Court Opinion

ID: 9764429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:21:31.636338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:56.431645
License: Public Domain

WILNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
The panel majority concludes that the evidence in this case supports the trial court’s determination that appellant was unwilling or unable to give proper care and attention to his infant son, Joseph, and that, as a result, it is not necessary to determine whether a finding of CIÑA can be sustained where there is one parent who is willing and able to give such care and attention. I disagree with both conclusions.
I would hold, based on the definition of “child in need of assistance” in Md.Code Cts. & Jud.Proc. art., § 3-801(e) that, if proceeding under § 3-801(e)(2), the court cannot declare a child in need of assistance unless it finds that both *353parents are unable or unwilling to give proper care and attention to the child and his problems. I think this is clear from the Legislature’s use of the plural “parents” in that section, in contrast with its acquiescence in the singular, “guardian” and “custodian” in the same section, and I think is clear from the predominant public policy, expressed in several places throughout the Code, of keeping families intact whenever possible.
As the panel majority notes, “child in need of assistance” (CINA) is defined in Cts. & Jud.Proc. art., § 3-801(e) as a child “who requires the assistance of the court because ... (2) His parents, guardian or custodian are unable or unwilling to give proper care and attention to the child and his problems____” (Emphasis added.) This, it seems to me, is a clear recognition that, while a child may have but one guardian or one custodian, absent some further technological innovation of which I am not aware and do not choose to contemplate, he does have two parents.1 For two reasons, I would hold that, if proceeding under § 3-801(e)(2), the court cannot declare a child to be a CINA unless it finds that both parents, if both are alive, are unable or unwilling to give proper care and attention to the child and his problems.
My first reason proceeds from a plain reading of the statute. Section 3-801(e)(2) clearly and unambiguously defines the status as existing only when the child’s parents— both of them — have the deficiency noted. There is really no need to go behind that plain wording, especially when the alternative persons standing in loco parentis — guardian and custodian — are referred to in the singular.
More important than a technical, precise reading of the statute is that such a construction is required by the predominant public policy, expressed not only in the Juvenile Causes Act, but throughout other laws dealing with the family, of keeping families together whenever possible.
*354Reference to a child’s parents is made through the Juvenile Causes Act. Sometimes the term is used in the singular (see, e.g., §§ 3-810(e)(2) and (3), 3-810(f)(3), 3-810(0(3), 3-810(m)(l), 3-814(c), 3-815(i), 3-820(d)(2)(i), 3-820(f), 3-822); sometimes it is used in the plural (see, e.g., §§ 3-802(a)(3), 3-811(c), 3-814(a)(4) and (b)(1), 3-815(b)(3), 3-820(c)(l)(iii), 3-837(c)). In one instance, the General Assembly used the term “any parent” (§ 3-818(b)); in another it referred to “either parent or both parents” (§ 3-830); and in a third it spoke of “each parent” (§ 3-837). In short, the Legislature clearly understood the distinction between the singular and the plural and made clear when it desired the law to apply to either parent alone and when it wanted the law to apply to both parents together.
Apart from that, when the Legislature spoke of parents in the plural, there was good reason for it to do so, and that is especially the case with respect to § 3-801(e). One of the articulated purposes of the Juvenile Causes Act is to “conserve and strengthen the child’s family ties and to separate a child from his parents only when necessary for his welfare or in the interest of public safety.” § 3-802(a)(3). This goal, of maintaining parent/child ties, extends beyond the Juvenile Causes Act (see Family Law art., §§ 4-401, 5-524, 5-525(c)(l), 5 — 544(l)(ii)), but it clearly is a “brooding omnipresence” over that Act. It strikes me as wholly inconsistent with that goal to declare a child in need of assistance, with all that portends, when there is a parent who is, indeed, willing and able to give proper care and attention to the child and his problems.2
The panel majority does not reach that issue because it concludes that there was sufficient evidence to support a *355finding that appellant, Joseph’s father, was in fact unwilling or unable to give proper care and attention to his son. That is the real point of my disagreement. I do not believe the evidence was sufficient to support such a finding.
The court brushed aside appellant’s plea, not because of any unfitness on his part and not because of any expressed belief that, with the help of his mother, he could not provide a proper and loving home for Joseph, but only because of some fear that he might allow the child’s mother to have unsupervised access to the child. This, in turn, was based on appellant’s initial disbelief that the mother had abused the child and on some evidence of a continuing friendly relationship between the appellant and the mother.
Appellant explained his initial view. He said that he could not believe that any mother would deliberately crush her infant son’s testicles, and so he attributed the injuries to trauma occurring during delivery. But for the experience gained in 15 years as a judge, of observing the awful things that people do to one another, I probably would not have believed it either. What young, normal father would so readily accept that the person he loved — the mother of his child — would do such a thing? To express doubt, to look for other reasons, strikes me as a normal reaction, even if it turns out to be an unwarranted one. It is true, of course, that continuing denial could lead appellant to allow unsupervised access and thus to potential harm to the child, but appellant made clear that the mother would not be granted such access. He had moved miles away from the mother and said that he was no longer romantically involved with her.
To rebut that, the State produced some evidence that a social worker once saw the pair holding hands and that a month after the break-up, the mother referred to appellant as her “boyfriend.” Aside from the hearsay nature of the latter statement, if taken for its truth, the simple fact is that both appellant and the mother will continue to have a relationship as long as they remain Joseph’s parents. They *356both were accorded supervised visitation with Joseph and they occasionally exercised that privilege at the same time. They visited their child together. I see nothing wrong with that. Nor do I see anything sinister in the fact that, on one occasion, they were observed holding hands.
There was no clear evidence of any continuing romantic relationship between appellant and the mother. There was no clear evidence of any unwillingness or inability on appellant’s part to care for Joseph. There was no clear evidence that appellant would allow the mother unsupervised access to the child.
A GINA finding carries important consequences. It is far easier for the Department of Social Services to obtain a full termination of parental rights following a CINA finding than otherwise would be the case. See Fam.Law art., § 5-313. Such a finding also may serve as a disincentive for appellant, guilty of no neglect or abuse on his part, to maintain frequent and meaningful contact with the child, especially when that contact must occur in a supervised, unnatural setting. The panel majority has concluded that the court erred in denying custody of Joseph to appellant but not in declaring appellant unwilling or unable to give proper care and attention to the child. On this record, I find that contradictory and unacceptable.

. It is already possible for a child to have more than two parents, depending on how one defines "parent,” but we need not get into that in this case. Joseph hás one mother and one father.

. Requiring the State to show that both parents are unwilling or unable to attend to the child’s needs is not an onerous burden. If a parent is absent, for example, and cannot be located, or has shown no interest in the child and no willingness to support him or provide companionship, the court could properly conclude that the parent— absent some clear evidence to the contrary — is unwilling or unable to take care of the child.