COA remands adoption to find why father’s consent not required

The Indiana Court of Appeals has remanded an adoptive mother’s granted petition to adopt her wife’s three children, finding that the trial court failed to make any findings that would support dispensing with their father’s consent.

After L.T. separated from W.M., the father of her three children, she began a relationship with H.T., and they eventually married. Meanwhile, father was sentenced in 2017 to serve a 10-year sentence for his conviction of Level 2 felony dealing in methamphetamine.

With mother’s consent, adoptive mother H.T. petitioned to adopt the children in 2019, prompting father to file his objection. During a hearing on the matter, father testified that the last time he had any contact with his daughters was in 2015, and a guardian ad litem report was subsequently ordered by the trial court.

The GAL report found that the children reported that they loved and were close to adoptive mother and wanted to be adopted. It likewise found that any claims of abuse regarding adoptive mother had been fabricated by the children to make their grandparents happy, who did not agree with the adoption. Specifically, the GAL concluded that opposition to the adoption stemmed from father and the grandparents’ “dislike for Mother’s and Adoptive Mother’s sexuality and their fear that they would lose the ability to see the Children.”

After the GAL recommended the adoption, the Washington Circuit Court entered separate orders of adoption in favor of adoptive mother after finding that she was fit to raise the children and that it was in the children’s best interest to be adopted.

But the Indiana Court of Appeals remanded in a Monday decision, finding that the trial court failed to make any findings that would support dispensing with father’s consent.

“The record shows that the last time Father communicated with the Children was in 2015. Adoptive Mother filed her petition to adopt the Children in 2019. Though the record contains evidence demonstrating that Father failed to communicate with the Children for more than a year which could support a conclusion that Father’s consent was not required, the adoption Orders in this case fail to explicitly reference that pertinent fact and only denotes the fact that Adoptive Mother is a fit parent and that it would be in the Children’s best interest to be adopted,” Judge Patricia Riley wrote for the appellate court.

“Even assuming that the trial court’s discussion that Adoptive Mother was a fit parent was the trial court’s way of presumably referencing Indiana Code section 31-19-9-8(a)(11), which provides another path for dispensing with consent, the trial court failed to make the specific findings required by that provision, namely, that (1) Father is unfit to be a parent and (2) ‘the best interests of the child sought to be adopted would be served if the court dispensed with the parent’s consent,’” the appellate court wrote.

Thus, because the adoption orders failed to specify under which of the multiple exceptions provided by Indiana Code section 31-19-9-8(a) the trial court was dispensing with Father’s consent to the adoption, the appellate court remanded the case with instructions for the trial court to enter such specific findings.

In doing so, it retained jurisdiction to the trial court for further findings as required by statute. The appellate court further noted that the judgment of the trial court “shall be filed with this court within 30 days from the issuance of this opinion.”

The case is W.M. v. H.T., 20A-AD-403.