Opinion
06-24-00014-CV
05-22-2024
IN THE INTEREST OF M.C., A CHILD
On Appeal from the 354th District Court Hunt County, Texas Trial Court No. 90939
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.
ORDER
In this case, the trial court entered a final order appointing the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services as the sole managing conservator of M.C., a child, and appointing Mother as the child's possessory conservator. The Department appealed that order. The Department has now filed an "Agreed Motion to Remand to the Trial Court."
Attached to the motion is a proposed agreed order for the trial court's consideration. The proposed agreed order has provisions that vacate the trial court's final order, discharge the Department from the appointment as the child's managing conservator, discharge the attorney-ad-litem and the guardian-ad-litem from their appointments, and dismiss the underlying cause.
The motion asks us to vacate the trial court's final order on appeal and to remand with instructions to the trial court that it enter judgment on the proposed order. See Tex. R. App. P. 42.1(a)(2)(B).
However, "[t]he best interest of the child shall always be the primary consideration of the court in determining the issues of conservatorship and possession of and access to the child." Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 153.002. "A trial court's determination of what is in the child's best interest, specifically the establishment of terms and conditions of conservatorship, is a discretionary function." In re J.J.R.S., 627 S.W.3d 211, 218 (Tex. 2021). Because "conservatorship determinations are 'intensely fact driven,' the trial court is in the best position to 'observe the demeanor and personalities of the witnesses and can "feel" the forces, powers, and influences that cannot be discerned by merely reading the record.'" Id. (citations omitted).
Accordingly, we abate the appeal and remand the cause to the trial court so that it may conduct whatever hearings are necessary to make the following determination: whether the proposed agreed order is in the best interest of the child. The trial court may enter any orders necessary to implement these directives. Any hearing shall be conducted by the trial court within ten days of the date of this order. Appropriate orders and findings shall be sent to this Court in the form of a supplemental clerk's record within five days of the date of the hearing contemplated by this order. The reporter's record of any hearing shall be filed with this Court within five days of the date of the hearing contemplated by this order.
All appellate timetables are stayed. Our jurisdiction over this appeal will automatically resume upon receipt of the supplemental records contemplated by this order.
IT IS SO ORDERED.