IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 15-0531

Filed August 5, 2015

IN THE INTEREST OF K.R. and H.L.,

Minor Children,

K.L., Mother,

Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Poweshiek County, Rose Anne 

Mefford, District Associate Judge.

A mother appeals a dispositional order prohibiting her from having contact 

with her children. AFFIRMED.

Samuel E. Charnetski of Charnetski, Lacina & Clower, L.L.P., Grinnell, for 

appellant mother.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bruce Kempkes, Assistant Attorney 

General, and Rebecca Petig, County Attorney, for appellee State.

Misty D. White-Reinier, Grinnell, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor 

children.

Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Potterfield and McDonald, JJ.
2

VAITHESWARAN, P.J.

A mother of two children, born in 2000 and 2002, appeals a district court 

dispositional order prohibiting her from having contact with the children.1 She 

contends the State failed to prove the order was justified or in the children’s best 

interests. On our de novo review, we disagree.

The children were placed in a guardianship with their maternal 

grandmother following a child-in-need-of-assistance action that closed in April 

2014. The children’s mother and maternal uncle also lived in the home.

Six months later, the Iowa Department of Human Services investigated

allegations of sexual contact between the maternal uncle and one of the children. 

The department sought temporary removal of the children. The district court 

granted the application and the children were placed in foster care. They were 

subsequently adjudicated in need of assistance.

The department afforded the mother supervised visits with the children. 

During those visits, the mother gave the children sexually inappropriate letters 

and notes from their uncle, as well as other gifts and a cell phone—suspected to 

have come from the uncle. 

The children’s guardian ad litem filed an emergency motion to stop visits 

and a motion to limit visitation. The district court granted the emergency motion 

pending a hearing and ordered the mother to have “[n]o [c]ontact whatsoever 

with the minor children . . . pending further order of the court.” Following a 

 

1 The mother lists the date of the order as February 3, 2015, but the order is actually 

dated March 3, 2015.
3

hearing, the juvenile court prohibited contact between the mother and the 

children.2

The district court’s ruling is fully supported by the record. The 

grandmother essentially abdicated her responsibilities as guardian and relegated 

those responsibilities to the mother. The mother, in turn, refused to protect the 

children from the claimed abuser and, indeed, took steps to facilitate the 

relationship. She also turned the children against their foster parents. 

Significantly, a department employee testified the department was not 

obligated to furnish the mother any visitation. The mother’s abuse of this

opportunity warranted curtailment of the visits and of any contact with the 

children. See In re D.P., No. 09-0237, 2009 WL 929552, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App.

Apr. 8, 2009); In re J.O., No. 99-1016, 2000 WL 18862, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 

12, 2000).

We affirm the juvenile court’s no contact order between the mother and 

children.

AFFIRMED. 

 

2 The court did not limit the grandmother’s visitation with the children.