MOTHER SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DEEMED COLLATERALLY ESTOPPED FROM PRESENTING EVIDENCE OF HER MENTAL HEALTH IN THIS TERMINATION-OF-PARENTAL-RIGHTS ACTION; THE PRIOR MENTAL-HEALTH-BASED RULING WAS BASED ON THREE-TO-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing Family Court, determined mother should not have been prevented from presenting evidence of her mental health in this termination-of-parental-rights proceeding under the collateral estoppel doctrine. Although mother had previously been adjudicated unable to provide proper and adequate care of the children in 2018, there was no evidence of mother’s current mental health:

Neither the relied-upon 2018 order of disposition nor its supporting decision … contains a finding of fact or conclusion of law that the mother’s mental illness or intellectual disability permanently impaired the mother’s ability to provide adequate care for a child … . Instead, the prior judicial determination that the mother was “presently and for the foreseeable future” unable to provide adequate care was premised upon evaluations of the mother conducted in 2012 and 2017. Further, that determination was issued a year prior to the birth of the subject child in the present proceeding and, although the subject child was ordered into petitioner’s care almost immediately following her birth, the instant petition was nonetheless not filed for yet another two years. Thus, the 2018 judicial determination, premised on three- to eight-year-old evidence, is insufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence, as a matter of law, that the mother was, at the time of this proceeding, “presently and for the foreseeable future unable, by reason of mental illness or intellectual disability, to provide proper and adequate care for [the subject] child” (Social Services Law § 384-b [4] [c] …). Matter of Juliet W. (Amy W.), 2024 NY Slip Op 05690, Fourth Dept 11-15-24

Practice Point: Here there was a prior ruling based on three-to-eight-year-old evidence that mother’s mental health prevented her from adequately caring for her children. The collateral estoppel doctrine should not have been applied to prevent her from presenting evidence of her current mental health.