Adoption of Zak (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-065-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 13-P-780 Appeals Court ADOPTION OF ZAK (and two companion cases[1]). No. 13-P-780. Norfolk. December 10, 2014. – June 19, 2015. Present: Katzmann, Hanlon, & Maldonado, JJ. Adoption, Parent’s consent, Dispensing with parent’s consent, Visitation rights. Parent and Child, Adoption, Dispensing with parent’s consent to adoption. Minor, Adoption, Visitation rights. Practice, Civil, Adoption. Petitions filed in the Norfolk County Division of the Juvenile Court Department on May 19, 2010, and September 9, 2011. The cases were heard by Dana Gershengorn, J. Sherrie Krasner for the father. Deborah Sirotkin Butler for the mother. Kari B. Kipf-Horstmann, Assistant Attorney General, for Department of Children and Families. Ann Belmelli O’Connor for Zak. Yvette L. Kruger for Carol & another. MALDONADO, J. The mother and father separately appeal from Juvenile Court decrees terminating their parental rights. In addition, the judge ordered posttermination and postadoption visitation for both parents.[2] The father and mother contend that the termination of their parental rights lacked evidentiary support. They also argue that the judge erred in denying placement of the children either with the mother’s aunt or father’s mother. Finally, the mother, but not the father, challenges the terms of posttermination and postadoption visitation. She asserts that the children’s best interests favors more than the three yearly visits the judge ordered. Carol and Nick cross-appeal. They contest the judge’s orders for posttermination and postadoption visitation, arguing that there should be no postadoption visitation, and assert that the judge erred in failing to consider the effect on the children of domestic violence as it relates to those visits. Having in mind the trial judge’s careful and thorough findings of fact and rulings of law, we conclude that the judge did not abuse her discretion in terminating the mother and father’s parental rights, or in refusing to place the children either with their maternal great-aunt or paternal grandmother; we therefore affirm those portions of the decrees. However, we vacate the posttermination and postadoption visitation orders and remand for further consideration and specific findings regarding whether posttermination and postadoption visitation is in the children’s best interests, given the domestic violence that they have witnessed. 1. Termination of parental rights. The mother and father assert that the termination of their parental rights was based upon a single 2006 incident of […]