Reynolds v. Dewees

Chanel Reynolds (plaintiff) and Thomas Dewees (defendant) were the parents of minor child T.D. Reynolds sought to establish paternity and submitted the proper filing in the Delaware Circuit Court (the trial court) in Indiana. Dewees acknowledged paternity, and based on an agreement between Reynolds and Dewees, Reynolds was granted custody of T.D. T.D. was removed from Reynolds’s custody after the Delaware County Office of Family and Children (the agency) submitted a petition in juvenile court asserting that T.D. was a child in need of protection due to failure to thrive and other issues. The agency placed T.D. with Dewees, and while the child-in-need-of-supervision petition was still pending in the juvenile court, Dewees filed a petition to modify custody in the trial court. After a trial, Dewees was awarded custody of T.D. Reynolds appealed, alleging that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to modify T.D.’s custody while a child-in-need-of-supervision action was pending in the juvenile court. Under Indiana law, a court that had paternity jurisdiction was provided jurisdiction that was both original and concurrent with a juvenile court, authorizing it to make custody modifications even if a child-in-need-of-supervision action was pending. However, the modifying court’s custody modification did not become effective unless the juvenile court either entered an order agreeing with the modification of custody or terminated the child-in-need-of-supervision proceeding. At trial, an agency caseworker had testified that if Dewees was granted custody, the child-in-need-of-supervision petition would be dismissed in the juvenile court, and an order would be entered. It was not clear from the record whether the petition was dismissed after Dewees was granted custody.