May, J.
G.N. (Father) challenges the determination his daughter, T.N., is a child in need of services (CHINS). He argues the trial court violated his right to due process when it found his daughter a CHINS based on the admission of her mother, M.B., without allowing Father to contest that allegation at a hearing. We agree the trial court violated Father’s right to due process, reverse the adjudication, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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Father asks us to review what he sees as a conflict among these statutes. First, Ind. Code § 31-34-10-8 provides:
If the parent, guardian, or custodian admits the allegations under section 6 of this chapter, the juvenile court shall do the following:
(1) Enter judgment accordingly.
(2) Schedule a dispositional hearing.
The juvenile court apparently interpreted the phrase “[i]f the parent . . . admits” to mean an admission by either parent would permit the court to adjudicate the child a CHINS and proceed to a dispositional hearing.
Father argues the court’s interpretation conflicts with Ind. Code §§ 31-32-2-3 and 31-34-9-7, which guarantee in proceedings to determine whether a child is in need of services that parents, guardians, and custodians have the rights to present evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and obtain evidence by compulsory process. Father asserts denial of those rights amounts to a denial of due process and, thus, we should hold due process requires Father be permitted to present evidence before the CHINS determination.
DCS asserts each parent does not have a right to contest a child’s CHINS status because a CHINS adjudication is centered on determining whether the court needs to intervene to protect the child’s well-being rather than on punishing the child’s parents. To support its claim DCS relies on In re N.E., 919 N.E.2d 102, 106 (Ind. 2010), which held “a CHINS determination establishes the status of a child alone. Because a CHINS determination regards the status of the child, a separate analysis as to each parent is not required in the CHINS determination stage.” Consequently, DCS claims, “a CHINS condition once shown to exist by a preponderance of the evidence (in this case Mother’s admission upon the related facts), exists as to all persons in the child’s life.” (Br. of Appellee at 15-16.)
We agree DCS does not have to prove a child is a CHINS as a result of both Mother’s actions and Father’s actions. See N.E., 919 N.E.2d at 106 (domestic violence in mother’s home served as basis of the CHINS petition, and no allegations with respect to father were necessary). Nor must the court assign “blame” to each parent in its determination. See id. (“to adjudicate culpability on the part of each individual parent . . . would be at variance with the purpose of the CHINS inquiry”).
Nevertheless, N.E. did not eliminate the requirement that DCS prove the child is, in fact, in need of services as alleged in the petition. For example, in N.E., the petition alleged N.E. and her three siblings were CHINS due to domestic violence in the mother’s home. Id. at 104. The mother admitted that allegation, but the father contested the CHINS allegation. At trial, the parties gave divergent testimony regarding the number of hours N.E. spent at each of their homes. The trial court found N.E. to be in need of services, and that finding was supported by the mother’s testimony. See id. at 106. However, if the trial court had believed the evidence father presented about N.E. spending 95% of her time with him or his mother, the court could presumably have found N.E. was not “seriously endangered” by the situation in the rarely-visited home of mother. See Ind. Code § 31-34-1-1(1). [Footnote omitted.] Alternatively, the court could have found based on her father’s evidence that N.E. would get all the “care, treatment, or rehabilitation” that she needed while in her father’s care, without court intervention. See Ind. Code § 31-34-1-1(2). Thus, we decline DCS’s invitation to hold one parent’s admission is sufficient to prove a child is a CHINS, when the child’s other parent contests that allegation.
DCS next asserts Father received due process because he was able to present evidence during a contested dispositional hearing. We cannot agree, as a contested dispositional hearing is not the same as a CHINS fact-finding hearing. At the fact-finding stage, the primary issue for consideration is whether the child is in need of services. See In re T.Y.T., 714 N.E.2d 752, 756 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (“At a fact-finding hearing, the court decides only whether the child is a CHINS based upon the criteria set out in the CHINS statute.”). At a dispositional hearing, on the other hand, the primary issue is what placement, services, and programs are necessary to properly care for the CHINS. See Ind. Code § 31-34-19-1. As the necessity of court-ordered intervention has already been determined by the dispositional hearing, any argument a party might make that his child does not need court-ordered intervention is moot at that point. We therefore cannot agree that a contested dispositional hearing is an adequate substitute for a fact-finding hearing, just as we could not agree that a sentencing hearing would be an adequate substitute for a criminal trial.
Litigants have more protection from the admission of unreliable and possibly prejudicial evidence in fact-finding hearings than in dispositional hearings. See Roark v. Roark, 551 N.E.2d 865, 868-69 (Ind. Ct. App. 1990) (hearsay inadmissible at fact-finding hearing); In re C.B., 865 N.E.2d 1068, 1072 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (holding predispositional report containing hearsay admissible at disposition hearing), trans. denied; C.C. v. State, 826 N.E.2d 106, 111 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005) (hearsay admissible in delinquency dispositional proceeding), trans. denied. Counsel for DCS so acknowledged during the dispositional proceeding: “We’re not in a trial. So all these trial rules, bars against cumulative evidence, don’t seem to be applicable.” (Tr. at 40.) In light of these relaxed rules for the admission of evidence, we cannot accept DCS‟s assertion that these two types of proceedings are interchangeable.
Having rejected DCS’s arguments, we turn to balancing the three factors necessary for determining whether a litigant received due process. See In re J.S.O., 938 N.E.2d at 274 (“(1) the private interests affected by the proceeding; (2) the risk of error created by the State’s chosen procedure; and (3) the countervailing governmental interest supporting use of the challenged procedure.”). Father’s interest in being able to raise his child without interference from the government is substantial. See R.Y. v. Ind. Dep’t of Child Servs., 904 N.E.2d 1257, 1259 (Ind. 2009) (“A parent’s interest in the care, custody, and control of his or her children is ‘perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests.’”) (internal citations omitted). The only apparent State interest served by denying Father a fact-finding hearing is speedy adjudication, but both DCS and Father were prepared to proceed with the fact-finding hearing. The State’s interest in denying Father a hearing therefore does not seem substantial.
Finally, we acknowledge permitting courts to proceed with a CHINS disposition over the objection of one parent, based on the admission of the other parent, may not create a substantial risk of erroneous CHINS adjudications. But as the facts in N.E. suggest, trial courts could reach different results after a disputed hearing. This indicates the procedure followed in the case before us could permit error, especially in situations in which one parent may have an ax to grind with the other parent. When the parent’s interest is substantial and the State’s interest appears minimal, this risk of error should be avoided. See, e.g., In re N.E., 919 N.E.2d at 108 (denial of procedural due process in CHINS proceeding can adversely impact a parent’s procedural due process rights in a subsequent termination of parental rights proceeding). Thus, we hold that if either parent challenges a CHINS allegation, due process requires a fact-finding hearing before the court declares the child a CHINS.
Finally, DCS argues we should not reverse for a due process violation because Father effectively withdrew his objection to the CHINS finding when he agreed to participate in certain services pursuant to the dispositional order. We decline the State’s invitation to hold a litigant sacrifices his due process rights by cooperating with a subsequent court order.
Reversed and remanded.
RILEY, J., and NAJAM, J., concur.