In re Justin T.

One day, Justin T.’s mother (Mother) (defendant) left 21-month-old Justin home with her boyfriend. When Mother returned, she found Justin severely injured. Justin was hospitalized for 17 days with damage to his pancreas and his liver and permanent damage to one of his kidneys. Mother’s boyfriend was convicted and jailed for aggravated assault, and Mother broke up with him. The Department of Human Services (the department) for the State of Maine (plaintiff) took temporary custody of Justin, first by court order and later with Mother’s agreement, and began providing services for Mother. The department determined that Mother’s issue with substance abuse was a significant problem and recommended services for her that included treatment and counseling. Mother subsequently twice started a residential treatment program but gave up before completing the program both times. Mother did not comply with recommendations from her therapist that she fully engage with substance-abuse treatment and stop using intoxicants. The department sought to terminate Mother’s parental rights. The statutory grounds for termination of parental rights in Maine required a finding that the parent was not able to protect the child from harm and take responsibility for the child, that the inability was not likely to change in a reasonable amount of time per the child’s needs, and that terminating the parent’s rights was in the child’s best interests. A trial court found that each of the statutory grounds was met and granted termination of Mother’s parental rights. Mother appealed, objecting to the findings of the trial court because she had broken up with her boyfriend and she felt her issues with abusing substances had not affected Justin. Mother also asserted that the trial court’s decision should be vacated because the department had failed to honor its statutory obligations. Under Maine law, the department was obligated to create a plan to reunify a child with a parent and put forth a good-faith effort to facilitate the plan. In addition, the department was supposed to file a petition to terminate parental rights shortly after it made the decision to cease trying to reunify a parent and child. In this case, the department unilaterally decided to stop reunification efforts and delayed seeking termination for over five months after making that decision. The trial court was concerned about this failure but determined that even if the department had complied with the statute, it would not have affected Mother’s failures regarding substance abuse.