July 15, 2023
SC 20788
Father appealed from the trial court’s judgment terminating his parental rights with respect to his child. Shortly after the child was born, DCF was granted temporary custody, and placed him in a foster home. Thereafter, using a pre-printed form issued by the Judicial Branch, DCF filed a TPR petition pursuant to statute (§17a-112(j)(3)(E)), which requires DCF to prove, inter alia, that Father’s parental rights with respect to another child previously had been terminated pursuant to DCF petition. At trial, DCF counsel presented evidence that Father’s parental rights previously had been terminated in Rhode Island. At the end of DCF’s case, Father’s counsel argued that DCF had failed, as a matter of law, to satisfy the requirements for termination set forth in §17a-112(j)(3)(E) because DCF did not present any evidence that Father’s parental rights previously had been terminated in Connecticut. DCF’s counsel indicated his belief that the TPR petition had been amended to include grounds for termination under §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(i), and, in the event it had not been amended, he moved to do so.
The trial court granted counsel’s oral motion to amend the petition, as well as a six week continuance of the trial to allow Father’s counsel an opportunity to reevaluate DCF’s position. DCF then filed a written motion to amend the TPR petition and, pursuant to the relevant Practice Book rules (§33a-1(b)), an amended Summary of Facts, both of which identified §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii) as the basis for termination. Under that provision, DCF was required to demonstrate, inter alia, that Father had failed to rehabilitate and that the child had been in DCF custody for at least 15 months. Although the court granted DCF’s written motion to amend, DCF did not amend the pre-printed form/petition to reflect that it was seeking termination under §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii).
When trial resumed after the continuance, the only additional evidence DCF presented was the amended Summary of Facts, which repeated the original allegations and alleged that the child had been in DCF custody for more than 15 months. Father testified about his attempts to comply with the steps that would facilitate the child’s return to his custody, but never claimed that he did not receive notice that TPR was being sought under §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii). The trial court ultimately granted the TPR petition pursuant to §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii), finding, inter alia, that Father had failed to rehabilitate and that the child had been in DCF custody for more than 15 months.
On appeal from the trial court’s judgment, Father claimed that his due process right to adequate notice of the grounds for terminating his parental rights was violated insofar as DCF was allowed to amend the TPR petition after the close of evidence, and insofar as his parental rights were terminated pursuant to §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii), when DCF never amended the pre-printed form/petition to indicate that it was premised on that particular provision of the statute. The Court here held:
Father’s due process right to adequate notice of the grounds for TPR was not violated, as DCF’s amended Summary of Facts, along with the trial court’s granting of a continuance, afforded him constitutionally adequate notice that DCF had elected to rely on §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii) in seeking to terminate his parental rights. There was no merit to Father’s claim that principles of due process required strict compliance with certain statutory (§45a-715(b)(6) and (c)) procedures and Practice Book rules (§33a-1(a)) governing TPR petitions. Those provisions do not clearly and unambiguously require DCF to amend the grounds for termination in the pre-printed form/petition, rather than in the Summary of Facts, in the event the trial court grants DCF permission to amend the TPR petition.
Even if the Court here assumed that DCF did violate the statutory notice provisions and Practice Book rules, principles of due process are not violated when a parent has been provided adequate notice of the amendment to the TPR petition and a reasonable opportunity to prepare a response. The price of requiring strict compliance with those provisions in child welfare/family regulation cases would be unacceptably high in light of the strong public interest in the prompt resolution of such proceedings, in which the welfare of a child is at issue and delay is (presumably) inherently prejudicial.
In the present case, although DCF counsel initially indicated that he would be adding §17a-112 (j)(3)(B)(i) as a ground for TPR when he orally moved to amend the petition, he clarified in both the amended Summary of Facts and the written motion to amend the petition, which superseded the oral motion and was granted by the trial court, that §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii) was the specific basis for termination. Moreover, in light of the amended Summary of Facts and the written motion to amend, Father could not reasonably have believed that, when the trial resumed after the continuance, DCF would seek to adjudicate the TPR petition under either §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(i) or (E), especially when the pursuit of termination under §17a112(j)(3)(E) already had been shown to be unviable, and when Father testified exclusively about his attempts to comply with the specific steps that would facilitate the return of custody, which was relevant only to §7a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii). Furthermore, Father expressed no surprise or confusion when, at the re-commencement of trial after the continuance, DCF counsel indicated that he was seeking TPR pursuant to the amended Summary of Facts, which was premised on §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii).
In addition, even if strict compliance with the statutory notice provisions and Practice Book rules was required and DCF’s failure to strictly comply violated due process, any such violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt here because, to the extent Father claimed that he did not receive adequate notice that DCF would proceed under §17a-112(j)(3)(B)(ii), he did not claim that there was additional evidence on the issue of his rehabilitation that he would have presented if he had received adequate notice. The uncontroverted evidence showed that the child had been in DCF custody for at least 15 months at the time of trial, and Father did not claim that he could produce evidence to the contrary. https://www.jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROcr/CR347/347CR49.pdf
