T.W., Appellant-Petitioner v. B.H., Appellee-Respondent (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

[1] When T.W. (Stepfather) petitioned to adopt his three stepchildren, he claimed the consent of their natural father, B.H. (Father), was not required. Although both parents’ consent to an adoption of their child is normally required, Stepfather invoked a statutory exception and cited Father's lapses in communication with the children, failure to consistently pay child support, and history of domestic violence. The trial court disagreed, emphasizing Father's successful efforts to overcome his addiction and reengage with his children. As a result, the court denied Stepfather's adoption petition, and he appeals. Because the evidence supports the trial court's determination, we affirm.

Facts

[2] Father and L.W. (Mother) have three children together. After divorcing Father in late 2017, Mother, as well as the children, began living with Stepfather. For the first few years following the divorce, Father did not exercise his restricted parenting time and only contacted his children once or twice. During this time, Father struggled with substance abuse and was incarcerated for thirteen months. Soon after his release from jail in 2019, Father entered into and successfully completed a residential substance abuse treatment program.

[3] Around the time he began treatment in early 2020, Father began regularly calling his children and soon began visiting with them. His visits increased in frequency from monthly to weekly and moved from supervised to unsupervised. Father also began to chip away at the child support arrearage of approximately $22,000 that had accrued since his separation and during his incarceration. He made consistent monthly support payments beginning in 2020.

[4] But in early 2022, Father's contact with the children ceased after Mother reported to police that Father had struck one of their children. He was charged with battery and strangulation, and his criminal case is currently pending. As a result of the charges, the criminal court imposed a no-contact order preventing Father from contacting all his children, which remains in effect.

[5] Later that same year, Stepfather petitioned to adopt the children with only Mother's consent. Stepfather argued that under Indiana Code § 31-19-9-8, the adoption could proceed without Father's consent because Father had failed to communicate significantly with the children, did not support them when he was able, and had a history of domestic violence that made him unfit to be a parent. Father contested the adoption, expressing his desire to maintain his parental relationship with the children.

[6] After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Stepfather's adoption petition. The court emphasized Father's rehabilitation after his release from incarceration and his demonstrated interest in maintaining a relationship with his children. It also noted that Father had maintained his sobriety since completing treatment in 2020 and had kept up with his monthly child support payments despite the no-contact order, paying a total of $23,000 since the divorce. Therefore, the court found that Stepfather had not presented clear and convincing evidence that Father's consent was unnecessary under the statute. Stepfather appeals.

Discussion and Decision

[7] We review adoption decisions with considerable deference to the trial court, recognizing its superior position to judge the facts, assess witness credibility, and “get a feel for the family dynamics.” In re Adoption of I.B., 163 N.E.3d 270, 274 (Ind. 2021). Accordingly, we presume the trial court's decision is correct and the appellant (here, Stepfather) bears the burden of rebutting this presumption. Id. We do not disturb the decision “unless the evidence leads to but one conclusion and the trial judge reached an opposite conclusion.” Id. We neither reweigh the evidence nor judge witness credibility and examine only the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment. Id.

[8] In any adoption proceeding, a natural parent “enjoys special protection” and courts “strictly construe our adoption statutes to preserve the fundamentally important parent-child relationship.” Id. Only “under carefully enumerated circumstances” may an adoption proceed without the consent of both parents. Id.; See Ind. Code § 31-19-9-8 (setting out thirteen circumstances under which a natural parent's consent is not required for adoption). Stepfather's adoption petition invoked three such circumstances enumerated in various subsections of Indiana Code § 31-19-9-8 to allege that Father's consent was not required.¹ He specifically claimed that Father: (1) failed without justifiable cause to communicate significantly with his children when able to do so for at least one year; (2) failed to provide required support when able to do so for at least one year; or (3) was unfit to be a parent and dispensing with his consent to the adoption would serve the best interests of the children.² The trial court determined that Stepfather failed to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, any of these three alleged grounds for bypassing Father's consent.

[9] In making this determination, the trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law. We therefore apply a two-tiered standard of review: we first determine whether the evidence supports the finding and then whether the findings support the judgment. In re Adoption of D.H., 135 N.E.3d 914, 918 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019). Considering the evidence most favorable to the judgment and our significant deference to the trial court, we cannot say that this determination was erroneous. We therefore affirm.

I. Significant Communication

[10] Under the statute, a parent's failure to communicate significantly with their child must be “without justifiable cause” and when the parent is “able to do so,” for at least one year. Ind. Code § 31-19-9-8(a)(2)(A). Stepfather claims that there were two periods of time during which Father failed to communicate with his children: (1) from shortly after the divorce in late 2017 until early 2020, after Father enrolled in treatment and began calling and then visiting the children; and (2) from the imposition of the no-contact order in January 2022 to the present. The trial court found neither period met the statute's requirements, and we find no error in that conclusion.

