Summary 2009 WY 109

Summary of Decision issued September 2, 2009

Summaries are prepared by Law Librarians and are not official statements of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Case Name: RLA v. State, Dep’t of Family Services

Citation: 2009 WY 109

Docket Number: S-08-0274

Appeal from the District Court of Sweetwater County, the Honorable Nen R. James, Judge.

Representing Appellant RLA: John M. Burman, Faculty Supervisor, UW Legal Services Program; Aaron S. Hockman, Student Intern; and Matthew Landers, Student Intern.

Representing Appellee State: Bruce A. Salzburg, Attorney General; Robin Sessions Cooley, Deputy Attorney General; Jill E. Kucera, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Sue Chatfield, Senior Assistant Attorney General.

Guardian Ad Litem: Donald K. Slaughter, Rock, Springs, Wyoming. No appearance.

Facts/Discussion: RLA (Father) appealed from the district court’s order terminating his parental rights to his son, LA (Child), pursuant to Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-309(a)(iv) because he was incarcerated on a felony conviction and was unfit to have custody and control of Child. Father claims DFS did not present sufficient evidence to establish he was unfit. Child was born in 2006 and tested positive for methamphetamine at birth. DFS took him into protective custody. Mother later relinquished her rights to Child. DFS prepared a case plan listing the permanency goal as family reunification. The determination of whether a parent is unfit to have care and custody of a child must be made within the context of a particular case and will depend upon the situation and attributes of the specific parent and child.
DFS presented evidence that Father did not have an emotional bond with Child. It also produced evidence of Father’s on-going drug problem and significant criminal history. Father also continually declined opportunities to visit while a warrant was out for his arrest, offered to relinquish his parental rights to secure more lenient treatment and refused to comply with many of the provisions identified by DFS in the case plans to develop his child rearing skills. The Court contrasted the instant case with BA v. Laramie County Dep’t of Family Servs. where BA continued to attempt to maintain contact with her children from the time they were removed from her home, even when she left the jurisdiction to avoid criminal prosecution. In addition, BA completed a variety of courses to address her drug dependency, parenting problems and employment needs.

Conclusion: Father had very limited contact with Child during his life, made little effort to develop or maintain a relationship with him or to improve his parenting skills and did not have the present ability to provide for the ongoing physical , mental and emotional needs of Child. Therefore, DFS presented clear and convincing evidence showing Father was unfit to have care and custody of Child.

Affirmed.

J. Kite delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/ndw7pn .

[SPECIAL NOTE: This opinion uses the "Universal Citation." It was given an "official" citation when it was issued. You should use this citation whenever you cite the opinion, with a P.3d parallel citation. Please note when you look at the opinion that all of the paragraphs are numbered. When you pinpoint cite to a quote, you should cite to this paragraph number rather than to any page number. If you need assistance in putting together a citation using the Universal Citation form, please contact the Wyoming State Law Library.]

Summary 2009 WY 22

Summary of Decision issued February 20, 2009

Summaries are prepared by Law Librarians and are not official statements of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Case Name: In re: SRB-M, a minor, DJM v. DM and JM

Citation: 2009 WY 22

Docket Number: S-08-0129

Appeal from the District Court of Laramie County, the Honorable Peter G. Arnold, Judge.

Representing Appellant SRB-M: John M. Burman, Faculty Supervisor and Kristen M. Barton, Student Intern, UW Legal Services Program.

Representing Appellees DM and JM: No appearance.

Facts/Discussion: Paternal great-grandmother (DM) was the court appointed legal guardian of minor child (SRB-M). DJM, the child’s mother (Mother) moved to terminate the guardianship and DM resisted the motion. The district court, without finding Mother unfit, entered an order continuing the guardianship. Mother appealed claiming that in order to deny her legal custody of her child and continue the guardianship, the district court had to find and DM had the burden of proving that she was an unfit parent.
In the context of appointing a guardian, the Court has interpreted the statutes as requiring a finding that a parent is unfit in order to permit placing a child with a non-parent over the parent’s objection. The Court has not previously addressed the issue in the context of terminating an established guardianship. Given that both § 3-2-104(a) and § 3-3-1101(a)(v) require a showing of necessity and the Court’s holding in MEO that guardianship is not necessary if the parent is deemed fit, the Court concluded that a finding of parental unfitness was required in order to continue an established guardianship over a parent’s objection.

