In re A.C.

Summary

The Ohio Third District Court of Appeals affirmed the Defiance County Juvenile Division’s judgment granting permanent custody of A.C. to the Defiance/Paulding Consolidated Job and Family Services Department. The court held that clear and convincing evidence supported the statutory grounds for permanent custody, including the mother’s abandonment of the child and the parents’ inability to provide a suitable home within a reasonable time. The court also addressed the parents’ challenges to the permanent-custody and best-interest determinations.

Holdings

1. Mother abandoned A.C. because she failed to visit or maintain contact with the child for more than ninety days, even though she later resumed contact.
2. The evidence supported the juvenile court's finding that A.C. could not and should not be placed with either parent within a reasonable time.
3. The juvenile court's determination that permanent custody to DCJFS was in A.C.'s best interest was supported by the evidence and was not against the manifest weight of the evidence.
4. Father was not entitled to an appellate offset because the record did not establish that A.C. had actually received Social Security Disability benefits.
5. Permanent-custody judgments are reviewed under sufficiency-of-the-evidence and/or manifest-weight-of-the-evidence standards, as appropriate to the arguments presented.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the juvenile court's findings under R.C. 2151.414(B)(1), including that A.C. could not or should not be placed with either parent within a reasonable time and that Mother had abandoned A.C., were against the manifest weight of the evidence.
2. Whether granting permanent custody of A.C. to DCJFS was in A.C.'s best interest under R.C. 2151.414(D)(1).
3. Whether the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children was unnecessary under R.C. 5103.20(B)(5) because Father was a noncustodial parent.
4. Whether Father's child-support obligation should have been offset or eliminated based on Social Security Disability benefits allegedly available to A.C.

Disposition

affirmed