COA affirms TPR order despite error in findings, conclusions

(IL file photo)

The Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed a lower court’s termination of parental rights order despite what it called an “obvious error” in the order.

The Indiana Department of Child Services removed child T.M. from mother M.M. and father S.M. in July 2021 and filed a petition claiming T.M. was a child in need of services. DCS alleged in part that the family had been evicted, the home was unsanitary, the child was dirty and the father had been charged with molesting one of the other children in the home.

The father admitted T.M. was a CHINS and relinquished his parental rights.

There was a fact-finding hearing regarding the mother in January 2022, and the Cass Circuit Court found T.M. was a CHINS.

The court issued a dispositional decree that ordered the mother to engage in various services. However, DCS asked the court three days later to make a finding under Indiana Code § 31-34-21-5.6 that it was not required to make reasonable efforts to reunify the mother and child based on the fact that the mother’s parental rights to the child’s siblings had recently been terminated.

The court issued an order making the reasonable-efforts-not-required finding, and DCS filed a petition to terminate the mother’s parental rights. The trial court issued a termination order in October 2022.

Under the “CONCLUSIONS” heading, the trial court mentioned the four elements required in a petition to terminate a parent-child relationship involving a child in need of services. One of those elements is that the child had been removed for at least six months under a disposition decree, which wasn’t true.

On appeal, the mother challenged that conclusion.

The Court of Appeals agreed with her argument but determined the error doesn’t require reversal.

The issue started with the termination order, according to the Court of Appeals. In it, the trial court correctly referenced a “finding of No Reasonable Efforts Required was found,” but the court didn’t mention that finding in it its legal conclusions at the end of the order.

Instead, the court mentioned the six-month removal, a mistaken reference to the first provision of I.C. 31-35-2- 4(b)(2)(A)

“Mother seizes on that error,” the opinion says.

She argued the erroneous conclusion requires reversal of the termination order. The Court of Appeals said if all that happened regarding the reasonable-efforts-not-required finding was the presentation of evidence, it would agree that reversal is appropriate.

But presentation of evidence wasn’t the only thing that happened, the court ruled.

“In a termination case, the allegations in the petition and the trial court’s findings and conclusions as to those allegations are just as important as the evidence presented at the final hearing,” the opinion says. “… DCS, in its termination petition, expressly and correctly alleged that such a finding had been entered during the CHINS case.”

While the finding should have been included under the trial court’s “CONCLUSIONS” heading, the Court of Appeals ruled that reversing on that basis “would be to elevate form over substance, which we seek to avoid.”

The Court of Appeals remanded the matter to the trial court for the entry of a corrected order.

“To be clear, our affirmance of the termination does not mean we are comfortable with the mishandling of the termination order by both DCS and the trial court,” the opinion says, noting the docket indicates DCS included the erroneous six-month-removal conclusion in the proposed termination order.

The Court of Appeals continued: “With the stakes in termination cases being so high, the findings of fact and conclusions of law must be precise so that the reasons for termination are clear to everyone involved.”

Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote the opinion. Judges Elizabeth Tavitas and Peter Foley concurred.

The case is In re the Termination of the Parent-Child Relationship of T.M. (Minor Child) and M.M. (Mother) M.M. (Mother) v. Indiana Department of Child Services, 22A-JT-2628.