In re BBP
| Decision Date | 15 June 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-FS-1160.,97-FS-1160. |
| Citation | 753 A.2d 1019 |
| Parties | In re B.B.P. J.P., Appellant. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Francis T. Lacey, Rockville, MD, appointed by the court, was on the brief for appellant.
Sumner J. Katz, Washington, DC, appointed by the court, was on the brief for appellee B.B.P.
Jo Anne Robinson, Principal Deputy Corporation Counsel, Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel, and Erica L. Easton and Sheila Kaplan, Assistant Corporation Counsel, were on the brief for appellee District of Columbia.
Before TERRY and STEADMAN, Associate Judges, and GALLAGHER, Senior Judge.
This is an appeal from an order adjudicating B.B.P. a neglected child. Appellant J.P., the child's mother, claims that this ruling was erroneous because the District of Columbia filed its neglect petition too soon. The District argues that even if the petition was premature, the mother's conduct between the time of the child's birth and the neglect hearing justified the court's ultimate decision. Because we conclude that the petition was timely, we affirm.
The pertinent facts are not in dispute. Late in November of 1996, J.P. moved to the District of Columbia from Buffalo, New York. On January 30, 1997, she was taken by ambulance to Providence Hospital, where she gave birth to B.B.P. When J.P. left the hospital the next day, she told Melanie Sachs, a hospital social worker, that she would be staying with her mother at an address on Second Street, N.E., even though her four other children were all living in Buffalo. J.P. said that B.B.P., who had been born prematurely and weighed less than four pounds, would join her at her mother's apartment when he was ready to be discharged from the hospital.1
During the next two weeks, J.P. neither visited B.B.P. nor returned to the hospital to make plans for his discharge, though she did call the nursery three times to ask about him. Sylvia Jefferson, a social worker with the Department of Human Services (DHS), made repeated attempts to contact J.P. at her mother's address,2 but the only response she ever received was a telephone message from J.P. on February 13 which contained no information as to how J.P. could be reached.3
On February 13 the District filed a neglect petition on B.B.P.'s behalf under paragraphs (A) and (G) of D.C.Code § 16-2301(9) (1996).4 The trial court appointed counsel for J.P., scheduled a status hearing for March 11, and ordered B.B.P. placed in shelter care. B.B.P. was discharged from the hospital into the care of DHS on February 18.
Finally, on March 5, J.P. called Ms. Sachs at the hospital to find out "what was going on" with B.B.P. She explained that the reason she had not been in contact with Ms. Sachs previously was that she had gone to Buffalo to take care of some family problems. Ms. Sachs informed J.P. that B.B.P. had been placed in the care of DHS and instructed her to contact Sylvia Jefferson, the DHS social worker assigned to the case.
A fact-finding hearing on the neglect petition was held on May 12. Although J.P. did not appear personally, she was represented by counsel, who conceded that J.P. had notice of the hearing date and did not object to going forward with the hearing without her presence. The trial court, after receiving testimony from Ms. Jefferson and Ms. Sachs, found that B.B.P. had "resided at the [hospital] for more than ten calendar days following his birth despite a medical determination that he was ready for discharge" and ruled that the mother's three telephone calls to the hospital were insufficient to satisfy the statute's requirement of "reasonable efforts to maintain a parental relationship." The court concluded that B.B.P. was both "abandoned" within the meaning of D.C.Code §§ 16-2301(9)(A) and 16-2316(d)(4) and "neglected" within the meaning of D.C.Code § 16-2301(9)(G). At a disposition hearing a few weeks later, on June 23, B.B.P. was committed to the custody of DHS.5
D.C.Code § 16-2316(d) provides in part:
B.B.P. and the District argue that the statutory requirements should be analyzed separately and independently, and contend that the ten-day period mentioned in the statute "refers specifically and only to the length of time the infant is in the hospital." Therefore, they maintain, as long as a child has been at the hospital for more than ten days after birth, and a medical determination of fitness for discharge is made at some point before a neglect petition is filed, the petition is timely.
J.P. contends, on the other hand, that the statutory requirements must be read concurrently. Thus, according to J.P., the statute requires a medical determination that the child is fit to be discharged during the entire ten-day period in which the child resides in the hospital. In other words, J.P. maintains that a child must remain in the hospital for ten days after a medical determination of fitness for discharge has been made before a neglect petition may be filed.
The trial court adopted the construction of the statute advanced by B.B.P. and the District, interpreting it to require "that the child has been in the hospital for ten days, that a medical determination has been made that the child is ready for discharge, and that the parent . . . has not taken any action or made any effort to maintain a parental relationship." J.P. now argues that this reading was erroneous.
As always, when called upon to interpret a statute, we look first to the plain meaning of the language used, for that is generally the best indication of the legislative intent. See, e.g., Varela v. Hi-Lo Powered Stirrups, Inc., 424 A.2d 61, 64 (D.C.1980) (en banc). The dispute in this case centers on the meaning of the word "despite" as it is used in section 16-2316(d)(4). The dictionary definition of "despite" is "without deterrence or prevention by." WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 615 (1976). It is synonymous with "in spite of" or "notwithstanding," id., and "impl[ies] that something is true even though there are obstacles or opposing conditions." RANDOM HOUSE COLLEGE DICTIONARY 910 (1980).
The word thus suggests a temporal concurrence of two different states of affairs, which lends some support to J.P.'s interpretation of the statute as requiring that a determination that the child is medically fit for discharge exist concurrently with the ten days in which the child resides at the hospital. The alternative construction which the trial court adopted, however, is neither illogical nor necessarily inconsistent with the statutory language. The statute could just as easily be read to mean that the necessary medical determination must coincide with the fact that the child has already been in the hospital for at least ten days.
Thus we cannot say in this case that "the [statutory] language is plain and admits of no more than one meaning." Davis v. United States, 397 A.2d 951, 956 (D.C.1979). We conclude, to the contrary, that section 16-2316(d)(4) may be read at least two different ways.6 We must therefore look to the legislative history of the statute in order to ascertain the intent of the legislature, which in this instance is the Council of the District of Columbia. Id.; see also Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 754 (D.C.1983) (en banc) ().
The Infant and Child Abandonment Prevention Act, of which the statute at issue is a part, was adopted to deal with the problem of so-called "boarder babies," infants who are left or abandoned at hospitals even though there is no medical reason for them to remain there. See COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES, REPORT ON BILL 8-404, at 2 (1990) (hereafter "Committee Report"). Most of these babies are born to drug-abusing mothers.7 Id. In 1989, the year before the law's enactment, more than 101 boarder babies resided in District hospitals. According to a study cited by the Council, the average stay for boarder babies at one local hospital was 124 days. Id. at 3. The Committee Report stressed that "a hospital is not a proper environment for a healthy baby" because hospitals lack the resources to provide the requisite amount of care and attention needed to assure the proper development of a young child, and because a hospital environment presents added...
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