T.S. v. Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services

As a result of certain incidents, Florida’s Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (the department) prepared a proposed confirmed report for its central child-abuse registry indicating that T.S. (defendant) had inflicted mental abuse on his son, who was 12 years old. The report also alleged other threatened harm or mental-injury abuse. T.S. requested that the report be expunged. Because the department denied the request, T.S. sought a formal hearing. A hearing officer noted that Florida’s statute relating to child abuse did not define mental abuse. Thus, it would be necessary to consider the definitions of the terms “abused or neglected child,” “child abuse or neglect,” “harm,” and “mental injury” in the sequential order in which they appeared in Florida Statute 415.503. The first two terms referenced harm or threatened harm to the physical or mental health of a child by a parent’s acts. Harm occurred if a parent inflicted a physical or mental injury on a child. Mental injury was defined as an injury to a child’s psychological or intellectual capacity, as shown by a recognizable and significant impairment in the child’s ability to operate in the child’s normal range of conduct, with due consideration for the child’s culture. Thus, the hearing officer determined that the department’s report could stand only if there was evidence that T.S. had harmed or threatened harm to his son’s mental health by inflicting a mental injury on him. The hearing officer then assessed that the evidence did not demonstrate that T.S. had inflicted a mental injury on his son and recommended that the department expunge the report. The hearing officer provided a summary of the testimony but did not specifically accept or reject the testimony. The department adopted the hearing officer’s findings of fact and conclusions of law but not the hearing officer’s determination that the evidence did not support the perpetration of a mental injury. The department entered an order denying expungement. T.S. appealed.