CONTACT WITH CHILD WAS “TOO INFREQUENT, SPORADIC OR INSUBSTANTIAL”
After she failed to appear for a virtual fact-finding hearing, the New York County Family Court terminated her parental rights, based upon the abandonment of her child.
When her request to vacate that default was later denied, the mother appealed to the Appellate Division, First Department.
On its review of the record, the AD1 noted that the woman had not shown a “reasonable excuse” for her non-appearance at the hearing and “unanimous affirmed” the determination. Among other things, the court did not find her “dead cellphone battery” excuse to be a sufficient basis to modify what had transpired.
Additionally, in the AD1’s view, the fact that she had failed to regularly visit with the child, during the six-month period preceding the underlying application, justified the outcome. Because she only met with the youngster twice -- cancelling visitation and asking to reschedule her appointments “six times,” over the course of that relevant “window period" -- her contact with the kid was found to be “too infrequent, sporadic, or insubstantial to defeat the showing of abandonment.”
We’re going to abandon that right there ....
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DECISION