Summit County Appellate Decisions in Juvenile Court Cases, December, 2013

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Appellate District released five decisions on appeals from the Summit County Juvenile Court during December of 2013. My summaries of these decisions appear below. 

In re R.P., 2013-Ohio-5728, released on December 26, 2013, affirmed the decision of the Summit County Juvenile Court's decision to declare R.P. a dependent child and place her in the custody of the Summit County Children Services Board. 

In the first assignment of error R.P.'s father argued that the trial court erred in allowing evidence to be admitted at the hearing that had not been made available to him during discovery. The Court of Appeals overruled this assignment of error. It noted that the Juvenile Rules, unlike the Criminal Rules, do not require that the discovery response be supplemental as more information becomes available. The Court of Appeals reasoned that under the Juvenile Rules a party has to make a motion to compel discovery in order to make sure that the party is receiving updated discovery. 

In two of the assignments of error the father argued that the trial court committed reversible error in allowing R.P.'s counselor to testify. The Court of Appeals held that if allowing the testimony was erroneous, it was harmless error. 

Three of the assignments of error dealt with the Juvenile Court allowing the intervention of a couple who had been legal custodians of R.P. into the case and quashing a subpoena that had been issued for records of the CSB that related to the couple. 

With regard to the trial court's quashing of the subpoena to the couple the Court of Appeals held that the father did not demonstrate how the evidence would have been relevant to his case. With regard to the decision of the trial court to allow the couple to intervene even though they did not comply with the Juvenile Rules regarding intervention of parties, the Court of Appeals held that the father did not establish that the intervention was prejudicial to his rights. 

The father also assigned as error the trial court allowing certified copies of the mother's misdemeanor convictions into evidence. The Court of Appeals held that such evidence was allowed under Evid. R. 902 (4) and Evid. R. 803 (8), which is the hearsay exception for public records. 

Two of the assignments of error dealt with the finding by the trial court that R.P. was a dependent child. The Court of Appeals overruled those assignments of error, finding that the evidence was sufficient to support the dependency finding. 

The last two assignments of error dealt with the trial court not allowing copies of confidential records held by the CSB's counsel to be given to the father and the findings made by the trial court in support of its decision. Both assignments of error were overruled. 

In re J.B., 2013-Ohio-5727, released on December 26, 2013, affirmed the decision of the Summit County Juvenile Court that terminated the parental rights of the mother of J.B. and placed him in the permanent custody of the Children Services Board. The mother alleged that the finding that such termination was in the best interest of the child was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The Court of Appeals overruled that assignment of error. 

In re M.H., 2013-Ohio-5565, released on December 18, 2013, affirmed an order of the Summit County Juvenile Court terminating the parental rights of the mother of M.H. and placing her in the permanent custody of the Children Services Board. She argued that the order was an abuse of discretion by the trial court. The appellate court disagreed and affirmed the trial court's order. 

In re L.W., 2013-Ohio-5556, released on December 18, 2013, affirmed an order of the Juvenile Court finding that the best interests of L.W. were served by placing him in the temporary custody of the Children Services Board. Both the mother and the father appealed. 

Both parents assigned as error the trial court's finding that L.W. was dependent was against the manifest weight of the evidence. That assignment was overruled. 

The father assigned as error the trial court's finding that the child did not have to be personally served in order for the court to have acquired jurisdiction over the child. The Court of Appeals noted that objections to personal jurisdiction have to be made timely and that the father's refusal to make timely objections to the trial court having personal jurisdiction meant that he had forfeited that argument. 

The father also asserted as error the trial court's finding that it did not have to appoint counsel or a guardian ad litem for L.W. The Court of Appeals noted that such a finding is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard and that there is not an absolute right for a child to be represented by counsel or a GAL in a dependency or neglect case, but only in an abuse case. Therefore that assignment of error was also overruled. 

In re V.H., 2013-Ohio-5408, released on December 11, 2013, affirmed the Juvenile Court's finding that V.H. was a delinquent child by reason of having the offense of gross sexual imposition. V.H. challenged the finding by arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support the Juvenile Court's finding of delinquency. The Court of Appeals reviewed the evidence and found it sufficient.