Review of Colorado Dependency and Neglect Law
| Publication year | 1982 |
| Pages | 3007 |
| Citation | Vol. 11 No. 12 Pg. 3007 |
1982, December, Pg. 3007. Review of Colorado Dependency And Neglect Law
The year 1982 brought a significant number of cases involving child-protective litigation to the Colorado appellate courts. This article discusses case law decided in 1982, as well as a few cases which, although decided late in 1981, did not appear in the reports until 1982. While insisting on strict adherence to statutory and judicial standards, the Colorado cases uphold as paramount the best interests of the child in situations where the child's welfare is in conflict with either parental rights or the child's own freedom of choice.(fn1)
In People in the Interest of E.A., the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether an adjudication of dependency and neglect is a final order for purposes of appeal.(fn2) The Department of Social Services, the guardan ad litem for the child and the intervening foster parents, argued that the failure of the respondent mother to file a motion for a new trial after an adjudication obtained some four years prior to the dispositional hearing precluded the mother from challenging the dependency adjudication on appeal.
The Supreme Court ruled that where the trial court elects to bifurcate the adjudicatory and dispositional hearings, the judgment of dependency does not become final for purposes of an appeal until after the order of disposition.(fn3) The court went on to reverse the trial court's termination of the parent-child relationship because the trial court failed to apply the judicial standards outlined in People in the Interest of M.M.(fn4) These judicial standards, as well as statutory standards, applied to all dependency proceedings commenced prior to July 1, 1977.(fn5)
The trial court refused to apply the judicial standards to one of the children in this case because after living with a number of foster families, the child had finally adapted well to a family that wanted to adopt him and he had been living with them for over two years. Application of the judicial standards apparently dictated further contact between the respondent mother and the child and his foster family, and this contact was deemed by expert witnesses to be harmful to the child and not in his best interests. Rather than permit this disruption to an ongoing healthy relationship, the trial court chose to eschew the judicial standards.
This case should serve as a warning to all persons interested in the best interests of a child that the period of time between adjudication and disposition in a dependency proceeding should not be unreasonably delayed if there is a danger of harmful disruption to the child.(fn6) The case also stands for the proposition that the child may be adjudicated dependent and neglected even though the parent is prevented from visiting the child by the Department of Social Services.
In People in the Interest of D.L.R.,(fn7) the...
To continue reading
Request your trial