Court Opinion

ID: 9380406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-17 22:03:50.753122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:24.812149
License: Public Domain

*** NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER ***

                                                                 Electronically Filed
                                                                 Supreme Court
                                                                 SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX
                                                                 17-MAR-2023
                                                                 11:52 AM
                                                                 Dkt. 28 MO

                               SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX

              IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAIʻI

                            IN THE INTEREST OF JB

            CERTIORARI TO THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS
                  (CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX; FC-S NO. 17-00089)

                              MEMORANDUM OPINION
        (By: Recktenwald, C.J., Nakayama, McKenna, and Eddins, JJ.,
                        and Wilson, J., dissenting 1)

       The Department of Human Services (DHS) and Resource

Caregivers (RCGs) appeal from the Intermediate Court of Appeals’

(ICA) judgment on appeal vacating the Family Court of the First

Circuit’s order terminating a father’s parental rights.

       The ICA found that the family court structurally erred when

it discharged Father’s counsel during ongoing Child Protective

Act (CPA) proceedings.        The ICA ordered a new trial.

       We reverse.

1      Justice Wilson’s dissent is forthcoming.
    *** NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER ***

                                       I.

       DHS petitioned for temporary foster custody of a child, JB,

in May 2017.      The court immediately appointed counsel for the

child’s parents.       Father and counsel appeared at the first two

CPA hearings.      Then Father stopped participating in the case.

       After Father failed to appear at a required hearing, the

family court entered default against him.            Counsel, however,

remained on the case.        Five months later, Father failed to

appear at another hearing.         The court continued Father’s default

and discharged his counsel. 2

       In July 2019, DHS moved to terminate parental rights (TPR).

Before filing its TPR motion, DHS notified Father of its

intention to move to terminate his parental rights.              Father

expressed disinterest; he refused to participate in the case. 3

       Trial on DHS’s TPR motion began in February 2021.             Mother,

who had participated throughout the CPA proceedings, appeared

with her counsel.       But Father did not show.        He had not appeared

2     The Honorable Jeffrey A. Hawk entered the default against Father on
November 2, 2017. The Honorable Brian A. Costa discharged Father’s counsel
on April 17, 2018.

3     Father had reported to DHS that he obtained a temporary restraining
order (issued on June 21, 2017 and set to expire on June 21, 2020) against
Mother and that he was concerned about his safety. When DHS informed Father
about the upcoming TPR motion, he said that he would not get involved in the
case. DHS told Father that it would try to place JB with his maternal
grandfather; Father liked this proposed placement, preferring that JB not be
placed with strangers.

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in family court since July 2017.            The family court continued the

entry of default against Father. 4

       On the fifth and final day of trial, Father – after nearly

four years – showed up in family court.            So did his lawyer. 5

       Counsel asked the court to set aside Father’s default,

postpone the trial, and give Father the opportunity to challenge

DHS’s TPR motion.       After counsel argued to set aside the

default, Father had an opportunity to address the court.               The

court asked Father why he had failed to show up to court over

the past several years.        Father replied: “there was

complications in the case before” due to his hostile

relationship with Mother.         He further explained that he was

“trying . . . [to] let everything settle” and he was “under the

impression that [JB’s maternal] grandfather was going [to get]

custody” of JB.

       The court denied the motion to set aside the default and

excused Father’s counsel.         The court explained that a few years

back, it “gave . . . an extra five months or so to [Father] and

[his counsel] to try and re-establish contact.”             It also

observed “[t]his case has been ongoing with no input from

4     The court made the same finding on each day of trial.    The Honorable
Andrew T. Park presided over the TPR trial.

5     Father had called the family court and asked about the case. Staff
advised Father about the next day’s court hearing. The court reappointed his
counsel.

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father.”   The court pointed out that Father had missed over 29

hearings between November 2017 and April 2021.

     Thus, the court concluded Father did not show good cause to

support his motion to set aside the entry of default.            See Chen

v. Mah, 146 Hawai‘i 157, 457 P.3d 796 (2020).          The court

explained that it “was well grounded in making that

determination in denying father’s motion to set aside his

default after his . . . [over] three years of absence in the

case and his lack of participation in not only the case, in

visitation, or contact with the child, contact with the

department, or services.”

     The court granted DHS’s motion and terminated Father’s

parental rights.    The court made the necessary findings under

Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS) § 587A-33(a) (2018).           It filed an

order terminating parental rights and letters of permanent

custody on April 5, 2021.

     Father appealed.     He argues the discharge of counsel

constituted structural error.

     The ICA agreed.     Because the court had discharged counsel

during the CPA proceedings, the ICA concluded that structural

error happened.    The ICA vacated the TPR order and remanded the

case.

     We accepted DHS’s and RCGs’ applications for certiorari.

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                                    II.

     We hold that Father received a fundamentally fair trial.

     This court recently addressed what happens after a court

appoints counsel at the start of Child Protective Act

proceedings and later discharges counsel due to a parent’s

deliberate failure to appear in court.         In the Interest of JH,

No. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX, 2023 WL 2518743 (Haw. Mar. 15, 2023), held

that our case law “do[es] not require automatic reversal for

structural error when an indigent parent is not from start to

finish represented by court-appointed counsel in CPA

proceedings.”    Id.

     Instead, a fundamental fairness test applies to determine

whether parents received due process before their parental

rights terminated.     “There is no violation of a parent’s due

process right to counsel when a family court discharges and

later reappoints counsel, and the case, viewed in its entire

context, establishes that the parent received a fundamentally

fair trial and the family court accurately determined that

parental rights should terminate.”        JH, No. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX,

2023 WL 2518743, at *6.

     Here, the court timely appointed Father counsel.            After

Father was defaulted for failure to appear, his counsel remained

in the case.    Only when Father failed to show at the next

hearing five months later did the court discharge his attorney.

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And once Father contacted the family court after nearly four

years of disinterest and no participation, the court reappointed

his counsel.

       When Father resurfaced in the case, the court gave him an

opportunity to set aside his default.        Father addressed the

court.    Counsel argued on his behalf.      Because Father did not

show good cause to support his belated request, the family court

denied his motion and continued the default.          The court did not

err.    See JH, No. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX, 2023 WL 2518743, at *5 n.9

(noting that “if a parental rights case nears its end, then a

court may use its discretion - after it provides a parent a fair

process - to refuse a parent’s request to set aside a default”).

       Then, before it terminated Father’s parental rights, the

court confirmed compliance with the Child Protective Act.             It

found “by clear and convincing evidence that it is not

reasonably foreseeable that . . . father in this case will

become willing and able to provide [JB] with a safe family home,

even with the assistance of a service plan, within a reasonable

period of time.”    See HRS § 587A-33(a)(2).       The record contains

substantial evidence to support the family court’s HRS § 587A-

33(a) termination of parental rights ruling.

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                                   III.

     We reverse the ICA’s judgment on appeal filed on April 12,

2022.   The Family Court of the First Circuit’s April 5, 2021

Order Terminating Parental Rights is affirmed.

           DATED: Honolulu, Hawai‘i, March 17, 2023.

Francis T. O’Brien                       /s/ Mark E. Recktenwald
(Brett A. Ritter on the briefs)
for petitioners Resource                 /s/ Paula A. Nakayama
Caregivers
                                         /s/ Sabrina S. McKenna
Kellie M. Kersten                        /s/ Todd W. Eddins
(Julio C. Herrera, Patrick A.
Pascual, Erin K. Torres on the
briefs)
for petitioner Department of
Human Services

Emily E.M. Hills
for Guardian Ad Litem

Clint K. Hamada and
Herbert Y. Hamada
for respondent

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