Court Opinion

ID: 9946099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-29 09:13:29.724582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:25.738645
License: Public Domain

In The
                                  Court of Appeals
                         Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo

                                           No. 07-23-00373-CV

                      IN THE INTEREST OF K.R. AND G.R., CHILDREN

                              On Appeal from the County Court at Law
                                      Moore County, Texas
                   Trial Court No. CL67-20, Honorable Jerod Pingelton, Presiding

                                           February 28, 2024
                                  MEMORANDUM OPINION
                          Before QUINN, C.J., and PARKER and DOSS, JJ.

        Appellant, K.M.R. (Father), appeals from the trial court’s final order of October 6,

2023, that terminates his parental rights to his children, K.R. and G.R.1 The court based

its decision on the authority of statutory predicate ground (N) (constructive abandonment)

and the finding that termination was in the children’s best interest.2 Appellee is the Texas

Department of Family and Protective Services. Through a single issue, Father challenges

the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the trial court’s finding that termination of the

        1 To protect the privacy of the children, we refer to Appellant as “Father,” the children by initials,

and the children’s mother as “Mother.” See TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 109.002(d); TEX. R. APP. P. 9.8 (a),(b).

        2 See TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 161.001(b)(1)(N) and (2).
parent-child relationship is in the children’s best interest.   Concluding that sufficient

evidence supports the challenged finding, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

                                           Background

      K.R. and G.R. were removed from Mother3 in May 2020 and placed in Department

foster care in the Amarillo area, where they remained at the time of the final hearing.

Mother’s parental rights were terminated by order signed November 29, 2021. Father’s

rights were not terminated at that time; he was named a possessory conservator with an

expectation of establishing a relationship with the children and working toward

reunification. To do so, Father was required to undertake several responsibilities. The

Department subsequently moved to terminate Father’s rights, alleging there had been a

material and substantial change of circumstances since November 2021.

      At the final hearing, permanency specialist and caseworker Michele Slagle pointed

to a plan of services and communication requirements that Father had to fulfill before

reunification would be possible. These included Father’s attendance and participation in

face-to-face therapy sessions to assist establishing a bond with the children. Father

attended only a single session. During that session, K.R. challenged Father’s reasons

for seeking reunification, asking, “Why do you want to be a part of our life when you

weren’t before?” Father offered as an excuse owning a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe and a

1995 Dodge Ram pickup for why he was incapable of traveling from his home in

Weatherford, Texas, to Amarillo to participate in the other sessions.

      3 Father testified that he and Mother were not married.

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      Evidence shows Father has only had two other in-person visits with the children

since November 2021. One was at a restaurant located in Wichita Falls (after a volunteer

drove the children to the meeting location), and the other visit was in Amarillo at a “game

place where the trampoline and the movie theater and the arcade are all close together.”

Father initially explained that feeling intimidated by Mother’s family kept him away, but

ultimately conceded, “I didn’t come like I should have. More my fault than intimidation.”

      Regarding electronic communications, Father estimated he missed about one-

fourth of allowable telephone calls with the children; he reasoned he thought they either

needed a break or that the foster parents were “out of pocket.” According to Department

records, Father actually missed 37 of 60 possible phone calls. And during the calls he

did participate in, Father apparently only spoke with G.R.

      Father testified he did not want his parental rights relinquished because he desires

his children to know him personally. But when asked what he had done to foster a

relationship with the children since 2020, Father admitted, “[p]robably not much.” He

testified that since the children’s removal, he had not sent them gifts for birthdays or

Christmas. According to Slagle, “the [children] are very frightened to be around” Father

and have not bonded with him. Slagle testified that the children have expressed a desire

to be adopted by their foster parents. Father acknowledged the foster parents’ desire to

adopt K.R. and G.R. and that the children are happy and well cared for in the foster home.

When asked for a reason why the court should not immediately terminate his parental

rights Father responded:

      None. They’re happy where they are. [The foster parents] are great
      parents. I just would like to stay involved somehow, get caught up on my

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        child support, and build a bond with [the foster parents] and the [children] to
        where they know they don’t have to pick and choose. They got several
        people that love them. It’s all about them.

        Father testified he is a self-employed painter. He reported an annual income of

$16,000 for 2022, an amount he attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Father estimated

a similar income for 2023.4 Father explained he was eligible for assistance with bills for

food and medical care. He recently received food stamps of $290 to last 90 days. Father

estimated that with receiving housing assistance his monthly expenses were about

$1,800.      Father testified he moved from a mobile home into a two-bedroom house so

that the children could “visit” over a weekend.5 He was apparently able to make this

housing change through an assistance program that covers his rent while he pays for

utilities.   Father acknowledged owing approximately $2,000 in court-ordered child

support; he attributes the arrearage to a financial and medical hardship. He has never

investigated obtaining health insurance for the children because he “never anticipated

reunification.”

        4 Father acknowledged his income can be erratic, but explained his choice of employment over a

wage job in the following manner:

        [W]ith my work, it just goes up and down like that, but if you go get a punch clock job, right
        when you do, one of the paint jobs calls in and you can make in two weeks what it takes
        you two months at that punch clock job, so you’re better just to pray and not give up so
        quick.

        5 He answered a question about his motivation for the two-bedroom home this way:

        Q. And you primarily got the two bedrooms so your [children] could visit?

        A. Visit, exactly. Once a bond was established and [the foster parents], everybody felt, you
        know -- just say, “Hey, can – y’all want to come for a weekend and just kind of spend it
        together?” And [the foster parents] are there. A big enough house where everybody could
        just have a barbecue like at -- if we have one at their house.

                                                      4
       Father acknowledged receiving and completing a two-year probated sentence

following a 2015 conviction for driving while intoxicated, as well as a recent arrest for DWI

after consuming a half liter of vodka. According to a police report, the current DWI charge

stemmed from a traffic stop for speeding. However, the officer found Father clothed only

in a pair of shorts, worn backward. The officer noted “a superficial abrasion” on Father’s

forehead. Father told the officer the head wound came from hitting his head against a

wall out of “anger and depression.” Father testified of the upcoming DWI hearing and

expected his driver’s license to be suspended. Before his DWI arrest, he had been

successfully discharged from a 35-day alcohol rehab program in Houston. However,

Father was unable to answer why he did not attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings other

than when he was in rehab.

                                          Analysis

       Father does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the acts or

omissions enumerated under section 161.001(b)(1) of the Texas Family Code that can

serve as a basis for terminating parental rights. Father instead argues the evidence is

insufficient to support the trial court’s finding that termination of his rights was in the best

interest of K.R. and G.R. See TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 161.001(b)(2). The applicable

standards for reviewing the evidence of the child’s best interest are discussed in our

opinion in In re I.O., 645 S.W.3d 895, 904 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2022, no pet.), and need

no further elaboration here. The trial court, as factfinder, was the sole judge of the weight

and credibility of the evidence and was entitled to believe all, some, or none of a witness’s

testimony. In re A.M., No. 07-21-00052-CV, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 5447, at *11 (Tex.

App.—Amarillo July 8, 2021, pet. denied) (mem. op.).

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       Although neither child testified at final hearing, the admitted evidence is undisputed

that both children desire to be adopted by their foster parents. While Father showed

nominal interest in maintaining a relationship with his children, his plan for building a daily

life together remains amorphous and demonstrates a lack of initiative. The Department

provided Father with opportunities to work toward reunification. However, the evidence

was more than sufficient to lead a rational factfinder to find that Father prefers to stay in

his current situation, passively hoping to cultivate a relationship with his children based

on approval of the foster parents. Such an arrangement—where the children spend only

a small amount of time with Father until he decides he is ready for a full-time role—would

force the children to persist in an environment of uncertainty of foster care with no

possibility of adoption.

       In addition, the evidence militates against Father’s ability to provide a safe, stable,

and permanent environment for the children. This includes testimony regarding his

unreliable employment, struggles with alcohol abuse, and a pending criminal charge,

ambiguous statements about his future plans, and his inability to explain why the physical

distance between Weatherford and Amarillo poses such an insurmountable barrier to

fulfilling his parental responsibilities. When we look at “best interest,” our focus is on the

interests of the child, not the parent. In re S.B., 597 S.W.3d 571, 585 (Tex. App.—Amarillo

2020, pet. denied). Here, the children are succeeding in foster care with the prospect of

adoption following termination. Father’s satisfaction with the status quo may be his

preference, but it is not the preference of his children.

       We conclude that legally and factually sufficient evidence supports the trial court’s

best interest finding. We overrule Father’s sole issue on appeal.

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                                Conclusion

We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

                                             Lawrence M. Doss
                                                 Justice

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