J.M.J. v. D.J.
| Decision Date | 30 July 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. WD 75852.,WD 75852. |
| Citation | 404 S.W.3d 423 |
| Parties | In re J.M.J. M.W. and R.W, Respondents, v. D.J. (Mother), Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Anna K. Lingo, Columbia, MO, for Respondent.
Elizabeth K. Magee, Columbia, MO, for J.M.J., and David F. Barrett for Appellant.
Before Division Three: LISA WHITE HARDWICK, Presiding Judge, MARK D. PFEIFFER and CYNTHIA L. MARTIN, Judges.
D.J. (“Mother”) appeals the juvenile court's judgment terminating her parental rights to her daughter, J.M.J., and granting the petition of J.M.J.'s maternal grandfather, R.W., and step-grandmother, M.W., (referred to collectively as “Grandparents”), to adopt J.M.J. On appeal, Mother contends the juvenile court should have dismissed the adoption petition for lack of jurisdiction because J.M.J. was already the subject of letters of guardianship issued by the probate court. Mother also argues the evidence was insufficient to support the court's finding that she abandoned and neglected J.M.J. Lastly, Mother asserts that the termination of her parental rights and adoption violated Missouri's public policy against dividing the custody of siblings. For reasons explained herein, we affirm.
On appeal, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the judgment. In re H.D.J.K., 336 S.W.3d 516, 517 n. 2 (Mo.App.2011). The evidence at trial was that J.M.J. was born on October 22, 2002, to Mother and A.J.1 In early 2006, Mother and J.M.J. were living in an apartment in Holts Summit. J.M.J. started spending approximately three or four days each week with Grandparents because they were concerned about the care that Mother was providing her. Specifically, Grandparents were not comfortable with the people with whom Mother left J.M.J. when Mother was working. Additionally, Grandparents observed that Mother's apartment was cluttered and dirty, and Grandparents were worried that Mother was not adequately supervising J.M.J., feeding her, or caring for her needs. They noticed that J.M.J. was frequently wearing soiled diapers, had rashes, eczema, and another untreated skin problem on her body, and was unkempt. Grandparents also noticed that J.M.J. had bites all over her, which Mother said were from carpet mites.
In February 2006, there was a fire at Mother's apartment. After the fire, Grandparents offered to let Mother and J.M.J. move into their house. Mother agreed that J.M.J. could stay at Grandparents' house. Mother, however, chose to stay at a hotel provided by the Red Cross and at the Salvation Army shelter with her boyfriend, A.H., who was a registered sex offender.
When Grandparents discovered that A.H. was a registered sex offender, they advised Mother of their concerns about him being around J.M.J. Mother was dismissive of their concerns and told them that J.M.J. was safe around A.H. because Mother slept with J.M.J. in her arms when A.H. stayed the night, so there was no way that A.H. could touch J.M.J. Mother also claimed that A.H.'s sex offender status was not his fault but, instead, was the fault of the victim children's mother, with whom he was using crack cocaine.
Because of their ongoing concerns, Grandparents filed for and received emergency legal guardianship of J.M.J. in probate court. For a period of time afterwards, Mother worked with Children's Division to try to regain placement of J.M.J. with her. She found an apartment in Holts Summit, got a job at McDonald's, and worked with a parent aide. Mother soon learned, however, that she was pregnant with A.H.'s child, L.J., who was born in December 2006. She quit her job and was evicted from her apartment for having A.H. on the premises. Following a period of homelessness, Mother relocated to Jefferson City.
When J.M.J. first went to live with Grandparents in 2006, she exhibited problematic behaviors, including being clingy, tearing things, refusing to respond to directives, and throwing tantrums during which she would fall to the floor, kicking and screaming. As a result, Grandparents enrolled her in therapy with Jennifer Patrick, a licensed clinical social worker. Patrick initially provided therapy to J.M.J. from June 20, 2006, through March 9, 2007. During that time, J.M.J.'s behavior improved, but she continued to have behavioral problems after she had contact with Mother. Patrick next provided therapy to J.M.J. from July 19, 2007, through October 29, 2007. Over the course of those three months, Patrick attempted to do family therapy sessions with Mother and J.M.J. in addition to J.M.J.'s individual therapy sessions, but Mother attended only two of six scheduled sessions. During both the individual and family therapy sessions, J.M.J. expressed that she wanted Mother to be more consistently involved in her life and activities.
