Ronan F. v. State, 021021 AKSC, S-17731

• Party Name: RONAN F., Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL SERVICES, OFFICE OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES, Appellee.
• Attorney: Jason A. Weiner, Gazewood & Weiner, P.C., Fairbanks, for Appellant. Mary Ann Lundquist, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Fairbanks, and Kevin G. Clarkson, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellee. Nikole V. Schick, Assistant Public Advocate, Fairbanks, and James Stinson, Public Advocate, Anchorag...
• Judge Panel: Before: Bolger, Chief Justice, Winfree and Maassen, Justices. [Carney and Borghesan, Justices, not participating.]
• Case Date: February 10, 2021
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

RONAN F., Appellant,

v.

STATE OF ALASKA, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL SERVICES, OFFICE OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES, Appellee.

No. S-17731

Supreme Court of Alaska

February 10, 2021

Appeal from the Superior Court No. 4FA-17-00005/ 00006 CN of the State of Alaska, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Thomas I. Temple, Judge.

Jason A. Weiner, Gazewood & Weiner, P.C., Fairbanks, for Appellant.

Mary Ann Lundquist, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Fairbanks, and Kevin G. Clarkson, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellee.

Nikole V. Schick, Assistant Public Advocate, Fairbanks, and James Stinson, Public Advocate, Anchorage, for Guardian Ad Litem.

Before: Bolger, Chief Justice, Winfree and Maassen, Justices. [Carney and Borghesan, Justices, not participating.]

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT

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I. INTRODUCTION

The superior court found that two children were in need of aid because of abandonment, risk of mental injury, and their father's mental illness and ordered that the father's parental rights be terminated. On appeal the father challenges the court's finding that the Office of Children's Services (OCS) satisfied the statutory requirement that it make reasonable efforts to reunify the family. We conclude that the court did not clearly err in its findings of fact and that those findings satisfied the statutory requirements for termination. We therefore affirm the termination order.

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

A. Facts

Ronan F. and Saffron C. were married and had three children, Erik, Asher, and Otto, born in 2002, 2005, and 2006, respectively.¹ Ronan left Saffron and the children in 2008 and divorced Saffron soon afterward. For several years Ronan had minimal involvement with the children, visiting them only occasionally. In 2010 he began a relationship with his current wife, with whom he has had two more children. This appeal concerns the termination of Ronan's parental rights to Asher and Otto, two of the children of his marriage to Saffron.²

OCS became involved with Erik, Asher, and Otto in 2012 after Saffron's father bit one of the children. OCS tried to reach Ronan but had "very hit or miss" contact with him until February 2013. OCS and Ronan blame each other for this delay; Ronan testified that he had trouble contacting OCS and that they would not reply to his messages, while an OCS caseworker testified that she could not get any contact information for him.

Once they were in touch, OCS offered Ronan various services, including visitation, but according to OCS he did not follow through. The 2012 OCS case ended in August 2014 when Erik, Asher, and Otto were returned to Saffron's care.

In September 2014 OCS again became involved with the children, following a domestic violence incident between Saffron and her boyfriend. According to OCS, it was again unable to reach Ronan, and he was therefore not included in the subsequent safety plans; OCS again determined that he was "not at all" involved with the children. OCS managed to contact him in March 2015, with the goal of encouraging him to engage with a case plan and work toward visitation or placement.

In November 2015 OCS removed the children from Saffron for the second time. The caseworker testified that OCS searched for relatives following removal but was able to reach Ronan only once, when he "hung up on" the OCS caller. The caseworker testified that she persisted in trying to reach him: she sent him a letter, repeatedly called the phone numbers she had for him, and periodically asked Saffron how to contact him. But the caseworker did not reach Ronan again until she "bumped into him" at OCS while he was visiting his younger children, the children of his second marriage. She testified that Ronan informed her that he wanted visitation with his older children but did not want to keep them, and again he did not follow through on visitation. OCS closed the 2014 case in December 2016 when the children were again returned to Saffron.

In January 2017 OCS became involved with Erik, Asher, and Otto for a third time after Otto went to school "at 45, 50 below with no coat on." The children were again removed; this third OCS case is the one leading ultimately to termination. According to OCS, it was unable to contact Ronan after this removal until March 2017, though he was in continuous communication with OCS about his younger children's case. Erik, Asher, and Otto's caseworker testified that she tried using the same phone number without success.

Ronan began engaging with his older children in April 2017, and visitation transitioned that summer to a three-month trial home visit. But the trial home visit failed; Ronan and OCS again dispute who was to blame. Ronan testified that Saffron bribed the children to sabotage the placement and that he asked OCS to help, but that OCS did not offer any support, ignored his calls, and lied to him about its plans. The caseworker admitted that she knew Ronan was struggling and that Ronan felt he lacked adequate support. But she testified that although OCS offered services including a parenting program and a residential treatment program, Ronan failed to make appointments and missed intake assessments, and "things seemed to get worse." Ronan testified that he did not have time for these services because he was busy with other classes and taking care of his younger children. According to the caseworker, Ronan repeatedly said that his wife and younger children "had to [be] put first," that he could not handle the older children, and that they had to leave.

OCS removed Erik, Asher, and Otto from the trial home visit after "[a] couple months" and placed them in separate foster homes. OCS offered Ronan visitation, but he missed a number of visits in a row and was eventually removed from the visitation calendar.

The next summer, OCS was again considering Ronan's home as a permanent placement for his older children, and it asked him to participate in family therapy with the children's counselor. But therapy did not go well, and Ronan stopped attending after a few sessions.

The older boys' caseworker testified that OCS tried to facilitate community and in-home visits by giving the children bus passes and cab rides. But Ronan "refused" to do any community visitation, even though at the same time he was managing to "find[] rides somehow" to see his younger children two or three times a week. OCS attempted several times to combine the younger and older children's cases to make it easier to coordinate visitation, but Ronan refused to cooperate. The caseworker testified that Ronan also refused to get drug tests, engage in substance abuse counseling, or work with OCS on case planning.

At the time of trial in October and November 2019, Ronan was still actively working on the case plan for his younger children. But Asher, Erik, and Otto's caseworker testified that she had been unable to contact him since April; she had tried multiple calls to his last known number and the number on file for the younger children's case, which Ronan kept "pretty up to date." Ronan admitted that OCS had not scheduled a visit with Erik, Asher, and Otto in over a year and that visitation was...