In re J.W.

263 A.3d 143

IN RE J.W.

and

In re Ja.W.;

A.W., Appellant.

Nos. 19-FS-1057 & 19-FS-1058

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued June 17, 2021

Decided November 10, 2021

Judith del Cuadro-Zimmerman for appellant.

David Stark, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Karl Racine, Attorney General, Loren L. Alikhan, Solicitor General, Caroline S. Van Zile, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and Stacy L. Anderson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before Glickman and Deahl, Associate Judges, and Becker, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.^*

Glickman, Associate Judge:

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA)¹ "establishes the bases for subject matter jurisdiction over [child] custody matters in the District, setting forth rules ... [for] when more than one state may be involved, in order to prevent jurisdictional conflicts."² The provision of the UCCJEA at issue in this appeal grants a court in the District temporary emergency jurisdiction over a child who is present here when "it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child ... is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse."³

Appellant A.W. challenges the Superior Court's exercise of this temporary emergency jurisdiction to adjudicate her two minor children as neglected under D.C. Code §§ 16-2301 (9)(A)(ii) and (iii). Appellant also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the findings of neglect. For the following reasons, we affirm the exercise of jurisdiction and the neglect rulings.

I.

A. Removal of J.W. and Ja.W.

Appellant is the biological mother of J.W. and Ja.W., who were born on December 9, 2009, and March 8, 2008, respectively. On October 4, 2018, appellant arrived in the District with her children. The family initially stayed at a domestic violence shelter but left after approximately one week. Appellant then approached the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center (VWFRC),⁴ where she was offered a free housing placement. Appellant rejected the offer due to her concern that the housing was unsafe. She chose instead to reside with her children in Union Station.

On the evening of November 18, 2018, Amtrak police officer Adrian Little spoke with appellant after observing that she and her children were in Union Station after closing time without tickets. Appellant told Sergeant Little that they had been living in the station, and that she had family members who were trying to kill her for her life insurance policy. After conferring with some of his colleagues, Sergeant Little decided to call the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) hotline.

CFSA sent licensed social worker and Child Protective Services investigator Lane Cyphers to assess appellant's condition. Appellant told Mr. Cyphers that she and the children had been living in Union Station for about a month, and that she had refused the offer of shelter from VWFRC due to safety concerns. Appellant said she had traveled to the District looking for work after being ejected from her home in Georgia, that an unidentified woman had been stalking her, and that the children's father, J.F., was trying to kill her. When Mr. Cyphers asked about the children's education, appellant claimed they were being homeschooled, but she was unable to produce any academic materials other than two books and a worksheet. Appellant also gave Mr. Cyphers false names for J.W. and Ja.W.

Based on this interaction with appellant, Mr. Cyphers was worried about her "mental health," and after meeting with the children he was concerned that "some of her apparent delusions were now interfering with their mental health as well." Mr. Cyphers therefore requested a mobile crisis unit, so "that there would be some mental health professionals there on scene to help [appellant] if she needed support." The mobile crisis unit eventually concluded that appellant "was not a harm to herself, or her children, but that she had delusional thinking." Mr. Cyphers then decided the best course of action was to commence a neglect proceeding and immediately remove J.W. and Ja.W. to foster care.

The neglect petitions, filed and served on appellant on November 20, 2018, alleged that J.W. and Ja. W. were neglected within the meaning of D.C. Code §§ 16-2301(9)(A)(ii) and (iii). Section 16-2301(9)(A)(ii) provides that a child is neglected if the child is "without proper parental care or control, subsistence, education as required by law, or other care or control necessary for [the child's] physical, mental, or emotional health," and the deprivation is not due to a parent's "lack of financial means." Section 16-2301(9)(A)(iii) provides that a child is neglected if their "parent ... is unable to discharge his or her responsibilities to and for the child because of incarceration, hospitalization, or other physical or mental incapacity." In brief, the District alleged that appellant failed to provide the children with proper shelter and education, and that her mental health issues adversely affected the children's well-being.

