L.K. v. Department of Children and Families, 4D10 \u2013 5124
\nJune 15, 2011<\/p>\n
The Fourth District Court of Appeal addressed a final order terminating L.K.\u2019s parental rights as to her daughter, G.B. The Department initiated dependency proceedings regarding G.B and took her into the Department\u2019s custody. Shortly thereafter, L.K. was incarcerated for narcotics. The evidence showed that during L.K.\u2019s incarceration, she made several attempts to contact G.B. as well as inquire about G.B\u2019s general well-being through another family member. The Department then filed a petition for termination of parental rights on the basis of abandonment.\u00a0 The trial court held that L.K. had not made a sufficient effort to establish a substantial relationship with G.B. and that it was in the child\u2019s best interests to terminate her parental rights.\u00a0 In so finding, the trial court ruled that L.K\u2019s attempts to substantially comply with her case plan were irrelevant to its determination of abandonment.<\/p>\n
L.K. argued that the trial court erred in excluding evidence that L.K. substantially complied with her case plan.\u00a0 The Fourth District agreed.\u00a0 In reversing, the Fourth District cited B.T. v. Department of Children and Families, which held that incarceration is a factor that can be considered in abandonment cases, but the parent\u2019s efforts to assume parental duties while incarcerated must also be considered in light of the limited opportunities to assume those duties while in prison.\u00a0 16 So.3d 940, 941 (Fla. 5th DCA 2009).\u00a0 The Fourth District held that the trial court should have considered L.K.\u2019s attempts to substantially comply with her case plan before terminating her parental rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
L.K. v. Department of Children and Families, 4D10 \u2013 5124 June 15, 2011 The Fourth District Court of Appeal addressed a final order terminating L.K.\u2019s parental rights as to her daughter, G.B. The Department initiated dependency proceedings regarding G.B and took her into the Department\u2019s custody. Shortly thereafter, L.K. was incarcerated for narcotics. The evidence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1811,1806],"tags":[2213,2214,1919,2215,2216,2185,2217,1932,1995,1882,2218,2219,2220,2221,2222,2223,2224,1912],"class_list":["post-2218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4th-dca-rulings","category-family","tag-abandonment","tag-case-plan","tag-custody","tag-department-of-children-and-families","tag-dependency-proceedings","tag-erred","tag-family","tag-fourth-dca","tag-fourth-district","tag-fourth-district-court-of-appeals","tag-incarcarated","tag-narcotics","tag-parental-duties","tag-parental-rights","tag-prison","tag-relevant-and-admissible","tag-termination-of-parental-rights","tag-trial-court"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}