IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 20-0404
Filed April 29, 2020
IN THE INTEREST OF M.B.,
Minor Child,
C.B., Mother,
Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Cynthia S. Finley,
District Associate Judge.
A mother appeals adjudicatory and dispositional orders involving her child.
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART.
Katie Eastvold, North Liberty, for appellant mother.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Mary A. Triick, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Kristin L. Denniger, Cedar Rapids, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor
child.
Considered by Bower, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Ahlers, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Judge.
A mother appeals adjudicatory and dispositional orders involving her child,
born in 2010. She contends the record lacks clear and convincing evidence to
support the grounds for adjudication cited by the district court. See In re L.G., 532
N.W.2d 478, 481 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995).
“The underlying grounds of adjudication in child in need of assistance cases
have important legal implications beyond the adjudication.” Id. at 480. Those
grounds “may affect the course of the dispositional phase of the case, and may
even be the basis for a subsequent proceeding for termination of a parent-child
relationship.” Id.; accord In re J.S., 846 N.W.2d 36, 41 (Iowa 2014) (same).
Accordingly, we will address each of the four statutory grounds on which the district
court relied.
Iowa Code section 232.2(6)(c)(2) (2019) defines a child in need of
assistance as a child
[w]ho has suffered or is imminently likely to suffer harmful effects as
a result of any of the following:
....
(2) The failure of the child’s parent, guardian, custodian, or
other member of the household in which the child resides to exercise
a reasonable degree of care in supervising the child.
The child’s mother and father divorced in 2015.1 After the divorce, the child lived
with her mother. The father exercised visitation three times.
The department of human services intervened after receiving a complaint
that green mold was growing on the child’s scalp, the mother’s home lacked
1 The trial transcript indicates the divorce was finalized in 2016, but the social
history report documents the year as 2015.
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running water, and the city was about to condemn the house. The department
applied to have the child removed from the mother’s custody. The district court
granted the application, and the child was placed with her father.
The father testified that when the child was placed with him, she was
“completely behind” on her immunizations, had not been to a dentist for “[t]hree
years,” had mold in her hair, and was wearing diapers. She was “extremely
behind” in her education, with a “non-existent ability to write,” had reading skills at
the level of “a kindergartner,” and had “non-existent” math skills. He stated she
had no “learning disabilities to explain why she was behind.” He confirmed the
mother’s house lacked running water, had “four to eight inches of sewage water
just floating in the basement,” was “overrun with clutter” including “boxes and
books” on the child’s bed, and had “rotting food on the tables and in the
refrigerator.”
The child was evaluated at a child protection center. Based on a review of
her medical chart, the evaluator suspected that she experienced “[m]edical [c]hild
[a]buse (Munchausen Syndrome by proxy)” at the hands of her mother.
A child protective worker employed by the department attended the
evaluation and heard the child “talk about not having water to bathe or shower.”
She issued a “founded” child-abuse report based on the absence of running water;
the “placarding” of the house, meaning “the city determined that it was not a livable
location for anybody to continue to inhabit”; the mold in the child’s hair; and the
suspected medical child abuse.
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The State established that the mother failed to exercise a reasonable
degree of care in supervising the child as required by Iowa Code section
232.2(6)(c)(2).
Iowa Code section 232.2(6)(g) defines a child in need of assistance as a
child “[w]hose parent, guardian, or custodian fails to exercise a minimal degree of
care in supplying the child with adequate food, clothing, or shelter and refuses
other means made available to provide such essentials.” The department
employee testified that the mother refused reunification services. Based on her
non-cooperation and the condition of the home, we conclude this ground for
adjudication was satisfied.
Iowa Code section 232.2(6)(n) defines a child in need of assistance as a
child “[w]hose parent’s or guardian’s mental capacity or condition, imprisonment,
or drug or alcohol abuse results in the child not receiving adequate care.” Although
the mother was jailed for a short period of time, she did not serve time in prison.
That leaves the mother’s “mental capacity or condition” and “drug or alcohol abuse”
as the predicates for application of this provision.
Although the department child protective worker expressed concerns about
the mother’s mental health, she acknowledged the mother had not undergone a
mental-health evaluation and she declined to characterize the medical child abuse
finding as “a mental health diagnosis.” We conclude the State failed to prove the
mother’s “mental capacity or condition” resulted in deprivation of care.
The evidence of drug or alcohol abuse was as follows. Shortly before the
department intervened, the mother was charged with operating a motor vehicle
while under the influence, first offense. The mother appeared to concede she pled
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guilty to the charge. She also stated that, while she was jailed on the charge, her
disabled adult son cared for the child. Based on this evidence, we conclude the
State proved that the mother’s substance abuse resulted in the child’s receipt of
inadequate care.
We are left with Iowa Code section 232.2(6)(b), which defines a child in
need of assistance as a child “[w]hose parent, guardian, other custodian, or other
member of the household in which the child resides has physically abused or
neglected the child, or is imminently likely to abuse or neglect the child.” “Within
chapter 232, ‘physical abuse or neglect’ and ‘abuse or neglect’ mean ‘any
nonaccidental physical injury suffered by a child as the result of the acts or
omissions of the child’s parent, guardian, or custodian or other person legally
responsible for the child.’” J.S., 846 N.W.2d at41 (citing Iowa Code § 232.2(42)).
The child told the child protection team that the mother “spanked her
sometimes but very, very rarely.” She “denied ever getting bruises or injuries from
something her mom did.” Although the State cites the father’s statement to the
child protective worker that the mother “had a history of pulling [the child’s] hair
and dragging” her, the department did not issue a founded child-abuse report
based on that assertion. We conclude the State failed to establish that the mother
inflicted a non-accidental physical injury on the child. Accordingly, we reverse the
adjudication of the child under this provision.
We affirm the adjudication of the child under Iowa Code sections
232.2(6)(c)(2), (g), and (n). We reverse the adjudication of the child under section
232.2(6)(b).
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART.