In Parental Rights Termination, Reunification Efforts Not Required in Tennessee

Tennessee law case summary on parental rights termination in divorce and family law from the Court of Appeals.

In re Kaliyah S., et al. – Tennessee termination of parental rights

Kayla S. was the Tennessee mother of Kaliyah and one other child.  In 2008, the Department of Children’s Services received a call and investigated.  They found suspicious bruises on Kaliyah and subsequently filed a dependency and neglect petition in Bradley County Juvenile Court.  That court found that Kaliyah was dependent and neglected, removed her from the home, and placed her in a foster home.  Even though there was a no-contact order against the then-boyfriend of the mother, she continued a relationship with him, and subsequently gave birth to another child.  Meanwhile, Kaliyah’s biological father spent a considerable amount of time in jail for drug offenses, domestic assault, and vandalism.  He was, however, subsequently named the father in a paternity proceeding.

The younger daughter was rushed to the hospital, and it was concluded that her injuries resulted from abuse by either the mother or her boyfriend.

In 2010, the state began proceedings to terminate parental rights.  The court found that there had been severe abuse, and for that reason did not require the state to make efforts to reunify the children with the mother and her boyfriend.  When the state learned that a different man was the biological father, it amended its petition to revoke his parental rights as well.  After a trial, the Juvenile Court revoked the parental rights of both the mother and the biological father.  The biological father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and in 2014, that court reversed.  A majority of that court held that the state was required to make reasonable efforts to reunite the child with the biological father, and that the abuse by the mother and boyfriend did not absolve the state of that duty.  The state then appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, asking that the Juvenile Court’s original order be reinstated.

The high court first noted that the case was of constitutional dimension, since a parent’s right to care and custody of a child is a fundamental liberty interest.  It then turned to the provisions of the Tennessee statutes, which had been extensively amended in 1977.  One key policy of the 1977 statute, the court noted, was to keep biological families intact.  That was reinforced in the 1990’s, when Tennessee codified a reasonable-efforts requirement.  The statute contains nine factors to be considered in determining whether termination is in the child’s best interests.  But efforts at reunification are relevant to only one of those factors, “failed to effect a lasting adjustment after reasonable efforts.”

The high court then looked at how these provisions had been applied over the years, and acknowledged that some of those cases supported the Court of Appeals’ decision.  However, it decided to take a fresh look at the statutes and construe them in light of the legislative intent.  It noted that the legislature included a duty of reunification in other contexts, but did not premise the termination of parental rights on compliance.  Instead, the reasonable efforts toward reuniting the family were merely one factor to be considered in the proceeding.  The court is required to consider those efforts, but only as one factor.  The state is not required to prove that it exhausted those reasonable efforts.

For these reasons, the high court reversed the Court of Appeals’ ruling and reinstated the judgment of the lower court.

No. E2013-01352-SC-R11-PT (Tenn. Jan. 22, 2015).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Tennessee Child Custody Law.  See also Miles Mason’s book available on Amazon.com Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases.