SUMMARY: Given the father’s positive actions in turning his life around since he learned that the child had been removed from the mother, it was not error for the court to deny the petition to terminate his parental rights.
Rayna, DOB 8/06, was removed from the mother on August 11, 2008, and placed with a grandmother. In January 2009, the father contacted DHHS after learning Rayna was not living with the mother, and expressed interest as a placement for her. DHHS had not made attempts to contact the father and he was not served until April 2009. On April 3, 2009, a petition to adjudicate and to terminate parental rights as to the father was filed. The father has a substantial history of incarceration, drug and alcohol use, unstable employment and domestic violence but had not been in trouble since September 2008 and professed a desire to parent Rayna. Since February 2009, the father abstained from alcohol and drugs, which was substantiated by random drug testing. He also attended domestic violence counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous, and complied with everything DHHS asked him to do. On July 28, 2009, the court adjudicated the child as to the father but denied the State’s motion to terminate the father’s parental rights.
The Nebraska Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s denial to terminate the father’s parental rights. It agreed that the father had not substantially and continuously neglected Rayna under 43-292(2) because since the father was released from jail in September 2008, there was only a 3-4 month period where he did not have contact with her and since January 2009 had made substantial efforts to reunite with her. The Court of Appeals also agreed that the father was not unfit by reason of drug and alcohol use or behavior under 43-292(4) because he had abstained from substance use since February 2009, had made efforts to find employment and housing, and had not been incarcerated. Finally, the Court of Appeals agreed that it would not be in Rayna’s best interests to terminate the father’s parental rights because it was not shown that he was unfit to parent and because he has taken steps to put himself in a position to parent Rayna.