In re Lillyanne D.

1

IN RE LILLYANNE D. ET AL.^[*]

Nos. AC 45124, AC 45156

Court of Appeals of Connecticut

September 1, 2022^[**]

Argued May 18, 2022

Syllabus

The respondent parents filed separate appeals with this court from the judgment of the trial court terminating their parental rights with respect to their minor child, R, who had been in foster care since his discharge from a hospital after his birth. The Department of Children and Families became involved with the respondents when the respondent mother threatened to harm their daughter, L. The mother had a previous history with the department in connection with incidents involving her older children. After L had been adjudicated neglected and committed to the custody of the petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families, the respondents' second child, R, was born, and the petitioner filed a motion for an order of temporary custody and a neglect petition on the basis of predictive neglect. That same day, the court granted the order of temporary custody and ordered specific steps with which the respondents were required to comply. R thereafter was adjudicated neglected and committed to the custody of the petitioner. The trial court found that the department had made reasonable efforts to reunify R with the respondents but that the respondents were unwilling or unable to benefit from the services the department offered. The court found that the mother had resisted the department's efforts to address the key issues underlying her history of threats or acts of violence against R and her other children and that the father had demonstrated an inability to accurately evaluate the risk she posed to R. The court thus concluded, inter alia, that pursuant to statute (§ 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i)), the respondents had failed to achieve such a degree of personal rehabilitation as would encourage the belief that, within a reasonable time, they could assume responsible positions in R's life. Held:

1. The respondent mother could not prevail on her claim that the trial court committed harmful error when it admitted into evidence under the residual exception to the hearsay rule certain summary reports by a department service provider that it relied on to terminate her parental rights: this court without deciding whether the summaries constituted inadmissible hearsay, concluded that the admission of the summaries was harmless, as the information in them was cumulative of that contained in the department's social study and the report of a court-appointed psychologist, both of which had been admitted into evidence without objection moreover, despite the mother's claim that the court relied on the summaries to bolster and credit the conclusions in the psychologist's report, the court was entitled to rely on the report to support its findings, as it was within the court's sole province to assess the reliability and trustworthiness of the psychologist's conclusions and the weight to accord to his report; furthermore, even if the court had sustained the mother's objection to the summaries, she could not demonstrate that the outcome of the trial would have been different, as the record was replete with references to the challenged information, and she failed to articulate any manner in which the information in the summaries was materially different from that contained in the department's social study and the psychologist's report.

2. The respondent father could not prevail on his claims that the trial court made erroneous evidentiary findings in terminating his parental rights as to R:

a. The trial court reasonably determined that the cumulative effect of the evidence was sufficient to justify its conclusion that the respondent father was unable or unwilling to benefit from the department's efforts to reunify him with R: the court did not rely on outdated information in making its determination, as the father claimed, but limited its analysis to events that preceded the filing of the termination petition, as required by the applicable rule of practice (§ 35a-7 (a)); moreover, the record adequately supported the court's conclusion that, in the event of reunification the respondent mother would be R's primary caregiver when the father was at work, as the respondents were unified in their intentions to parent R as a couple; furthermore, the record reflected that the father, who declined to pursue reunification on his own, was defensive about and overprotective of the mother and appeared to minimize the threat of harm she posed to R, as the mother resisted efforts to address the issues that led to R's removal from her care, rebuffed recommendations for treatment to address her past trauma and refused to take accountability for the events at issue.

b. The evidence was sufficient to support the trial court's conclusion that the respondent father had failed to achieve the requisite degree of personal rehabilitation so as to encourage the belief that, within a reasonable time, he could assume a responsible position in R's life: contrary to the father's claim, the court's consideration of evidence that predated the filing of the petition to terminate his parental rights was proper under § 35a-7 (a), the father failed to point to any specific postpetition evidence the court declined to consider that was probative of his rehabilitation, and the postpetition evidence that the respondents did introduce did not offer any additional perspective that was determinative of the issue of the father's rehabilitation; moreover, the father's contention that, with proper support services in place, he could assume a responsible position in R's life was unavailing, as there was no indication that he sought the department's help in obtaining additional support services or that he intended to rely on support services if reunification were to be granted, even though he was apprised of the department's concerns with respect to the respondents' intention to have the respondent mother care for R when he was at work; furthermore, regardless of the father's progress toward addressing the factors that led to R's commitment, and given his failure to appreciate the risk that the mother posed to the children's safety and his commitment to parent R with her, the court, in making its determination, was entitled to rely on his continued involvement with the mother, whom the court also determined had failed to achieve sufficient rehabilitation.

c. The trial court's determination that it was in R's best interest to terminate the respondent father's parental rights was factually supported by the court's findings and conclusions with respect to the factors set forth in § 17a-112 (k): the court found that the department had timely made referrals to address the respondents' needs and reasonable efforts to reunify them with R but that, despite having made significant progress toward improving his marital relationship and complying with nearly every one of the specific steps, the father remained unable to appropriately assess the threat that the mother posed to R; moreover, although the court weighed the evidence that was more favorable to the father, it found that R had bonded with his foster family, with whom he had spent his entire life, and noted that R could not afford to wait for the respondents to make the necessary adjustments to ensure his safety and well-being.

Procedural History

Petitions by the Commissioner of Children and Families to terminate the respondents' parental rights with respect to their minor children, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Windham, Juvenile Matters at Willimantic, and tried to the court, Chaplin, J.; judgments granting the petitions, from which the respondents filed separate appeals with this court; thereafter, the respondents withdrew their appeals in part. Affirmed.

Matthew C. Eagan, assigned counsel, for the appellant in Docket No. AC 45124 (respondent mother).

David B. Rozwaski, assigned counsel, for the appellant in Docket No. AC 45156 (respondent father).

Michael J. Besso, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were William Tong, attorney general, Claire Kindall, solicitor general, and Evan O'Roark, Jennifer C. Leavitt and Nisa Kahn, assistant attorneys general, for the appellee (petitioner in both appeals).

Kelly L. Babbitt, for the minor child in both appeals.

Bright, C. J., and Alvord and Clark, Js.

OPINION

CLARK, J.

In these two appeals, the respondent mother, Chrystal P., and the respondent father, William D., appeal from the judgment of the trial court rendered in favor of the petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families, terminating their parental rights as to their minor child, Richard D.^[1] In Docket No. AC 45124, the respondent mother claims that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence two documents under the residual exception to the rule against hearsay. In Docket No. AC 45156, the respondent father claims that the court improperly concluded that (1) the Department of Children and Families (department) had made reasonable efforts to reunify him with Richard or, alternatively, that he was unwilling and unable to benefit from those reunification efforts, (2) he had failed to achieve the requisite degree of rehabilitation required by General Statutes § 17a-112 (j), and (3) it would be in Richard's best interest to terminate his parental rights. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.^[2]

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to both appeals. The department became involved with the respondents in June, 2017, when the respondent mother threatened to harm the respondents' daughter, Lillyanne D., who, at that time, was less than one year old.^[3] In July, 2017, the department received another referral...