Opinion ID: 4663184
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: Background Regarding Adjudication Proceedings in Juvenile Court. [2,3] Before addressing Mohamed’s and Abak’s arguments, we briefly review the standards governing the adjudication phase of a juvenile court proceeding. The purpose of the adjudication phase is to protect the interests of the child. In re Interest of Justine J., 286 Neb. 250, 835 N.W.2d 674 (2013). To obtain jurisdiction over a juvenile at the adjudication stage, the court’s only concern is whether the conditions in which the juvenile presently finds himself or herself fit within the asserted subsection of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-247 (Reissue 2016). In re Interest of Justine J., supra. Section 43-247(3)(a) sets forth numerous grounds by which the juvenile court could take jurisdiction over a juvenile. See In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al., 304 Neb. 734, 936 N.W.2d 733 (2020). The ground relevant to this case is that the juvenile “lacks proper parental care by reason of the fault or habits of his or her parent, guardian, or custodian.” See § 43-247(3)(a). As we have previously explained, “proper parental care” includes providing a home, support, subsistence, education, and other care necessary for the health, morals, and wellbeing of the child. . . . It commands that the child not - 426 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 be placed in situations dangerous to life or limb, and not be permitted to engage in activities injurious to his health or morals. State v. Metteer, 203 Neb. 515, 520, 279 N.W.2d 374, 377 (1979). See, also, In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al., supra. In considering whether a juvenile lacks proper parental care, our case law has incorporated a risk of harm component. In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al., supra. To show that a juvenile lacks proper parental care, the State is not required to prove that the child has actually suffered physical harm, but the State must establish that, without intervention, there is a definite risk of future harm. See In re Interest of Kane L. & Carter L., 299 Neb. 834, 910 N.W.2d 789 (2018). We recently explained in In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al. that a claim under § 43-247(3)(a) that a juvenile “lacks proper parental care by reason of the fault or habits of his or her parent, guardian, or custodian” should be analyzed through a twostep inquiry: The first step is to determine if the juvenile is lacking proper parental care, whether such care is being provided by a parent, a guardian, or a custodian. If a juvenile is not lacking that type of care (and . . . there is no definite risk of harm), adjudication under this provision of § 43-247(3)(a) is improper. If, on the other hand, the juvenile is lacking such care, the court should proceed to the second step: Does that condition result from the fault or habits of the juvenile’s parent, guardian, or custodian? If the answer to that question is also yes, then the juvenile court should take jurisdiction of the juvenile and proceed to a proper disposition. 304 Neb. at 748, 936 N.W.2d at 744-45. [4] At the adjudication stage, in order for a juvenile court to assume jurisdiction of minor children under § 43-247(3)(a), the State must prove the allegations of the petition by a preponderance of the evidence. In re Interest of Heather R. et al., 269 Neb. 653, 694 N.W.2d 659 (2005). A preponderance of - 427 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 the evidence is the equivalent of the greater weight of the evidence, which means evidence sufficient to make a claim more likely true than not true. See In re Interest of Vladimir G., 306 Neb. 127, 944 N.W.2d 309 (2020). Both Mohamed and Abak argue on appeal and cross-appeal that the State failed to carry its burden to show that Prince lacked proper parental care by reason of their faults or habits and that, without intervention, Prince faced a definite risk of future harm. We turn to their arguments now, beginning with Abak’s. Abak’s Cross-Appeal. Abak contends that Prince did not lack proper parental care by reason of her fault or habits and that Prince did not face a definite risk of future harm. In support of her argument that Prince received adequate parental care, Abak primarily emphasizes evidence of her care for Prince prior to the meeting at Children’s on October 1, 2019. She mentions, for example, that she noticed the swelling in Prince’s forearm and arranged for him to be seen by doctors. She points out that she agreed to the treatment plan recommended by Children’s and that Prince initially received treatment as recommended. She also directs us to a note recorded by Chesters in July 2019 stating that she and Mohamed “love Prince very much.” But even if this evidence tends to show that Abak was ensuring that Prince received adequate medical care for a period