Opinion ID: 4549156
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Housing and Home Environment

Text: Respondent-mother also contests several of the trial court’s findings of fact related to her housing and home environment. Although the trial court acknowledged that the physical structure of respondent-mother’s three-bedroom townhouse -22- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court “provides an appropriate environment for the juvenile[,]” the trial court’s findings of fact refer to several episodes reflecting respondent-mother’s alleged inability to maintain a suitable home environment for Kirk. The trial court found that respondent-mother currently shared her residence with her adult daughters Brooke and Becky. The trial court then recounted a series of incidents arising from this living arrangement, stating as follows: 26. On December 18, 201[8], a GCDHHS social worker made an unannounced visit and noted the following concerns regarding the cleanliness of the home: overflowing trash can, kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, unkempt floors and grimy bathroom fixtures. The Mother utilizes a cleaning service that had just cleaned the home the day before on December 17, 2018. The GCDHHS social worker voiced concerns regarding the condition of the home since the service had just been at the home twenty-four hours prior. The social worker also expressed concerns that the other adult occupants of the home were not contributing to home maintenance. The Mother informed the social worker that her two adult daughters were only responsible for cleaning their individual rooms. The Mother was responsible for the other areas of the house. .... 33. . . . The daughters brought dogs into the home against the Mother’s preference and her expressed dislike of dogs. The dogs eventually had to be given away because her daughters did not adequately care for the animals. It was reported that one of the daughters had allowed a boyfriend to move in. The Mother denies that the boyfriend resided there. Upon further research, GCDHHS was able to verify the boyfriend’s criminal record which was not favorable. Until the unannounced home visit [on 18 December 2018], the daughters were not required to assist in home maintenance and apparently were not required to clean behind themselves. The Mother has since discussed home -23- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court maintenance with her daughters and has divided housekeeping tasks among the three of them. 34. Within the last few months, one of the daughters was attacked [at] the Mother’s residence by a neighbor for whom the daughter had babysat. Notwithstanding that the Mother is not currently permitted to have minor children in her home, the Mother did nothing to protect her daughter or stop the attack from occurring. The identity and behavior of occupants, potential occupants and visitors in the Mother’s home is pertinent and necessary to [e]nsure the safety of everyone in the household. It is essential that the Mother exercise dominion and authority over her household. Thus far, the Mother considers the needs and preferences of everyone else superior to her own. The Mother cannot maintain a safe, stable environment for the juvenile if she retains this conciliatory attitude. The Mother needs to know and understand who is in her home as well as the individual’s stated purpose there. The Mother cannot ensure and has not demonstrated that her home functions according to the Mother’s desires. Until the Mother is able to demonstrate that, the juvenile would be subject to danger and harm if the juvenile were returned to the Mother’s care. (Emphases added). Respondent-mother takes issue with the italicized portions of these findings. With regard to Brooke’s and Becky’s cleaning responsibilities in the home before the GCDHHS home visit on 18 December 2018, the evidence as to this issue was that respondent-mother did, in fact, require her daughters to keep their own rooms clean. As to the presence of dogs in the home, respondent-mother points to evidence demonstrating that she mandated that Brooke and Becky keep the two dogs caged and out of her way while she was downstairs. Moreover, when her daughters failed to take care of the dogs to her satisfaction, she required them to give the dogs -24- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court away. Furthermore, it is not apparent from the trial court’s order how the presence of the dogs gave rise to a likelihood that Kirk would be neglected. With regard to the findings of fact concerning Brooke’s boyfriend, respondentmother testified that the boyfriend never actually moved into the residence and was not allowed to visit after she learned of his criminal record. A report submitted by social worker Cynthia Johnson indicated that Brooke’s boyfriend was “living on and off at the home” during December 2017 and that respondent-mother initially “didn’t really have knowledge that he had been staying on and off in the home.” Respondentmother testified that she forbade him from visiting