Commonwealth v. Batie
| Decision Date | 13 May 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2021-CA-0580-ME |
| Citation | 645 S.W.3d 452 |
| Parties | Commonwealth of Kentucky, CABINET FOR HEALTH AND FAMILY SERVICES, Appellant v. Latanya BATIE; Arnold Batie, IV; Meahgan Gail Russell; and James Williams, Appellees |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
BRIEFS FOR APPELLANT COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY, CABINET FOR HEALTH AND FAMILY SERVICES: Matthew Perdue, Ashland, Kentucky.
BRIEF FOR APPELLEES LATANYA BATIE AND ARNOLD BATIE, IV: Tracy D. Frye, Marie E. Troxler, Russell, Kentucky.
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE JAMES WILLIAMS: Sharon Rowsey, Ashland, Kentucky.
BEFORE: ACREE, GOODWINE, AND L. THOMPSON, JUDGES.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services appeals the Boyd Circuit Court order granting custody of minor children, S.W. and P.W., to Latanya Batie and Arnold Batie, IV (Grandmother and Uncle, respectively; jointly, the Baties). Because the Baties lacked standing to pursue custody, the custody order entered by the court is voidable. The circuit court's sua sponte use of equitable estoppel to disallow the Cabinet's lack-of-standing defense was an abuse of discretion and its application was erroneous as a matter of law. We reverse and remand with instructions.
Late on a Monday night, November 11, 2019, 34-year-old Meahgan Russell (Mother) gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in Ashland, Kentucky.1 The twins were born addicted to drugs and would spend the next month in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) recovering from their addiction. Unsurprisingly, the Cabinet became involved.
The day after the twins were born, a Cabinet investigating supervisor interviewed Mother and archived a summary of her report in the twins’ medical records. Notable in the initial report is Mother's admission she is a drug addict, that she has no interest in a program designed to promote infant and toddler health (Help Me Grow), that she is homeless and relies on her mother and the Salvation Army, and that she has two sons (ages 17 and 10) and a daughter (age 2) but has custody of none of them. The report makes no mention of the twins’ father. The Cabinet investigating supervisor made an initial referral of the twins’ cases to the Lawrence County office of the Cabinet's Department for Community Based Services (DCBS).
In the afternoon of November 13, 2019, Mother visited her children in the NICU, and visited them again, twice, the next day. Two days later, November 15, 2019, the Cabinet transferred the case to Boyd County DCBS and assigned it to Cabinet worker Amber King. The hospital discharged Mother the same day.
On November 21, 2019, around 5:00 PM, the on-duty nurse noted in medical records: "Mother and father visits[.]" The father is Appellee James Williams (Father). This is the only time he saw the twins. While visiting, he had someone photograph him with his youngest children. More than half a year later he shared the picture with his own mother, Grandmother, who then shared it with Uncle, Father's half-brother.
On the same day, November 21, 2019, Cabinet representatives filed petitions in Boyd District Court pursuant to the dependency, neglect, or abuse (DNA) statutes, specifically KRS 2 620.060, and the Cabinet was granted emergency custody.3 The petitions named Mother and Father as biological and custodial parents.
The next day, November 22, 2019, Amber King of Boyd County DCBS met with Mother and discussed the hospital discharge plan for the twins. King would manage the twins’ cases through their discharge. King and Mother discussed Mother's inability to care for the children and the possibility of placement upon discharge with appropriate and qualified relatives. However, Mother said she knew of no relative who would be satisfactory. Consequently, the plan became placement in "foster care with Troy and Amanda Byrd ... when medically stable."
By November 25, 2019, the Cabinet determined that, for some reason not disclosed by the record, the twins could not be placed with the Byrds, and the plan was changed to foster placement with Misty Burchett in Red Bush, Kentucky.
On November 26, 2019, the district court conducted a temporary removal hearing in accordance with KRS 620.080(1)(a) and Mother attended. Father did not attend. The district court entered an order granting the Cabinet's motion that it be awarded temporary custody pursuant to KRS 620.090(1). The order also required drug screening for Mother and Father and set a pre-trial conference hearing for December 17, 2019.
