Court Opinion

ID: 9767763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:26:01.215783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.758455
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I agree with the result reached by the majority. First, the majority correctly holds the July 25 order from which this appeal springs is a final one. I believe the order is appealable for two reasons. One, the order resulted from an eighteen-month dispositional hearing required under Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-338 (Repl. 1991). This is a “fish or cut bait” hearing in a dependent-neglect proceeding when the court must enter one of the following dispositions: (1) Return the juvenile to the parent, guardian, or custodian; (2) Authorize a plan for the termination of the parent-child relationship, guardianship, or custody; (3) Place the juvenile in long-term foster care; or (4) Allow the juvenile to continue in an out-of-home placement for a specified, limited period of time. Here, the trial court found Mr. Miller failed to comply with the terms of the court’s case plan and efforts to rehabilitate and reunify the family had failed because Mr. Miller was incarcerated and had not maintained any direct contact with the children. Nonetheless, the court declined to authorize DHS to terminate Miller’s parental rights because the court concluded it had no personal jurisdiction over Miller, since he resided in Mississippi. The court’s ruling in effect concluded DHS’s dependent-neglect proceeding as it pertained to Miller, leaving DHS to appeal the court’s decision. In fact, DHS’s failure to appeal in these circumstances would have left the court’s jurisdictional ruling as the law of the case. In sum, the dispositional hearing and decision is considered one of finality and the trial court’s ruling also was final, considering it had yielded or ceased any jurisdiction the court had over Miller, DHS clearly had the right to challenge those rulings by appeal. Next, I agree with the majority decision that once Miller filed pleadings seeking affirmative relief with the trial court, he cannot complain the court did not have personal jurisdiction over him for the purpose of terminating his parental rights. When he entered his appearance in the dependent-neglect proceeding, Miller was made aware that his failure to remedy the conditions causing the out-of-home placement of his children might result in the termination of his parental rights. After DHS gains custody of a juvenile, it must prepare a written case plan within thirty days of the juvenile’s placement. Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-335 (Repl. 1991). In accordance with Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-335(H) (Repl. 1991), that case plan includes a statement directed to the juvenile’s parent, custodian, or guardian and notifies them as follows: (i) Failure to remedy the conditions causing the out-of-home placement of the juvenile may result in termination of parental rights', (ii) Termination of parental rights may occur only after notice and a hearing on termination', (iii) If the parent, guardian, or custodian disagrees with the terms in the plan, the party may petition the court for resolution of the disagreement, and (iv) The parent, guardian, or custodian has a right to notice of any modification of the case plan and the right to petition the court for a hearing on the modification. (Emphasis added.) Upon the failure of a parent to correct the conditions causing his or her child’s removal from home, the juvenile court reviewing the dependent-neglect proceeding may then consider DHS’s petition to terminate parental rights, and upon terminating such rights, it may authorize DHS to consent to the adoption of the juvenile. Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341 (Supp. 1991). In sum, under Arkansas’s statutory scheme, a parent is afforded notice shortly after the dependent-neglect proceeding is commenced that the parent’s rights to his or her child may be terminated by the juvenile court if the parent fails to comply with DHS’s case plan as was approved by the court. Such due process having been given Miller in this case, he cannot subject himself only to part of the dependent-neglect proceeding provided by law, but then attempt to avoid the juvenile court’s jurisdiction once the juvenile court determines that he and his children should not be reunified. Miller entered his appearance in these proceedings and the juvenile court had jurisdiction to decide those issues related to dependency-neglect, termination of parental rights and adoption. Id., see also Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-306 (Repl. 1991). To construe Arkansas’s Juvenile Code to permit parents to limit, their appearances to one stage of these proceedings would serve only to frustrate a court from achieving the purposes of the Code — to remove a juvenile from his parents only when his welfare or safety cannot be safeguarded and to assure the juvenile is permanently placed in an approved family home and be made a member of the family by adoption if the juvenile must be permanently removed from his family. Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-302 (Repl. 1991). For the foregoing reasons, I join the majority in reversing and remanding this cause for further proceedings.