MOTHER’S REFUSING TO CONSENT TO AN INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PROGRAM AND HER DELAY IN SCHEDULING AN INDEPENDENT NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF THE CHILD DID NOT CONSTITUTE EDUCATIONAL OR MEDICAL NEGLECT, FAMILY COURT REVERSED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Family Court, determined the evidence did not support educational neglect or medical neglect on the part of mother. The mother had refused to consent to the Individualized Education Program (IEP) and had delayed in scheduling an independent neuropsychological evaluation, neither amounted to neglect:

Family Court Act § 1012(f) governs parental neglect as related to furnishing a child with an adequate education. Here, the petitioner failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the mother had not furnished the child with an adequate education under the statute. Neither the mother’s refusal to consent to the IEP for the 2016-2017 school year nor her failure to follow up with independent neuropsychological testing of the child constituted educational neglect under the circumstances presented.

Moreover, the petitioner failed to meet its burden of establishing medical neglect by a preponderance of the evidence (see Family Ct Act §§ 1012[f][i][A]; 1046[b]). While the evidence adduced at the fact-finding hearing demonstrated that the mother delayed in scheduling an independent neuropsychological evaluation of the child, and that the child missed some doses of Adderall while he was staying at his father’s home, the evidence did not rise to the level of establishing a failure to supply the child with adequate medical care or demonstrate a resulting impairment or imminent danger of impairment of the child’s physical, mental, or emotional condition  … . Matter of Jahzir Barbee M. (Racine B.), 2019 NY Slip Op 03050, Second Dept 4-24-19