In re K. L.

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reviewed the termination of a father's parental rights in an abuse and neglect proceeding. The court held that termination was improperly based on alleged substance abuse for which the father had not been adjudicated abusive or neglectful, and that the post-dispositional improvement period was not properly implemented. The termination portion of the dispositional order was vacated and the case was remanded for further proceedings.

Holdings

1. A circuit court may not fundamentally base termination of parental rights on a condition of abuse or neglect upon which the parent was never properly adjudicated.
2. A parent's failure to comply with an improvement-period requirement cannot support termination when the improvement period was not implemented with definite terms and a statutorily required individualized family case plan.
3. The alleged defects in the emergency removal and initial orders did not warrant relief in this appeal because the father waived or rendered those issues moot by failing to seek the child's return, consenting to the removal, and proceeding through adjudication.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the circuit court could terminate the father's parental rights based principally on alleged substance abuse when he had not been adjudicated abusive or neglectful on that condition.
2. Whether the father's failure to drug screen could support termination for failure to participate in a post-dispositional improvement period that was not properly implemented under West Virginia Code § 49-4-610(3).
3. Whether alleged defects in the child's emergency removal and initial orders required reversal.
4. Whether the circuit court erred by failing to interview the child before termination.
5. Whether the circuit court erred by failing to impose a lesser disposition, including disposition five.

Disposition

vacated_and_remanded