In Interest of Tiffany Marie S.

The Court reiterated the bright-line rule from In the Matter of Lindsey C.: circuit courts should appoint counsel for parents and custodians named as respondents when each abuse-and-neglect petition is filed. Upon the person's appearance, the court should promptly determine whether the person can afford counsel; appointment may then be ended only upon substitution of private counsel or a knowing and intelligent waiver. This procedure protects the adversarial character of abuse-and-neglect proceedings and helps prevent prejudice to indigent parents.

The record showed that Nancy was told of her right to counsel, but it did not clearly show that she was told of her right to appointed counsel if indigent. Nor did she claim on appeal that she was indigent or that she requested appointed counsel during the early period. The Court assumed for argument's sake that she was entitled to counsel, but found no demonstrated harm.

At the early uncounseled hearings, the court merely maintained temporary Department custody while the girls remained in Nancy's home, continued the existing arrangement, and later granted her a twelve-month improvement period. The children did not enter foster care until Nancy decided she could not care for them or sought to place them elsewhere. Moreover, appointed counsel represented her nearly a year before the Department sought termination, and the children were later returned to her for a time. On these facts, delayed counsel did not affect a substantial right or require reversal.

The governing statute allowed an improvement period of three to twelve months. Nancy received a twelve-month period and, when it ended, the parties submitted an agreed order extending it for three more months. The Court stressed that it did not endorse extensions beyond the statutory maximum and noted that a guardian ad litem may enforce the child's statutory interest in limiting the duration of improvement periods.

Nevertheless, Nancy did not object below. Instead, she actively sought and accepted additional time, apparently believing it would improve her position before the final hearing. Under the invited-error principle, a party ordinarily may not obtain reversal based on a procedure she requested or agreed to. She also failed to explain how the extra three months harmed her.

At the January 1995 hearing, Nancy's counsel did not object when evidence was introduced concerning her claimed undercover work and related criminal circumstances. Under Rule 103(a), an evidentiary objection must be timely and sufficiently specific. Because no objection or motion to strike was made, the claim was waived absent plain error, and the Court found no error so egregious as to justify plain-error review.

The evidence was not wholly unrelated to the child-welfare inquiry. Although it was not itself dispositive of abuse or neglect, Nancy's criminal difficulties and claimed drug-related undercover work bore on her stability and capacity to provide a safe home environment.

At the May 1995 termination hearing, the circuit court expressly limited the purpose of the outstanding bad-check warrants: they were relevant principally to explain why Nancy had not attended the hearing, not to prove abuse or neglect. Given that limited use, the Court found neither unfair prejudice nor an abuse of the circuit court's broad discretion over evidentiary matters.

A continuance based on a party's absence rests in the circuit court's discretion. The Court identified several interconnected considerations: the party's diligence in preparing and trying to attend; the likelihood that a continuance would solve the problem; the inconvenience and delay to the court, witnesses, other parties, and the public; and the prejudice caused by denial. No single factor is automatically controlling.

Nancy gave her attorney only a brief message that she was 'stuck in Georgia.' She offered no meaningful explanation for her absence, no assurance that she would attend on a later date, and no showing that she had diligently tried to appear. The circuit court also had reason to suspect that outstanding West Virginia criminal charges contributed to her absence.

The proceeding had already lasted about three years. The girls needed stability and a permanent placement, and the abuse-and-neglect statutes require priority and prompt disposition. Although Nancy asserted that she wanted to explain her failure to comply with services and describe a more stable life, she did not establish concrete prejudice sufficient to outweigh those interests. The denial was therefore not an unreasoning or arbitrary insistence on speed.

The Department bore the burden to prove the conditions existing when it filed the petition by clear and convincing evidence. On appeal, the circuit court's factual findings were reviewed for clear error, while legal conclusions were reviewed de novo. When the record plausibly supports the trial court's account of the evidence, especially credibility-based findings, an appellate court may not reverse simply because it might have decided differently.

The record documented Nancy's unstable lifestyle: repeated job losses, extended absences from the children while they were left with babysitters, inconsistent decisions about custody, renewed crack-cocaine use, and failure to participate consistently in parenting classes, counseling, and drug-treatment services. The Department's witness testified that Nancy was difficult to locate and unlikely to become an effective parent in the near future.

Tiffany's therapist testified that Tiffany improved markedly in stable foster placements and needed continuity and permanence. Together with the Department's reports and the guardian ad litem's recommendation, this evidence supported the circuit court's conclusion that the children were neglected and that termination, rather than further delay, was appropriate.

When a court grants an improvement period, the Department must prepare a family case plan and furnish it to the court within thirty days. The Department missed that deadline: the plan should have been completed in August 1993 but was not signed by the worker until November. The Court described that delay as inexcusable.

Still, a case plan is a cooperative undertaking among the parent, Department, court, counsel, and other service providers. Before the written plan was filed, the Department had discussed its goals with Nancy, and she initially met enough of those goals for both children to be returned to her. Because she knew the objectives and did not show that the delay impaired her opportunity to improve, the late filing was harmless.

The Department did present evidence that Nancy later failed to comply with services, but strict proof of case-plan noncompliance was not required. The statutory question is whether the Department proves the abusive or neglectful conditions existing at the time of the petition by clear and convincing evidence. A parent may complete individual plan requirements yet fail to make the broader changes needed to restore a stable family environment.

West Virginia law directs that abuse-and-neglect proceedings receive priority over nearly all other civil actions, and the Rules on Time Standards require their expeditious processing. The Court repeated its warning from In the Interest of Carlita B. that unjustified delays damage children's development, stability, and security.

The Court emphasized that docket-management discretion does not permit a circuit judge to disregard statutory and appellate directives. Prompt resolution is especially important because children awaiting a permanent placement become harder to place as they grow older. Although the Court affirmed this termination order, it made clear that trial courts must advance these cases to the top of their calendars.