Court Opinion

ID: 9694425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:41:12.556262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:14.886347
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
My readiug of the record satisfies me that in this case, unlike Jones Appeal, 449 Pa. 543, 549, 297 A. 2d 117 (1972), the trial court had before it adequate, competent and reliable evidence upon which to base its de*356cree. I accordingly respectfully dissent from tlie bolding of tbe Court to the contrary. Por the reason hereafter given, however, I concur in the order of remand.
In Jones, supra, we concluded that the summary there introduced by the Greene County Child Welfare Service was “so permeated with hearsay that it could not justify the findings of the court below.” The summary there—“a recounting of Tacts’ accumulated by the service”—was prepared by two persons other than those who had knowledge of the accumulated facts. Thus “[t]he report escaped the test of cross-examination with respect to the Tacts’ which underpin its conclusions .. (449 Pa. at 549). In the case at bar, on the other hand, the witness who prepared and testified from the summary report had had direct, first-hand knowledge of the Sanders family and conditions in their home going back six years before the hearing. As she testified, the report was made up “mainly from what I myself observed”. While admittedly other caseworkers had also had contact with the family, and these are referred to in the summary, such references comprised only a small portion of the total report.* As our Jones opinion recog*357nized, we “normally will concede broad discretion to' the court, sitting as a trier of fact, to sift through evidence which is unreliable in part to consider that which is trustworthy”. Jones Appeal, supra, at 549. While in Jones none of the facts alleged in the summary was proved by direct evidence, in the case before us the agency produced not only the testimony of its caseworker, based on her personal knowledge, but also the testimony of the school principal and of the school nurse, and friends and drinking companions of Mrs. Sanders. All of these witnesses were subjected to cross-examination.
While I thus conclude that the decree of involuntary termination was justifiably entered on the evidence before the court, I recognize the possibility that during the more than two years which have elapsed since the last hearings in this case, new factors bearing on the present advisability of such a course of action may have arisen. Accordingly, I concur in the order of remand, but would limit further proceedings to a determination by the trial court as to whether the conduct of the appellants and the conditions in their home have shown substantial improvement since September 25, 1971, the date of the last hearing herein. Should the court find that the situation has changed substantially for the better, so that the test of §311(2) of the Adoption Act, 1 P.S. §311(2), is no longer met, then the petition for involuntary termination should be dismissed, notwithstanding the decree appealed from. If such improvement is not found to have occurred, then a new final decree of termination should be entered.
Mr. Justice Eag-bn joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.

 While the report was not actually introduced into evidence, nor marked for identification, it is physically a part of the court record in this case, and there is no doubt that it is the document to which objection was made. It is entitled “Summary from Child Welfare Service of Greene County to The Honorable Judge Glenn R. Toothman”, and signed by Wilma R. Johnson, Child Welfare Aide, and Rupert Eder, Executive Director of the Agency. The report consists of five pages, and concludes with a recommendation to the court that the best interests and welfare of the six named Sanders children require “that all parental rights be terminated in order that these children can be legally adopted into families where their needs may be met.” This communication to the court was evidently either the basis for the petition for involuntary termination of parental rights, which was also signed by the same two officials of the agency, or prepared for use at the hearing in support of said petition. In either case, it is reasonable to suppose that it was read and considered by Judge Toothman. Whether or not the docu*357ment qualified under the Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act, 28 P.S. 91b, as the majority supposes (see Opinion of the Court, note 7), is not clear to me. The question is not raised by the parties, and I do not consider it important for the Court’s decision.