“To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children.”
Pope John Paul II (1926 2005 )
“[A]mother’s love endures through all.”
Author Washington Irving (1783 1859)
“Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.”
TV Celebrity Ricki Lake (1968)
Mother’s Day has been celebrated in this country for more than a century, dating back to 1914, when it was officially recognized by President Woodrow Wilson, two years after its inception as the day set aside for maternal veneration.
As always, it falls on the second Sunday of the month, May 12this year. But preceding that celebratory day, some mothers in Minnesota had little to celebrate as the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued a spate of rulings, including several this spring, terminating their parental rights.
The cases, which seem to have increased exponentially in the past few years, fall into a pattern of county social services agencies finding frustration in dealing with socioeconomic and parental-care issues, leading them to seek and district courts to uphold termination of parental rights. When those cases reach the appellate court, they are almost invariably affirmed.
The approach of Mother’s Day this year provides an opportune occasion to review eight of the recent rulings proceeding that occasion.
Recent rulings
A trio of recent rulings involved similar factual situations that, like most parental termination cases, turn on poor parenting skills, accompanied by unsuccessful efforts to correct the deficiencies.
Both the mother and father of five minor children in Crow Wing County lost their parental rights, following 31 different incidents over a 12-year span in six different counties in
In RE Children of S.L.G. & H.W.G. , 2024 WL 1502102 (Minn App. April 8, 2024)(nonprecedential).
The parental problems, which were exacerbated by the mental health issues for both of them, featured lack of suitable housing and inhabitable facilities, lack of cleanliness, and insufficient food for the family. Along with incidents of violence and domestic abuse.
The Crow Wing County District Court terminated the parental rights of both the mother and father under Minn. Stat. 260C.301, subd. 1(c) on three of the four statutory grounds.
The appellate court affirmed, holding that reasonable efforts made to reunite the family had failed after the county “provided efforts to help the family secure housing,” including providing financial assistance and “other reasonable efforts.” Because the parents were unable to provide the “environment needed to support the children,” it was in the “best interest” to terminate the parental rights of both the mother and father.
The mother, who had lost parental rights on two previous occasions among her six children, and the father, who had experienced one prior loss of parental rights among his 10 children, had their rights terminated for a 3-year old child who had been in foster care for two years in Becker County in
In Re D.M.P. & J.T.P. , 2024 WL 1152054 (Minn App. March 18, 2024)(nonprecedential).
The litigation had an unusual feature because a prior termination of parental rights regarding that child had been reversed by the appellate court and remanded. 2022 WL 1765951 (Minn. App. May 3, 2022)(nonprecedential).
Upon remand, the trial court reinstated the termination, and the appellate court affirmed.
The mother had experienced two termination proceedings in the past among her six children, and the father, who had been incarcerated for most of his adult life, had 10 children, including one instance in which his parental rights had been terminated.
The prior terminations created a statutory presumption of unfitness under Minn. Stat. 301, subd. 1 (b), (4). The continued failure to correct the problems that underlay the initial termination, which had been reversed, warranted termination upon remand.
Another mother lost her challenge to termination of her parental rights in
In Re Welfare of Child of B.D.M. , 2024WL 1612068 (Minn. App. April 15, 2024)(nonprecedential). The case was before the appellate court a second time after an earlier remand to the Olmsted County District Court to determine the “best interests” of the mother and child after the lower court earlier had found statutory grounds to terminate.
In Re Welfare of Child of B.D.M . , 2023 WL 5525069 (Minn. App. Aug. 28, 2023)(nonprecedential).
This time, the trial court held that the “paramount consideration” of the child’s “best interests” warranted termination and the appellate court affirmed, noting the child’s fear of “being around the mother” and her experience of night tremors and “panic attacks” resulting from the mother having “physically abused her.” Despite some “positive qualities as a parent,” the mother lost her appeal and her parental rights in order to effectuate the child’s “best interests.”
The effort to reopen a maternal termination and a subsequent adoption proceeding was bypassed when the court ordered enforcement of a contractual agreement for visitation with her biological daughter in
In Re the Welfare of the Child of J.M.B . 2024 WL 1713940 (Minn. App. April 22, 2024)(nonprecedential).
As part of the termination of her rights and an adoption of her biological daughter, the mother agreed to a decree providing for a two-year visitation schedule with the adoptive family under Minn. Stat. 260C.619.
The Stearns County District Court refused to enforce it because it did not comply with the statutory requirements. But the appellate court reversed, even though the statutory terms were not satisfied. Under the “specific circumstances” of the case, the visitation arrangement was enforceable because it was “contained within the adoption decree” and was in the “child’s best interest.”
Sobriety suits
Two recent rulings turned on sobriety issues, one of which was a rare reversal.
A mother’s challenge to termination, included an effort to reopen a default and claim ineffective assistance of counsel. In
In re Welfare of D.M.P. & J.T.P., 2024 WL 1152054 (Minn. App. March 18, 2024)(nonprecedential). The appellate court rejected both contentions, holding that the mother’s inability to attain “long term” sobriety precluded her from proper parenting and that her lawyer had adequately represented her in the proceeding.
But another mother struggling with sobriety achieved reversal and remand of a termination ruling by the Hennepin County District Court in
In Re Welfare of child of M.A.C. , 2024 WL 323335(Minn App. Jan. 29, 2024)(nonprecedential). The appellate court overturned the termination and sent it back because the lack of “reasonable efforts to reunite the family.”
Despite substantial indications of chemical abuse by the mom, the county did not even provide a chemical-health evaluation of the mother, known as a Rule 25 assessment, which necessitated further proceedings below to determine the degree of her sobriety and ability to function as a parent.
These cases reflect the reality when mothers and fathers, too challenge termination of their paternalrights. The trial courts almost invariably uphold those administrative agency decisions and, when appealed, the rulings are nearly always affirmed.
PERSPECTIVES POINTERS Some U.S. Motherhood statistics
- Number of U.S. mothers: 85 million
- Percentage in work force who have young children: 72%
- Comparative wages with fathers: 69%
- Number who are equal or primary household wage earner: 41%
Marshall H. Tanickis an attorney with the Twin Cities law firm ofMeyer Njus Tanick .
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