B. Probable Cause Hearing

A probable cause hearing was held on the neglect petitions. Appellant participated in the hearing, at which she confirmed J.W. and Ja.W.’s birthdates and the identity of their father. Appellant testified that she was self-employed as a Christian motivational speaker, that she had made $800 the previous month, and that she had not yet applied for food stamps or medical benefits in the District. The magistrate judge also heard from Mr. Cyphers, who recounted his interaction with appellant at Union Station. Mr. Cyphers testified that he decided to remove J.W. and Ja.W. because he "felt that the mom's mental health was keeping her children from being in a safe environment."

The magistrate judge found probable cause to believe the children were neglected and ruled that they should remain in the foster care system with supervised visitation from appellant. The magistrate judge also ordered appellant to undergo a mental health evaluation, emphasizing the importance of her cooperation.

C. Neglect Trial

On February 27, 2019, the magistrate judge held a one-day bench trial. Appellant did not attend the trial, and she had not complied with the order for a mental health examination. At the start of the trial, appellant's counsel objected to the court's subject-matter jurisdiction. Counsel asserted that because the District was not J.W. and Ja.W.’s home state, its courts could only "take emergency jurisdiction for 90 days." The magistrate judge rejected this argument when counsel was unable to cite any statutory authority for the purported ninety-day limit. Appellant's counsel then asserted that the magistrate judge had an affirmative obligation to contact the courts of Georgia, J.W. and Ja.W.’s home state, to determine whether they wanted to assert jurisdiction over the case. The magistrate judge also rejected this assertion.⁵

The District called six witnesses to prove that appellant's children were neglected within the meaning of D.C. Code §§ 16-2301(9)(A)(ii) and (iii). In addition to its witnesses, the District introduced a list of twenty-nine requested admissions it had served on appellant, which she had failed to deny or answer in any way. Appellant's counsel presented no evidence.

The District's first two witnesses at trial were Sergeant Little and Mr. Cyphers. Sergeant Little said he first spoke with appellant and her children during a random seating check in Union Station between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m. (before that, he recalled seeing the family "off and on intermittently" during his shifts "for at least about a week."). When Sergeant Little asked appellant why neither she nor the children had train tickets, appellant responded "that they were homeless; she didn't have anywhere to go." Appellant then informed Sergeant Little that she could not call anyone for help because "there was people that were after her, and wanted to harm her." Appellant further stated to Sergeant Little that "she had been staying at several shelters, and they were unsafe." Sergeant Little decided to call the CFSA hotline to report the situation.

As he had during the probable cause hearing, Mr. Cyphers testified that CFSA sent him to Union Station to investigate appellant's situation. Upon arriving, Mr. Cyphers saw appellant alongside "the two kids [who] were ... sleeping next to each other on a wooden bench." When Mr. Cyphers questioned her, appellant told him that "she was in Union Station for about a month," having been "ejected" from her previous apartment in Georgia. Appellant also said she had refused a shelter placement from VWFRC because "she didn't feel safe," and repeated to Mr. Cyphers her belief that various individuals were following her and trying to kill her. This left Mr. Cyphers with the impression that appellant "wasn't homeless because of her financial situation; she was homeless because she was actually denying shelter." Mr. Cyphers shared this conclusion with his CFSA supervisor, who agreed that appellant's children should be removed to foster care.

The District's third witness was Ms. Stephanie Thomas, the homeschooling coordinator for the District. Ms. Thomas confirmed that J.W. and Ja.W. were not registered to be homeschooled with the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, as was required by law.

The District's other three witnesses were Terri Buchinski, the social worker who supervised appellant's weekly visits and phone calls with the children following their removal, and Angela White and Dr. Rashida Clegg, the children's clinical therapists.

Ms. Buchinski had a Master's degree in social work, was licensed in the District of Columbia, and had worked as a CFSA social worker for three years. In satisfaction of her licensing requirements, she testified, she had taken courses on recognizing and diagnosing signs and symptoms of mental illness and been trained to make observations about mental illness and...