Court Opinion

ID: 9948161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 16:06:42.513852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:13.432963
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                             FOURTH DISTRICT

                         ELLEN KAPLAN, ESQ.,
                              Appellant,

                                     v.

          DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, and
                    GUARDIAN AD LITEM,
                         Appellees.

                            No. 4D2023-1394

                             [March 6, 2024]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Hope Bristol, Judge; L.T. Case No. 16-4524 DP.

   Ellen M. Kaplan, Esq., Coral Springs, for appellant.

  Carolyn Schwarz, Children’s Legal Services, Fort Lauderdale, for
appellee Department of Children and Families.

    Sara Elizabeth Goldfarb, Statewide Director of Appeals, and Sarah Todd
Weitz, Senior Attorney, Statewide Guardian Ad Litem Office, Tallahassee,
for appellee Guardian Ad Litem.

PER CURIAM.

    This appeal arises out of a termination of parental rights proceeding.
The appellant, an adoption entity which moved to intervene in the
termination proceedings, appeals from the trial court’s denial of the motion
to intervene. We dismiss the appeal as moot.

   During the termination of parental rights proceedings, the mother, on
three occasions, executed a consent for adoption. After a law firm’s motion
to intervene based on the mother’s consent was denied, the appellant
moved to intervene, submitting an amended consent. The trial court
denied that motion as well. Four days before the adjudicatory hearing on
the termination petition was scheduled to be held, the appellant submitted
yet another amended consent and again moved to intervene. After a
hearing, the trial court denied the motion, finding the written consent
indicated the mother believed she could withdraw her consent, without
limit, if the trial court did not approve the placement chosen by the mother.
The court also found the home study was insufficient, and it denied the
appellant’s motion for a continuance.

    On appeal, the appellant argues that the trial court erred in the
following respects: (1) denying the motion to intervene without holding an
evidentiary best interests hearing, (2) finding the consent was invalid and
that the home study was insufficient, and (3) denying the appellant’s
motion for a continuance to attempt further amendment of the consent.
We decline to address the merits of these issues, as the appeal is moot
based on our affirmance of the termination of parental rights judgment in
the mother’s appeal of that judgment.

    “A case becomes moot, for purposes of appeal, where, by a change of
circumstances prior to the appellate decision, an intervening event makes
it impossible for the court to grant a party any effectual relief.”
Montgomery v. Dep’t of Health & Rehab. Servs., 468 So. 2d 1014, 1016 (Fla.
1st DCA 1985). In asserting that the appeal is not rendered moot by the
affirmance of the termination of parental rights, the appellant cites Y.G. v.
Department of Children & Families, 246 So. 3d 509 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018),
but that case is distinguishable. There, the mother appealed an order
terminating her parental rights, arguing in part that the court should have
continued the termination of parental rights trial, since the mother had
executed a consent to adoption in favor of a relative, and the relative had
filed a motion to intervene. Id. at 510-11. On appeal, the court held that
the trial court erred in denying the mother’s motion for continuance, and
it reversed the order terminating parental rights. Id. at 513.

    This appeal is not from the order terminating parental rights. Even if
this court reached the merits of the arguments on appeal and found the
trial court erred, the mother’s consent cannot now be given effect, as the
termination judgment placed the child in the custody of the Department
of Children and Families for adoption. See § 39.812(1), Fla. Stat. (2023)
(“If the department is given custody of a child for subsequent adoption in
accordance with this chapter, the department may place the child with an
agency as defined in s. 63.032, with a child-caring agency registered under
s. 409.176, or in a family home for prospective subsequent adoption. The
department may thereafter become a party to any proceeding for the legal
adoption of the child and appear in any court where the adoption
proceeding is pending and consent to the adoption, and that consent alone
shall in all cases be sufficient.”).

   Because the appeal is moot, we dismiss. See Godwin v. State, 593 So.
2d 211, 212 (Fla. 1992) (“A moot case generally will be dismissed.”); A.G.

                                     2
v. Dep’t of Child. & Fam. Servs., 932 So. 2d 311, 314 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006)
(recognizing that a court may dismiss a case as moot on its own motion
“where no practical result could be attained by reviewing the question
therein” (quoting DeHoff v. Imeson, 15 So. 2d 258, 259 (Fla. 1943))).

  Dismissed.

DAMOORGIAN, CIKLIN and GERBER, JJ., concur.

                          *        *          *

  Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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