[11] Though the first period of non-communication spanned more than one year, the trial court found that Father's rehabilitation efforts were a justifiable cause of the lapse. The record supports this finding: during this time, Father's struggles with substance abuse led to a thirteen-month stint in jail. He then attended an intensive recovery program and began regular phone calls and then in-person visits with his children. At the evidentiary hearing, Father testified that he had maintained his sobriety since completing treatment in 2020.

[12] In reaching its conclusion that such circumstances constituted justifiable cause, the trial court drew a parallel to E.B.F. v. D.F., 93 N.E.3d 759 (Ind. 2018). In that case, our Supreme Court held that a mother's “willingness to shield her son from the adverse effect of her addiction” and “good-faith effort at recovery” constituted justifiable cause for her lapse in contact. Id. at 763. The trial court also relied on this Court's decision in D.H., where a mother's years-long lapse in communication was deemed justified because she had relocated to focus on her substance abuse recovery and financial stability. See D.H., 135 N.E.3d at 924. We cannot say that the trial court erred in determining that, consistent with these decisions, Father's first lapse in communication was due to justifiable cause.

[13] Father's most recent period of non-communication began in January 2022 when he was prohibited from contacting his children while his criminal case was pending. But Father's last contact with the children was still less than a year before Stepfather petitioned for adoption in September 2022.³ Regardless, Father was not legally able to contact his children while under the no-contact order, which limited his ability to communicate with them. See In re Adoption of K.B., 247 N.E.3d 803, 809 n.9 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024) (reversing trial court's finding that a father failed to communicate with his children without justifiable cause, citing in part the father's incarceration and no-contact order with his children as circumstances that “limited [his] ability to communicate”).

II. Payment of Support

[14] Stepfather next challenges the trial court's conclusion that he failed to prove Father did not “provide for the care and support of the child[ren] when able to do so as required by law or judicial decree.” Ind. Code § 31-19-9-8(a)(2)(B). The trial court found that Father's significant child support arrearage accrued largely while incarcerated or in a recovery program. Soon after his release from jail and treatment, Father obtained steady employment and began making child support payments. He has paid consistently since 2020—a total of $23,000 total since the divorce. This evidence supports the court's conclusion that Stepfather did not show that Father failed to provide support for children when he was able. C.f. In re Adoption of T.L., 4 N.E.3d 658, 662-63 (Ind. 2014) (finding no consent to adoption needed from a father who paid only $390 over nine years and was unemployed when not incarcerated).

III. Fitness to Parent and Best Interests of Children

[15] Finally, Stepfather points to Father's history of domestic violence to demonstrate that Father is “unfit to be a parent” and that adoption without his consent would serve the “best interests” of the children. Ind. Code § 31-19-9-8(a)(11). Stepfather specifically notes that Father's incarceration in 2018 and 2019 was due to a domestic battery offense against Mother and that Father was charged with battery again in 2022—this time against his own child.

[16] The trial court considered the pending child battery charge but found that though it was “certainly a matter of concern,” it had “not yet been adjudicated and [Father] is presumed to be innocent.” App. Vol. II, p. 126. The court instead emphasized evidence of Father's significant strides in overcoming his addiction and his steadily increased contact with his children. We defer to the trial court's weighing of the evidence and do not reassess it on appeal. I.B., 163 N.E.3d at 274.

[17] We therefore find no error in the trial court's determination that Stepfather failed to show that Father was an unfit parent and that adoption without his consent was in the best interest of the children. Such determination “merely preserves the opportunity” for Father to continue to reestablish his relationship with his children, which is in “in the best interest of both children and the recovering Father.” E.B.F., 93 N.E.3d at 767 (cleaned up).

Conclusion

[18] Considering the evidence most favorable to the judgment, and given our deferential standard of review, we cannot say that the trial court erred in denying the adoption petition based on Stepfather's failure to prove Father's consent was unnecessary.

[19] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   This statute was amended effective July 1, 2023, after the adoption petition was filed. The amendment added only a subsection not at issue here.

2.   In his adoption petition, Stepfather also alleged that Father abandoned the children under a different subsection of Indiana Code § 31-19-9-8. The trial court found that Stepfather failed to prove this allegation, and Stepfather does not challenge that conclusion on appeal. Therefore, we do not consider it.

3.   Stepfather claims that Father's second lapse in contact exceeds one year because it extended from January 2022 to the present, as the no-contact order is still in place. However, “a parent's conduct after the petition to adopt was filed is wholly irrelevant to the determination of whether the parent failed to significantly communicate with the child for any one year period.” In re Adoption of K.B., 247 N.E.3d 803, 809 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024) (citing In re Adoption of S.W., 979 N.E.2d 633, 640 n.3 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012)).

Weissmann, Judge.

May, J., and Scheele, J., concur.