Lawsuit:Kansas DCF

“The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday limited the number of court appeals that can be applied in a child-in-need-of-care custody case.

The high court, in a decision it said would have wide-ranging implications for future CINC cases, overturned a Court of Appeals panel that had reversed a Sedgwick County District Court’s awarding of adoption rights to the foster parents of an abandoned child. The Court of Appeals had ordered procedings [sic]that would have permitted maternal cousins to adopt the child.

In a 6-1 decision authored by Justice Dan Biles, the Supreme Court ruled the Revised Kansas Code for Care of Children set forth a prescribed sequence of court events in a CINC case. The cutoff for appellate review, Biles wrote for the majority, is an order terminating parental rights. Beyond that, district court decisions aren’t subject to appeal.

“Otherwise, it is easy to see how these cases could turn into back-and-forth campaigns of endless litigation and appeals by persons other than the child’s parents,” Biles wrote.

The case involved a Wichita girl born prematurely on Nov. 2, 2011 — underweight and with evidence of cocaine in her system — who was taken into protective custody. Her birth mother had no further contact with the infant and renounced her parental rights.

In a protective custody hearing, the child was placed in the care of the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services — now the Department of Children and Families. The state asked two foster parents to accept the infant as a foster child. They have cared for her ever since.

SRS later learned a maternal cousin of the birth mother, and her husband, also were interested in adopting the child. In August 2012, SRS formally chose the maternal cousins for adoptive placement. The foster parents appealed the decision in a CINC hearing.

In a November 2012 decision, the CINC court sided with the foster parents, saying the severance of bonds formed between the child and her foster parents, as well as other children in the home, weren’t in the child’s interest. They were approved to adopt the child in a separate adoption hearing, in which the cousins didn’t appear.

The maternal cousins appealed, and a Court of Appeals panel overturned the district court judge, ruling he had erred in finding that SRS and its contractor hadn’t made reasonable efforts and progress toward the child’s adoption. It vacated the foster parents’ legal custody and cleared the way for the cousins to adopt.

The foster parents appealed to the Supreme Court, which gave the case expedited status over concern for the child.”

Kansas high court finds for foster parents in adoption case[Topeka Capital-journal 7/11/14]

“Foster parents won custody of a child over maternal cousins in a Kansas Supreme Court ruling today that may have wide-ranging implications in similar cases.

In this case involving a Wichita child, the Kansas Supreme Court today held that state law limits the type of district court orders subject to appellate review. The 6-1 ruling resolves a conflict that had developed among lower courts dealing with cases brought to protect children from abuse and neglect.

The case, which was argued April 28, involved a dispute between the child’s foster parents and her mother’s cousins, who both wanted permission to adopt after parental rights were legally terminated.

A Sedgwick County District Court judge found in favor of the foster parents and the maternal cousins appealed. A divided Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings that would have permitted the maternal cousins to finalize an adoption.

The Supreme Court held the Court of Appeals did not have jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal. This restored the district court’s decision in favor of the foster parents.

The Supreme Court said the Legislature limited the ability to appeal under the Revised Kansas Code for Care of Children to “any order of temporary custody, adjudication, disposition, finding of unfitness or termination of parental rights.” If a district court order in a child in need of care case does not fit within these categories, the court explained, it is not appealable.

The appellate jurisdiction controversy came after different Court of Appeals panels developed conflicting interpretations over what the state law meant by the term “disposition” in the listing of appealable orders.

In the Sedgwick County case, the Court of Appeals majority broke from previous rulings and held the term included any order that placed a child in, continues a child in, or removes a child from the legal custody of an individual or agency.

But in the majority decision written by Justice Dan Biles, the Supreme Court rejected that view as overly broad and inconsistent with child in need care statutes, which create “a legislatively designated framework of sequential steps of judicial proceedings with each step occurring in a specific order leading toward permanency in the child’s placement.”

The cutoff for appellate review, the majority held, is an order terminating parental rights. After that, the court explained, district court decisions are not subject to appeal under the Revised Code. “Otherwise,” the majority continued, “it is easy to see how these cases could turn into back-and-forth campaigns of endless litigation and appeals by persons other than the child’s parents.”

Disagreeing with the court majority, Justice Lee A. Johnson said he would find the Sedgwick County order at issue to be an order of temporary custody and consider the appeal on its merits.

The court’s decision is online at http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/opinions/SupCt/2014/20140711/109208.pdf.”

New ruling affects child custody cases in Kansas[Wyandotte Daily 7/11/14]

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