Early in the emergency guardianship, Mother had regular visits with J.M.J. several times a week, for several hours each visit. For most of these visits, Grandparents would pick up Mother, bring her to their house, and take Mother back to her residence after the visit. Although Mother visited with J.M.J. on a regular basis, she was not otherwise parenting her, as she never helped prepare J.M.J.'s food, give her a bath, clean the house, do her laundry, or assist in any other way with the day-to-day chores of caring for her.
In late 2007, Grandparents requested legal guardianship of J.M.J. Mother opposed the request. Following a hearing, the court found that Mother, by her actions, had shown that she was unwilling and unable to assume the duties of parenting J.M.J. Consequently, the court granted letters of guardianship to Grandparents on October 30, 2007.
In 2008 and 2009, Mother was in a relationship with A.W., whom she described as having a permanent brain injury from being hit by a car. According to Mother, she and A.W. argued and did not get along, and he was once arrested for throwing food at her. Their relationship ended shortly after their son, M.J., was born in September 2009, but Mother continues to occasionally leave L.J. and M.J. alone in A.W.'s care. In 2010, Mother allowed another man, S.S., whom she had met the year before, to move into her home after reuniting with him at the Salvation Army. S.S. sodomized L.J. on July 26, 2010, for which he later pled guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. According to Mother, she was not responsible for L.J.'s being molested because she was asleep when it happened. After S.S. sodomized L.J., Grandparents stopped allowingJ.M.J. to have unsupervised visits with Mother but continued to attempt to arrange supervised visits with her.
Additionally, Grandparents again offered to pay any uncovered costs for therapy for J.M.J. and Mother. J.M.J. resumed therapy with Patrick in September 2010. J.M.J. was “pretty horrified” by what S.S. had done to L.J., and L.J. was acting out sexually in front of J.M.J. J.M.J. expressed to Patrick that she was worried that L.J. and M.J. were not safe at Mother's house because Mother did not “let good people in the house.” Mother attended two more family therapy sessions with J.M.J. When Mother failed to show up or call for a third session, however, Patrick stopped scheduling family sessions with her. According to Patrick, Mother was not engaged in the therapeutic process, did not work with Patrick to address J.M.J.'s therapeutic issues, was not meeting J.M.J.'s emotional needs, did not take responsibility for J.M.J.'s going to live with Grandparents in the first place, and did not indicate any ways she might make her home a safe and appropriate place for J.M.J. in the future. Patrick believed that the possibility of returning to Mother's home caused a lot of anxiety for J.M.J., who does not feel close to Mother and does not feel safe in Mother's home.
Other evidence at trial showed that, over the course of the guardianship, Mother's visits with J.M.J. became increasingly sporadic. At times, Mother went for two to four weeks without contacting Grandparents or J.M.J. Even after Grandparents tried to designate a specific day each week for visitation, Mother's participation in the weekly scheduled visits was sporadic. Over the last three years of the guardianship, J.M.J. frequently expressed to Grandparents that, while she wanted to see her half-siblings, she did not want to see Mother or talk to her on the phone. Grandparents had to convince J.M.J. to do so. During the visits Mother and J.M.J. did have, Grandparents noticed that Mother appeared to be more interested in talking to them instead of to J.M.J., and Mother and J.M.J. did not interact like a parent and child. J.M.J. described her relationship with Mother as “horrible.”
While living with Grandparents, J.M.J. completed kindergarten through third grade. Although Grandparents provided Mother with J.M.J.'s school information, Mother did not attend any parent-teacher conferences. Except for attending one of J.M.J.'s school programs when she was in first grade, Mother did not participate in any of her school functions or attend any school programs. Mother never helped J.M.J. with homework and never asked Grandparents about how J.M.J. was doing in school.
J.M.J. was also involved in several extracurricular activities, including soccer, dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, and softball. For each activity, Grandparents provided Mother with schedules for practices and games. Mother attended two of J.M.J.'s soccer games in the past four years and never made any financial contribution toward J.M.J.'s extracurricular expenses. Additionally, Mother did not attend any of J.M.J.'s church programs.
Mother never gave any direct financial support for J.M.J. to Grandparents, although she did give J.M.J. donated clothing on a couple of occasions. Mother did not give J.M.J. any Christmas presents, but she did give her a birthday present in 2010 and 2011. Grandparents hosted and paid for all of J.M.J.'s birthday parties and invited Mother,...
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