Matter of Taveon J. (Selina T.)

Summary

The Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously affirmed a Family Court disposition order finding that the respondent mother neglected the children by failing to enforce an order of protection against her boyfriend. The court dismissed as moot the appeal concerning temporary dispositional conditions and dismissed the separate appeal from the fact-finding order as subsumed in the disposition appeal.

Holdings

1. The neglect finding was supported by a preponderance of the evidence because the mother failed to enforce the final order of protection against her boyfriend, placing the children's physical and psychological safety at imminent risk of impairment.
2. The recording of Taveon's statements to the 911 operator was properly admitted as an excited utterance and did not require corroboration.
3. Taveon's consistent statements to an ACS investigator and a police officer were properly admitted because they were sufficiently corroborated by the 911 recording and other evidence.
4. Family Court properly drew a negative inference from the mother's failure to testify.
5. The appeal from the portion of the dispositional order setting conditions until the next permanency hearing was moot because the order expired by its own terms.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the evidence established by a preponderance of the evidence that the mother neglected the children by failing to enforce an order of protection and thereby placing their physical or psychological safety at imminent risk of impairment.
2. Whether the recording of Taveon's 911 call was properly admitted as an excited utterance without corroboration.
3. Whether Taveon's consistent statements to an ACS investigator and a police officer were sufficiently corroborated for admission.
4. Whether Family Court properly drew a negative inference from the mother's failure to testify.
5. Whether the appeal from dispositional conditions that expired by their own terms was moot.
6. Whether the separate appeal from the fact-finding order was subsumed in the appeal from the order of disposition.

Disposition

affirmed