of time, it fails to address the crux of the State’s case: that in early October, Abak took Prince out of Nebraska and, for more than 3 weeks until the State was able to locate them, kept Prince from receiving the treatment Acquazzino testified was essential to his survival. The closest Abak comes to providing an explanation for her actions after the October 1, 2019, meeting are suggestions that she was not refusing to allow treatment, but merely seeking a second opinion. This claim might have more force if there were evidence in the record that Abak had actually made arrangements to obtain a second opinion or taken - 428 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 significant, concrete steps toward doing so. But even though Acquazzino had recently informed Mohamed and Abak that Prince’s condition was serious, that delays in treatment subjected Prince to risk of lethal harm, and that thus, any second opinion must be obtained quickly, there is no evidence that even after Prince had already missed approximately 3 weeks of scheduled treatment, Abak had so much as begun to identify where she might obtain a second opinion. Further, Abak’s comment to Herrera that “if I even get another doctor, it’s not going to be in Nebraska,” suggests that Abak had no immediate intentions of arranging for a second opinion. (Emphasis supplied.) Based on this evidence, we agree with the juvenile court that it is more likely than not that Abak did not leave Nebraska with Prince to obtain a second opinion, but to stop his treatment altogether for an indefinite period of time. We also agree with the juvenile court that the decision to indefinitely stop treatment, which Acquazzino testified was essential to Prince’s survival, deprived Prince of proper parental care by reason of the faults or habits of Abak. Abak also argues that the juvenile court erred by finding that, without intervention, Prince faced a definite risk of future harm. Here, Abak argues that because the State could not definitively show that Prince was harmed by not receiving treatment during the time in which she and Prince were not in Nebraska, it did not prove the risk of harm element. Abak’s argument, however, is an attempt to transform the risk of harm requirement into a requirement that the juvenile suffer actual harm before the juvenile court obtains jurisdiction. As we have emphasized on many occasions, however, the Nebraska Juvenile Code does not require a juvenile court to wait until disaster has befallen a minor child before the court may acquire jurisdiction. See, e.g., In re Interest of Justine J., 286 Neb. 250, 835 N.W.2d 674 (2013). The State introduced evidence showing that Prince was placed at risk of harm by a delay in treatment. As we have noted, Acquazzino testified that treatment delays increase - 429 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 the risk of relapse and decrease the overall efficacy of the treatment and that if the treatment was stopped altogether, Prince would die. Her testimony also established that due to his treatment and the central line in his body, Prince needed to be regularly seen by medical professionals. We find the State established that, without intervention, there was a definite risk of future harm to Prince as a result of Abak’s actions. Under the two-step analysis set forth in In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al., 304 Neb. 734, 936 N.W.2d 733 (2020), the State established that Prince lacked proper parental care and faced a definite risk of future harm and that this resulted from the fault or habits of Abak. We thus find no merit to Abak’s cross-appeal. Mohamed’s Appeal. In his appeal, Mohamed makes many of the arguments made by Abak. Like Abak, he contends that he ensured Prince received the treatment recommended by Children’s up until early October 2019 and that the treatment stopped at that point only because a decision was made to obtain a second opinion. He also makes the argument that because the State did not prove that Prince actually suffered harm because of the treatment delay, it did not establish the risk of harm element. As we have already explained, however, we are unpersuaded by these arguments. We have already determined under the first step of the two-step In re Interest of Jeremy U. analysis that, after his treatment was stopped in early October 2019, Prince lacked proper parental care and, as a result, faced a definite risk of future harm. Mohamed does make one argument, however, that remains unaddressed even after our analysis of Abak’s cross-appeal: Mohamed attempts to place any blame for a lack of parental care exclusively on Abak. Mohamed argues that while he agreed that a second opinion should be sought, he believed Abak was, in fact, seeking such an opinion when she left the state with Prince in October 2019. Although he does not - 430 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 frame the argument in these exact