IN RE: T.C. and others (2025)

Order of disposition, Family Court, Bronx County (Sarah P. Cooper, J.), entered on or about March 6, 2024, to the extent it brings up for review a fact-finding order, same court and Judge, entered on or about March 5, 2024, which, after a hearing, found that respondent father was a person legally responsible for the subject child T.C., and that he neglected T.C. and the subject children L.D., Sha.D., Shai.D., and Shay.D., unanimously affirmed, without costs.  Appeal from fact-finding order, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the order of disposition.

A preponderance of the evidence supports the finding that the father neglected the subject children by failing to exercise a minimum degree of care in providing them with proper supervision or guardianship.  The evidence showed that the father's actions during a May 6, 2023 altercation with the children's mother and her boyfriend in the children's presence, in which he brought his pit bull and taser gun outside to intimidate the mother's boyfriend, placed the children at imminent risk of physical and emotional harm (see Matter of V.B. [Nicole A.], 231 A.D.3d 527, 527, 218 N.Y.S.3d 341 [1st Dept. 2024]).

T.C.'s out-of-court statement to the caseworker that the father appeared to have a black handgun in his hand during the altercation was corroborated by the father's admission that he had, in fact, brought a taser gun outside during the altercation (see Family Court Act § 1046[a][vi];  Matter of Nicole V., 71 N.Y.2d 112, 118, 524 N.Y.S.2d 19, 518 N.E.2d 914 [1987]).  Moreover, T.C.'s out-of-court statement to the caseworker that the father hit him with a closed fist just before the incident was corroborated by the father's own testimony that he previously had hit T.C. On this record, the Family Court providently exercised its discretion in determining that the father's contradictory statements were not credible, and that the testimony of the caseworker was (see Matter of Any G. v. Ayman H., 208 A.D.3d 1097, 1098, 175 N.Y.S.3d 25 [1st Dept. 2022];  Matter of Luna O. [Eneudis T.O.], 232 A.D.3d 799, 801, 221 N.Y.S.3d 218 [2d Dept. 2024]).

The evidence also showed that after T.C. texted the mother asking if he could return home, the father punched T.C. in the face with enough force to cause swelling.  This conduct exceeded any common-law right to use reasonable force to discipline T.C. (see Matter of Rahmel G. [Carlene G.], 201 A.D.3d 567, 157 N.Y.S.3d 710 [1st Dept. 2022]).  Additionally, in the days after the May 6 incident, the father neglected Sha.D. by forcing her to walk six blocks home to the mother's apartment while the child was wearing only socks on her feet (see Matter of Treyvone A. [Manuel R.], 188 A.D.3d 1182, 1183, 133 N.Y.S.3d 292 [2d Dept. 2020], lv denied 36 N.Y.3d 908, 2021 WL 1133509 [2021]).

We have considered the father's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.