the home once she found out about his background. There is no evidence in the record suggesting that he continued to visit after she forbade him from doing so. Respondent-mother also objects to finding of fact 34’s depiction of an incident in July 2018 during which Brooke was assaulted outside of respondent-mother’s residence by the mother of a child that Brooke had been babysitting. The GCDHHS supervisor testified that the child’s mother came to the residence after the child told her that Brooke had struck her with a shoe. During the incident, the mother punched Brooke in the face and hit her with a shoe several times before being restrained by Becky. Respondent-mother subsequently reported the incident to GCDHHS, informing GCDHHS that she encouraged Brooke to file criminal charges but that Brooke refused. -25- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court Respondent-mother testified she had been upstairs with her door open while Brooke was babysitting the child downstairs. She was unaware that the child’s mother had come to the residence until she “heard major commotion outside [her] window,” at which time she “went downstairs and outside.” By the time respondentmother reached the scene of the incident, the child’s mother was gone. We are unable to find any evidence in the record to support the trial court’s statement in finding of fact 34 that respondent-mother was not permitted to have minor children in her home. Furthermore, it is unclear what respondent-mother could have done to prevent this incident from occurring. The remainder of finding of fact 34 consists of a series of generalizations or inferences drawn by the trial court. It is the province of the trial court when sitting as the fact-finder to assign weight to particular evidence and to draw reasonable inferences therefrom. In re D.L.W., 368 N.C. at 843, 788 S.E.2d at 167–68. Such inferences, however, “cannot rest on conjecture or surmise. This is necessarily so because an inference is a permissible conclusion drawn by reason from a premise established by proof.” Sowers v. Marley, 235 N.C. 607, 609, 70 S.E.2d 670, 672 (1952) (citations omitted). Accordingly, an appellate court may review the reasonableness of the inferences drawn by the trial court from the evidence. We conclude that the majority of the trial court’s inferences in finding of fact 34 are based merely on conjecture. The incidents described in the trial court’s findings of fact do not give rise to a reasonable inference that respondent-mother’s -26- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court “conciliatory attitude” renders her unable to “maintain a safe, stable environment for [Kirk],” or that “[Kirk] would be subject to danger and harm if . . . returned to the Mother’s care.” As for the cleanliness issues identified by the trial court, we do not believe that they are sufficiently indicative of respondent-mother’s inability to control her household as to support a conclusion that a likelihood of future neglect exists. Although the GCDHHS social worker found respondent-mother’s residence cluttered and dirty on one occasion, the evidence also shows that respondent-mother promptly addressed the issue by assigning Brooke and Becky additional cleaning responsibilities. The trial court’s findings of fact show that respondent-mother was employing a cleaning service for her residence prior to this incident, and there is no evidence that the cleanliness of the home remained a problem at the time of the termination hearing in March 2019. Although the trial court noted that cleanliness concerns were the subject of several CPS reports filed about the family in Orange County between 2003 and 2012, no such concerns were raised in any of the CPS reports received by GCDHHS between 2014 and 2016. Moreover, a lack of cleanliness in the home was not a cause of Kirk’s adjudication as a neglected and dependent juvenile in 2016. The remaining incidents cited in the trial court’s findings of fact do not support the larger inferences drawn by the trial court about respondent-mother’s ability to protect Kirk or provide him with a safe home environment. The findings of fact show -27- IN RE K.L.T. Opinion of the Court that respondent-mother tried to accommodate Brooke’s and Becky’s desires to have dogs but then required the dogs to be given away when her daughters proved unable to care for them. Respondent-mother also barred Brooke’s boyfriend from the residence upon learning of his criminal history. Neither of these events is sufficient to support the trial court’s conclusion that respondent-mother is unwilling or unable to control her household so as to prevent harm to Kirk. Likewise, the attack on Brooke in 2018 was an isolated incident occurring eight months prior to the termination hearing. We see nothing inherently dangerous in respondent-mother’s decision to permit her adult daughter to babysit a nine-year-old girl. Nor does the record contain any evidence that respondent-mother possessed any ability to predict or prevent the incident involving Brooke and the child’s mother.