On December 4, 2019, in accordance with KRS 620.180(2)(a) 1. and prior to the pre-trial conference, the Cabinet convened a case planning conference. Mother attended; Father did not. Cabinet workers again asked Mother about relatives who might be willing to take temporary custody of the twins. She again said she knew of no one appropriate and claimed not to know Father's whereabouts.4 Thereafter, Mother had no further contact with the Cabinet.
On December 11, 2019, Mother's twin daughter was discharged from the hospital and her twin son was discharged on December 13, 2019. Both were placed by the Cabinet with Misty Burchett who picked them up at the hospital.
At the December 17, 2019 pre-trial conference, in accordance with KRS 620.100(1)(a), the district court appointed counsel for each twin. Counsel was also appointed for Mother and Father; however, neither Mother nor Father participated in the court proceedings in district court from the time of the pre-trial conference. The district court also ordered that the twins remain in the Cabinet's temporary custody under the November 26, 2019 order, and that the twins’ medical records be filed in the record. Finally, January 28, 2020 was set as the date to adjudicate the Cabinet's claim that the twins were neglected.
At that adjudication hearing, the district court entered an order finding Mother and Father neglected the twins by abandonment and continuing the Cabinet's temporary custody of the twins under the November 26, 2019 order. Finally, the court set March 10, 2020 as the date for a disposition hearing.
Cabinet workers prepared a dispositional report on March 4, 2020, which the district judge reviewed the following day. Although the report said Mother and Father were "not being compliant with their case plans[,]" the Cabinet's initial "recommended permanency goal" remained "Return [the twins] to Parent." See 922 KAR 5 1:140 § 4(2)(a) ().
Although the parents could not then be located, the Cabinet stuck to its permanency goal of reunification. Even so, the twins still would need to be "placed" once the disposition order ended the Cabinet's temporary custody in favor of the required order of commitment to the Cabinet as it pursued a permanency goal. Because "[n]o relatives were given [by Mother or Father] for placement of the children[,]" and "[n]o suitable family could be found" by the Cabinet's independent efforts, "the children were placed in the least restrictive placement [available], which was foster care in a DCBS home in Louisa." Of course, the twins had been placed in foster care with Misty Burchett since their discharge in mid-December 2019. And although the Cabinet's dispositional report prepared on March 4, 2020 kept its permanency goal as "Return to parent," the Cabinet changed the placement to Chris and Heather Wilson of Louisa, "an approved foster-to-adopt home."
According to testimony and by federal requirement, many foster placements are part of concurrent planning that allows the Cabinet to pursue family reunification while providing a "back-up" plan for the possibility of adoption by the foster family. See 922 KAR 1:140 § 1(6) (). However, the foster parents did not perceive the twins’ placement with them to be only a part of the Cabinet's concurrent planning. Chris Wilson's affidavit expresses his position that "[f]rom the first text [from the Cabinet], this was never foster care, this was adoption."
The Baties claimed throughout this case that Cabinet workers planned for the Wilsons to adopt the twins early on. They assert this alleged plan was the reason the Cabinet failed to engage in diligent efforts to find relatives, which they also claim would have led to their much earlier pursuit of placement and custody.
However, the Cabinet's stated permanency goal of "return to parent" belies that conclusion. Furthermore, subsequent actions by the Cabinet undermine that claim, especially when we consider the Cabinet did not immediately abandon "return to parent" as its permanency goal even when the district court rejected it.
The district court disagreed with the Cabinet's stated recommendation that the initial permanency goal for the twins be reunification. Instead, "over ob[jection of] parents’ attys[,]" the March 10, 2020 disposition order states: "Initial Goal shall be TPR [termination of parental rights]/Adoption due to abandonment[.]" The court also ruled "[t]here are no less restrictive alternatives" available because "parents abandoned" the children, and "[r]easonable efforts were made to prevent the [twins’] removal from the home[.]"7
Importantly, the disposition order ended the period of the Cabinet's temporary custody and began the period of commitment to the Cabinet for placement of the twins pursuant to KRS Chapter 620. See, e.g. , KRS 620.363(7) (). As discussed below, this order compelled the Cabinet to pursue concurrent planning to reunify the family while moving forward with the district court's order of TPR and adoption; i....
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