D.B. v. Indiana Department of Child Services

The first required element a termination petition must allege establishes three waiting periods to give parents a time to reunify with their children and bars the Department of Child Services (DCS) from seeking termination until one of those three periods has passed. Here, DCS petitioned for termination of Mother’s and Father’s parental rights to their two daughters. DCS’s petitions alleged that two of the three waiting periods had passed. The trial court granted DCS’s terminations, finding that DCS proved both the six-month and fifteen-month waiting periods. Father and Mother appealed the termination of their rights as to their daughters. The court of appeals affirmed, determining that neither of the waiting period allegations in the petitions were true but finding the error harmless. Father sought transfer. The Supreme Court granted transfer, thus vacating the court of appeals opinion, and reversed, holding (1) DCS failed to prove the waiting periods it alleged and failed to allege the waiting period it could have proved; and (2) therefore, the trial court erred in terminating Father’s parental rights, and the error was not harmless. View "D.B. v. Indiana Department of Child Services" on Justia Law