In re Children of Anthony N.

Summary

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the termination of Anthony N.'s parental rights to his two children. The court concluded that competent evidence supported findings of parental unfitness and that termination was in the children's best interests.

Holdings

1. The District Court did not err in finding the father parentally unfit because competent record evidence supported the statutory findings that he was unwilling or unable to protect the children from jeopardy, unable or unwilling to take responsibility for them within a time reasonably calculated to meet their needs, had abandoned them, and failed to make a good-faith effort to rehabilitate and reunify.
2. The District Court did not err in determining that termination of the father's parental rights was in the children's best interests.
3. The District Court properly treated abandonment as pleaded in conformity with the evidence under Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b), even though abandonment had not been alleged in the termination petition.

Questions Presented

1. Whether competent record evidence supported the District Court's determination that the father was parentally unfit under the statutory grounds for termination.
2. Whether termination of the father's parental rights was in the children's best interests.
3. Whether the District Court erred by treating abandonment as pleaded in conformity with the evidence under Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b).

Disposition

affirmed