terms, Mohamed appears to argue that even if the State proved at step one of the In re Interest of Jeremy U. analysis that Prince lacked proper parental care and faced a definite risk of future harm because of the treatment delay in October 2019, it did not prove at step two that this was a result of the fault or habits of Mohamed. As noted above, the juvenile court rejected this argument, finding that both parents made the decision to withdraw Prince from treatment and to remove him from Nebraska—not to obtain a second opinion but to stop his treatment altogether for an undetermined period of time. We agree that, based on the evidence in the record, it is more likely than not that Mohamed supported and bears responsibility for the decision to remove Prince from treatment indefinitely regardless of whether a second opinion was sought. Several pieces of evidence inform this conclusion, which we outline below. Initially, we note that the record contains evidence of multiple statements by Mohamed that the recommended treatment was not only unnecessary to Prince’s survival, but harmful to him. Acquazzino, Chesters, Parmer, and Herrera all testified that Mohamed made such statements. Although the fact that Mohamed made these statements alone would not demonstrate that Prince lacked proper parental care by reason of the fault or habits of Mohamed, they do suggest that Mohamed disagreed with and wanted to discontinue the recommended treatment and was not merely an unwitting victim of Abak. There are also pieces of evidence that, when considered together, undermine Mohamed’s claims that he wanted to obtain a second opinion, that he deferred to Abak to arrange for such an opinion, and that he believed that such an opinion was being sought. First, Mohamed offered testimony regarding his devotion and attachment to Prince. The juvenile court found this testimony credible, observing that Mohamed “undoubtedly loves his son.” But while there is no dispute that Mohamed cared deeply for Prince, there is evidence suggesting that he would not have trusted Abak to ensure that Prince - 431 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 received needed medical care. Mohamed and Abak reported to Chesters that “they don’t always get along.” In addition, in a meeting with Chesters, Mohamed shared that he was concerned about Abak’s arrest record and drug and alcohol use and that he believed her drug usage might explain why Prince missed several speech therapy appointments. During that meeting, Mohamed requested that all appointments be made on days on which he did not have to work. Given Mohamed’s attachment to Prince and his prior concerns regarding Abak’s reliability, it is difficult to believe that Mohamed entrusted Abak with the task of obtaining a second opinion. Mohamed emphasizes that he sent an email to Chesters on October 8, 2019, asking that Prince’s medical records be compiled so that a second opinion could be sought. This evidence does not persuade us that Mohamed bears no responsibility for the lack of proper parental care. Chesters testified that while she compiled the records, she also informed Mohamed he would need to arrange to come pick up a disc containing the records, and he never did so. Mohamed disagreed with this testimony, claiming that Chesters emailed the records to him. But even assuming the truth of Mohamed’s testimony on this point, Mohamed also testified that he never sent the records to another medical provider. The assertion that Mohamed believed a second opinion was being obtained is difficult to square with the fact that he knew the records necessary to obtain such an opinion had not been given to another provider. We acknowledge that Mohamed testified that he believed Abak was arranging for a second opinion and that Abak told him she had made an appointment with another provider. The juvenile court, however, found Mohamed’s “claimed ignorance of [Prince’s and Abak’s] whereabouts, or [Abak’s] efforts or lack thereof in seeking a second opinion, unconvincing.” The juvenile court had the opportunity to observe Mohamed’s testimony firsthand, and given the evidence in the record we have discussed, we believe deference to its assessment of the credibility of Mohamed’s claims is warranted. See In re - 432 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 308 Nebraska Reports IN RE INTEREST OF PRINCE R. Cite as 308 Neb. 415 Interest of Leyton C. & Landyn C., 307 Neb. 529, 949 N.W.2d 773 (2020). Based on the foregoing, we agree with the juvenile court that it is more likely than not that Mohamed supported Abak’s taking Prince from the state because he too wanted the treatment stopped indefinitely and did not want Prince to be found. We thus reject Mohamed’s argument that the State failed to prove at step two of the analysis under In re Interest of Jeremy U. et al., 304 Neb. 734, 936 N.W.2d 733 (2020), that Prince lacked proper parental care because of Mohamed’s fault or habits.