Opinion
No. 2-852 / 02-1525, No. 2-853 / 02-1530
Filed November 15, 2002
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, Bobbi M. Alpers, Judge.
A mother appeals the termination of parental rights to three of her children. AFFIRMED.
Douglas Johnston, Muscatine, for appellant.
Chris Dalton, Muscatine, for fathers of M.L., A.C., and Y.C.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kathrine Miller-Todd, Assistant Attorney General, and Korie Shippee, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee-State.
Neva Rettig-Baker, Muscatine, guardian ad litem for minor children.
Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Mahan and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
Marina challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the district court's termination of her parental rights to Alexis, born in 1997, Yasmine, born in 1999, and Mya, born in 2000. The court terminated her rights to Alexis and Yasmine pursuant to Iowa Code sections 232.116(1)(e) (absence of significant and meaningful contact with the child) and to Yasmine and Mya pursuant to 232.116(1)(h) (child cannot be returned to home), as amended. Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(e), (h) (Supp. 2001). On our de novo review, we may affirm if we find support for either of the grounds cited by the court. See In re S.R., 600 N.W.2d 63, 64 (Iowa Ct.App. 1999).
We have consolidated two appeals involving Marina.
I. Yasmine and Mya. We find sufficient evidence to support termination of Marina's rights to Yasmine and Mya under section 232.116(1)(h) (child cannot be returned to home). Marina came to the attention of the Department of Human Services in 1999, after concerns were raised about domestic violence in the household. Family-centered services were initiated. In 2001, Marina gave birth to a fourth child who died of unexplained causes. The three older sisters were removed from the home and were placed with their maternal grandmother. The Department implemented additional services to facilitate reunification.
The Department later determined the cause of death was sudden infant death syndrome.
Marina initially missed some parenting skill sessions, but soon became a regular participant. Three months after the removal, the Department expressed "no concerns regarding Marina's parenting the children." The Department did, however, express concern regarding Marina's decision to remain in an unstable and violent relationship with her deceased child's father, Jassue.
Four months after the children's removal, Marina's compliance with services began to deteriorate. She missed visits, disappeared for days at a time, and continued her relationship with Jassue, despite his failure to adequately address substance abuse and mental health issues. She had a fifth child, fathered by him.
By the time of the termination hearing, Marina had discontinued her romantic relationship with Jassue. However, the record developed at the termination hearing reflected that she was still not in a position to resume care of Yasmine and Mya. Marina had her first child when she herself was only a child and, at the young age of twenty-one, was struggling with the death of her fourth child, the birth of a fifth child, and the general lack of stability in her own life. She had not obtained permanent housing and employment, had not taken steps to manage her depression, anger, and grief, and had not resolved to the Department's satisfaction issues of codependency.
We agree with the district court that Yasmine and Mya could not be returned to Marina's home. Accordingly, we affirm the termination of her parental rights to these two children.
II. Alexis. The State pled a single ground for termination of Marina's parental rights to Alexis: Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(e) (absence of significant and meaningful contact with the child). To terminate under Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(e), the State must prove by clear and convincing evidence that "the parents have not maintained significant and meaningful contact with the child during the previous six consecutive months and have made no reasonable efforts to resume care of the child despite being given the opportunity to do so." Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(e). The phrase "significant and meaningful contact" includes but is not limited to "the affirmative assumption by the parents of the duties encompassed by the role of being a parent." Id. The affirmative parenting duties listed in this subsection include "a genuine effort to complete the responsibilities prescribed in the case permanency plan. . . ." Id.
In relying on this code provision, the State does not focus on the quantity of contacts between Marina and Alexis. The Department conceded that, for several months after the children's placement in their grandmother's home, Marina lived with the children and essentially had unlimited contact with them. Even after she moved to her own apartment she exercised approximately thirty hours of visitation per week at her mother's house. It was not until approximately seven months after the children's removal that Marina's visitation rights were reduced. At that point, Marina asked the Department to conduct visitation at a location other than her mother's home. Department staff expressed reluctance to have the visits at Marina's apartment because of her ongoing relationship with Jassue, who was not participating in services. Marina and Department staff agreed the visitation would be at a neutral site, with the understanding the visits would become supervised and, as a result, would be reduced to four hours per week. After the reduction in visitation, Marina attended five visits in February 2002, missed all her visits in March, due in part to pending check fraud charges, but exercised regular supervised visitation between April and the date of the termination hearing in mid-August 2002.
There is no question, therefore, that the quantity of contacts between Marina and Alexis is not an issue. Cf. In re A.J., 553 N.W.2d 909, 912 (Iowa Ct.App. 1996) (finding absence of significant and meaningful contact where mother only visited children once in six months prior to the termination hearing and father visited them only six times within that period); In re L.M.F., 490 N.W.2d 66, 68 (Iowa Ct.App. 1992) (finding no significant and meaningful contact where mother visited child only once during relevant period and called only once every two to three months).
What is at issue here is the quality of Marina's contacts with Alexis. The case permanency plan required Marina to "be responsible for parenting the children during the visits." The State presented sufficient evidence that Marina failed to adequately fulfill this requirement. The individual who supervised visitation consistently commented on the absence of positive interaction between Marina and the children. Although she conceded Marina focused attention on Alexis virtually to the exclusion of the other children, she noted this attention was largely negative. She stated Marina "has not taken steps to improve the meaningfulness of the contact with her children." Later, the service provider stated, "Marina has struggled to have meaningful contact with her children during visits." In her report for the month preceding the termination hearing, the provider stated "[t]he visits continue to be a struggle for Marina and the children." She noted Marina had a hard time controlling the children's behavior. In light of this evidence, we conclude the State established the absence of significant and meaningful contact with Alexis. Accordingly, we affirm the termination of her parental rights to this child.