Conclusion: To further the policy underlying the guardianship statutes and in recognition of a parent’s fundamental right to custody to his or her child, the Court concluded that in order to continue the guardianship the district court was required to find Mother unfit. The district court did not find that Mother was unfit. Therefore, the district court’s determination that the guardianship should continue, based solely upon a best interest analysis was clearly erroneous.

Reversed and remanded.

J. Kite delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/dc8zvq .

[SPECIAL NOTE: This opinion uses the "Universal Citation." It was given an "official" citation when it was issued. You should use this citation whenever you cite the opinion, with a P.3d parallel citation. Please note when you look at the opinion that all of the paragraphs are numbered. When you pinpoint cite to a quote, you should cite to this paragraph number rather than to any page number. If you need assistance in putting together a citation using the Universal Citation form, please contact the Wyoming State Law Library.]

Summary 2007 WY 135

Summary of Decision issued August 23, 2007

[SPECIAL NOTE: This opinion uses "Universal Citation" and was given an "official" citation when issued. You should use this citation whenever you cite the opinion, with a P.3d parallel citation. You will note that all of the paragraphs are numbered. When you need to provide a pinpoint citation, the universal portion of the citation will use that paragraph number. The pinpoint citation in the P.3d portion should include the reporter page number. If you need assistance, please contact the Wyoming State Law Library.]

Summaries are prepared by Law Librarians and are not official statements of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Case Name: In the Matter of the Guardianship of: FJO, AKA and LM, WRB and GB v. GS, MO, GA and RM

Citation: 2007 WY 135

Docket Number: C-07-1

Appeal from the District Court of Campbell County, the Honorable Dan R. Price II, Judge

Representing Appellants (Petitioners): DaNece Day of Lubnau & Bailey, PC, Gillette, Wyoming.

Representing Appellee (Respondent): MO (Father), Pro se.

Issues: Whether the trial court committed reversible error by prospectively applying holdings of a Supreme Court case which was issued while the instant matter was under advisement. Whether trial court abused its discretion by failing to find Father an unfit parent. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by failing to grant a guardianship for one child in a sibling group.
Facts/Discussion: Appellants are the maternal grandparents of the child at issue in this matter. Grandparents petitioned the district court to appoint them as guardians of the Child. Father objected.
Standard of Review: The Court stated it was difficult to articulate a standard of review for the issues presented. The Court noted that In re Guardianship of MEO collected and catalogued many of the most important Wyoming and Federal court decisions that apply to circumstances such as those presented here but that it did not announce a new rule to which the concept of retrospective or prospective application is pertinent.
None of the materials contained in the record suggested that Father was “unfit” but of even more fundamental importance, his “unfitness” was not clearly posed as an issue for the district court to decide. The Grandparents focused on the “best interests of the child” in their arguments. They stated that had they focused on “fitness” of Father, they would have been successful. MEO articulated the time-honored principle that a child with a living parent does not need a guardian unless that parent is demonstrably unfit.
Grandparents also contended that the district court erred in making them guardians of only two of the three children thereby offending the Court’s generally accepted rule that sibling groups not be separated. The Court noted their decision in Aragon v. Aragon stating they did not retreat from anything said there. They stated that the district court’s order does not implicate the separation of siblings as contemplated by that body of law.

Holding: The issue presented to the district court in this case was whether a guardianship was necessary for the Child. The district court determined it was not necessary. That decision was not challenged in the appeal. The provision of the district court’s order which denied Grandparents’ petition to be appointed the guardians of the Child was affirmed.

Affirmed.

J. Hill delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/2k7nu4 .