used methamphetamine earlier that day; (9) at the time of 

trial, appellant had been free of drugs for only 60 days, 30 of which had been spent in a 

treatment facility; and (10) appellant knew T.M.M. was a drug dealer, “had no qualms 

about living off the proceeds of [his] criminal activity”, described T.M.M. as her fiancé, 

and “demonstrate[d] little insight into how her addiction and her relationship with

[T.M.M.] have affected . . . [M].” 
7

Appellant argues that the evidence does not support these findings, but the 

findings are based on her own testimony. On direct examination, when asked if she had 

kept M. safe, she answered, “I’ve kept him safe but I’m an addict. I have my faults.” 

She answered, “Yes” when asked if T.M.M. was an addict, had been an addict before M.

was born, and had been to prison for drug-related offenses. She testified that T.M.M.’s 

statement that he cooked methamphetamine for seven years so a lot of people owed him 

favors and he never had to pay for methamphetamine “sound[ed] like something he 

would say.” 

When asked if she now understood that T.M.M.’s position as a drug dealer could 

potentially harm M., she said she had come to that realization “right around the 

stabbing”, i.e., in August 2013, and answered “Yes” when asked if she had continued her 

relationship with T.M.M. with that knowledge. She agreed that she had told her social 

worker that her relationship with T.M.M. was going to continue. She also answered 

“Yes” when asked if her relationship with T.M.M. continued “despite the stabbing that 

occurred in your home” and after T.M.M.’s arrest when he was found in her front yard 

with a scale and methamphetamine in his possession. When asked how T.M.M. came to 

have $407 in his pocket when he was arrested in October, she said, “[h]e was obviously 

selling drugs,” agreed that she knew T.M.M. had been arrested for driving with a revoked 

license “probably in excess of 20 times,” and added that some of the times he had been 

driving her vehicles. 

When asked if it was true she did not enter treatment until she had been charged 

with a criminal offense, four months after M. had been taken from her home, she said 
8

“Correct” and agreed that she went to treatment because she hoped the court would deal 

more leniently with her criminal charges if she went to treatment. She testified that her 

drug use had been much more extensive than the three instances of which Social Services 

was aware and that she had not been honest with Social Services. She also testified that, 

although she had been successfully discharged from four treatment programs, she was 

unable to maintain sobriety. 

When asked if she was still in a relationship with T.M.M. and if her discharge 

summary referred to T.M.M. as her fiancé, she answered “Yes”; when asked if she 

foresaw an ongoing relationship with him, she said, “I’m unsure of what the future 

holds.” Finally, when asked if she saw T.M.M. as a negative influence and an obstacle to 

her remaining sober, she agreed, but when asked if she maintained a relationship with

him, answered, “Yes, I do.”

On cross-examination, when appellant was asked who cared for M. while she took 

the stabbing victim to the hospital, she said “That would have been [T.M.M.]”; when 

asked to describe T.M.M.’s behavior the night of the stabbing, she said, “He wasn’t all 

there.” She testified that she did not really think about who would be caring for M. when 

T.M.M. told her to take the victim to the hospital. She also testified that she was aware 

of the violence and high risk of a dangerous lifestyle implied by T.M.M.’s drug dealing, 

but that she believed M. was safe in her home “when [T.M.M.] wasn’t around.” Finally, 

appellant testified that, although T.M.M. is not part of her lifestyle now because he is in 

prison, she has not ruled out the possibility of their future relationship.
9

Appellant’s unwillingness to sever her connection with T.M.M., despite knowing 

that he is a drug user and dealer and that his lifestyle is likely to lead to violent and 

dangerous conditions, is a specific condition directly relating to the parent and child 

relationship that renders her unable, for the foreseeable future, to provide for M.’s needs. 

See Minn. Stat. § 260C.301, subd. 1(b)(4). Evidence supports the district court’s finding 

that appellant is palpably unfit to be a party to a parent-child relationship with M.

2. Reasonable Efforts

Appellant also challenges the district court’s finding that the county made 

reasonable efforts to reunite her and M., arguing specifically that the county should have 

taken T.M.M. out of her home. But appellant testified repeatedly that she was not honest 

with Social Services, that she rejected information about a place to go to be safe from 

T.M.M., that she did not want to change her residence, that she and T.M.M. have been

separated only when he has been in prison, and that she does not rule out their future 

relationship. Therefore, the district court’s finding that, although the county did not 

attempt to remove T.M.M. from appellant’s home, it did make reasonable efforts to unite 

her and M. is supported by the evidence. 

Moreover, appellant repeatedly testified that she maintained her relationship with 

T.M.M. and allowed it to dominate her actions, including following T.M.M.’s instruction 

to take the stabbing victim to the hospital even though it meant leaving M. in the care of 

T.M.M., who was in a deranged condition in a house where a violent stabbing had just 

occurred.
10

Appellant also appears to argue that, because she successfully completed 

chemical-dependency treatment several times but repeatedly relapsed, the county should 

have focused on something other than her chemical dependency. But she does not refute 

the county’s view that, unless and until her chemical dependency was resolved, other 

programs would not have been helpful, and she blames the county for not having ended 

her relationship with T.M.M. although she repeatedly testified that she did not, and does 

not, want the relationship to end.

Moreover, in terminating parental rights, the best interests of the child are the 

paramount consideration, and conflicts between the rights of the child and the rights of 

the parents are resolved in favor of the child. In re Welfare of Children of J.R.B., 805 

N.W.2d 895, 902 (Minn. App. 2011), review denied (Minn. Jan. 6, 2012). While it may 

have been in appellant’s best interests to end her relationship with T.M.M., the county’s 

concern was with M.’s best interest, and that interest was served by removing him from 

appellant’s home to which she admitted that T.M.M. was likely to return. 

Evidence supports the district court’s finding that the county made reasonable 

efforts to reunite appellant and M.

3. The Child’s Best Interests

“We review a district court’s ultimate determination that termination is in a child’s

best interest for an abuse of discretion.” Id. at 905. Appellant argues that M. should 

remain in the CHIPS program if he cannot be returned to her custody now. But this 

argument ignores M.’s need for permanency. See In re Welfare of Child of W.L.P., 678 

N.W.2d 703, 711 (Minn. App. 2004) (affirming finding that child’s best interest 
11

supported termination where the child had an immediate need for permanency and stable, 

drug-free, nurturing caregivers). M. has already experienced a violent and dangerous 

environment while in appellant’s custody and has been removed to a safe environment 

with his sibling. His need for that environment to be permanent outweighs any interest of 

appellant in having him eventually returned to her. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that termination of 

appellant’s parental rights is in M.’s best interests.

Affirmed.