Court Opinion

ID: 9768002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:37:58.865719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:35.222115
License: Public Domain

JORDAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this case.
I am not convinced that the evidence in this case is sufficiently “clear and convincing” so as to deprive the mother of these children of her natural and constitutional rights of keeping and caring for her natural children.
As the majority opinion points out, there is a strong presumption that the children’s best interest is usually served by keeping them with their natural parents, and the evidence required to deprive a natural parent of his or her parental rights must be *354“clear and convincing”. Holley v. Adams, 544 S.W.2d 367 (Tex.1976); In Interest of Guillory, 618 S.W.2d 948 (Tex.Civ.App. Houston [1st Dist.] 1981, no writ). I do not believe that this very strong and necessary presumption has been rebutted in this case.
There is no question that the mother delayed somewhat in reporting the abuse of these small children by their natural father, although she eventually did report such abuse to several agencies. Moreover, she even had the father involuntarily committed to the State Mental Institution in Wichita Falls, and eventually divorced him. The evidence shows that she reported these acts of abuse as soon as she had physical evidence to prove that the children were being abused, and that she had been advised by a lawyer that she could not take any action against the father for abuse of the children until she had such evidence. She eventually reported this abuse to the Denton Women’s Shelter, the Children’s Protective Services Unit of the Texas Department of Human Resources and the Denton County Mental Health Unit.
She even asked the Department of Human Resources to take the children so that the husband could not further harm the children.
The evidence in this case, in my opinion, shows, not a lack of concern or love for her children, but a certain degree of ignorance or uncertainty as to what to do under the circumstances. The evidence also shows a great fear of her husband on her part, because of his harassment and abuse of her, as well as of her children. The mother testified he struck her, forced her to commit acts of prostitution by threatening her life and the life of her children, and that she was not free to leave the house with both children. The husband would not allow her to take both children with her when she left; that he held one child as hostage, more or less.
This case is similar to that of Shapley v. Tex. Dept. of Human Resources, 581 S.W.2d 250 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso, 1979, no writ), where the court said: “It was only because of the mother’s love for her child that the beating was ever called to the attention of the authorities in the first place. Her delay could well have been caused by her own fear of her husband.”
In Wiley v. Spratlan, 543 S.W.2d 349 (Tex.1976), the Supreme Court held that actions which break the ties between a parent and child can never be justified without the most solid and substantial reasons; that the proceedings should be strictly scrutinized; and that the State bears a serious burden of justification before intervention in this final act of termination. I do not think this test is met in this case.