IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 18-1443
Filed January 23, 2019
IN THE INTEREST OF E.P.,
Minor Child,
H.L., Mother,
Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Worth County, Adam D. Sauer,
District Associate Judge.
A mother appeals from the juvenile court order terminating her parental
rights to her child. AFFIRMED.
Richard N. Tompkins Jr. of Tompkins Law Office, Mason City, for appellant
mother.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Anagha Dixit, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Patrick Rourick of Patrick J. Rourick Law Office, St. Ansgar, guardian ad
litem for minor child.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Vaitheswaran and McDonald, JJ.
2
VOGEL, Presiding Judge.
A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to her child, E.P.,
born March 2011. After nearly two years of services provided, the district court
terminated the mother’s parental rights pursuant to Iowa Code section
232.116(1)(f) (2018). Because the mother does not challenge whether the
statutory grounds for termination have been met, we affirm those findings by the
district court. See In re P.L., 778 N.W.2d 33, 40 (Iowa 2010). The mother does
request an additional six months to work towards reunification, and she asserts
termination is not in the child’s best interests and the bond they share should
preclude termination. See Iowa Code §§ 232.104(2)(b); 232.116(2), (3)(c).1
Because of the mother’s mental-health problems, drug and alcohol abuse,
and continued involvement with inappropriate men, E.P. was removed from the
mother’s care on three separate occasions: from August 23, 2016, until March 9,
2017; from March 29, 2017, until March 6, 2018; and from March 22, 2018, until
termination. Each time the child was returned to the home, the mother’s
reunification progress quickly regressed to the point of again exposing E.P. to an
unsafe environment. On one occasion, the mother stole prescription medication
from her parent partner; on another occasion, E.P. was missing forty pills
prescribed to him for attention hyperactivity disorder. As the Iowa Department of
Human Services (DHS) worker testified, while the mother participated in some
therapeutic treatments, “she does not use the things that she’s learned in therapy.
. . . [H]er behaviors have not changed. She still makes unsafe decisions for her
1
The father’s parental rights were also terminated; he does not appeal.
3
son.” On our de novo review,2 we agree with this assessment and find nothing in
this record to support an extension of time that would delay termination. We also
agree with the district court termination is in E.P.’s best interests because as soon
as each of the two trial periods of reunification occurred, the mother became
overwhelmed with his care and quickly returned to the destructive behavior that
put E.P. at risk. Moreover, when examining whether any bond the mother shares
with E.P. should preclude termination, the Family Safety, Risk, and Permanency
worker testified, “[E.P.] gets excited to go home and then he has to be removed
again for choices that as a six-year-old he doesn’t understand” and that his
behavior worsens because of his lack of stability. We agree with the district court
any bond the mother and E.P. share does not preclude termination.
We therefore affirm the district court’s termination of the mother’s parental
rights without further opinion. See Iowa Ct. R. 21.26(1)(a), (d), (e).
AFFIRMED.
2
In re M.W., 876 N.W.2d 212, 219–20 (Iowa 2016) (“In termination-of-parental-rights
cases, we review the proceedings de novo.”)