Najam, J.
Statement of the Case
C.T. (“Mother”) and J.J. (“Father”) bring this interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s order that their consents to a pending adoption over their minor child, K.T. (“Child”), are not necessary. On appeal, Mother asserts that the trial court lacked authority to enter its order due to a pending Child in Need of Services (“CHINS”) petition involving Child. Father separately asserts on appeal that the trial court erred when it concluded that his consent to the adoption is not required.
We affirm.
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Issue One: Whether the Ongoing CHINS Proceeding Prohibited the Trial Court from Dispensing with Mother’s and Father’s Consents in the Adoption Proceeding
We first address Mother’s only argument on appeal, namely, that the trial court erred as a matter of law when, despite there being an ongoing CHINS matter involving Child, the court concluded that Mother’s and Father’s consents were not required to proceed on the adoption petition. [Footnote omitted.] We review this issue de novo. See, e.g., B.B. v. B.C. (In re Adoption of I.B.), 32 N.E.3d 1164, 1169 (Ind. 2015).
Mother’s argument that the trial court in the adoption proceeding was prohibited from dispensing with Mother’s and Father’s consents to the adoption due to the ongoing CHINS proceeding misunderstands our case law. There are two essential opinions bearing on this issue. First is our Supreme Court’s opinion in Lake County Division of Family and Children Services v. T.B. (In re Adoption of T.B.), 622 N.E.2d 921 (Ind. 1993). In that case, the natural parents had their parental rights over the child terminated by a local juvenile court. Thereafter, the local probate court granted the adoptive parent’s petition to adopt the child. However, several years later, the child ran away from the adoptive parent’s home, and the adoptive parent sought the intervention of the juvenile court, which declared the child to be a CHINS. The adoptive parent also filed a petition to revoke her adoption of the child in the probate court. The probate court denied a motion to consolidate the petition to revoke the adoption with the CHINS matter in the juvenile court, and the probate court then revoked the adoption.
The Indiana Supreme Court held that the probate court had the authority to hear the petition to revoke the adoption and that the pending CHINS matter in the juvenile court did not divest the probate court of that authority….
However, following our Supreme Court’s opinion, our Court decided Bond v. Bracey (In re Adoption of E.B.), 733 N.E.2d 4 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000), trans. denied. In that case, a local Office of Family and Children (“OFC”) had filed a CHINS action in the juvenile court with a permanency plan for “reunification” of the child and the natural father. Id. at 5. The father “followed all of the plan’s requirements,” and the OFC “recommended reunification” to the juvenile court. Id. Meanwhile, however, the child’s foster parents petitioned to adopt the child in the probate court, which denied the petition on the ground that it did not have the authority to grant it.
We affirmed the probate court’s judgment…
On several occasions since our opinion in In re Adoption of E.B., we have made clear that that opinion along with our Supreme Court’s opinion in In re Adoption of T.B. stand for the rule that “CHINS proceedings and adoption proceedings may be considered simultaneously if the goals of the proceedings are the same.”…
Here, Mother contends that, because the primary permanency plan in the CHINS proceeding was reunification, our holding in In re Adoption of E.B. directs that the adoption proceeding be dismissed. [Footnote omitted.] We cannot agree. First, unlike in In re Adoption of E.B., here we do not have a final judgment on the adoption petition. Rather, we only have an interlocutory order on Mother’s and Father’s consents to the adoption. Further, at the time of the hearing on Mother’s and Father’s consents in the adoption proceeding, the primary permanency plan in the CHINS proceeding was reunification, but the secondary permanency plan was adoption. That is, DCS was moving on two tracks in the CHINS proceeding: on one, DCS was engaging Mother and Father with services in an effort to reunify them with Child. On the other, and in the event that the reunification efforts eventually failed, DCS was laying the groundwork to have an adoption lined up for Child to be entered without delay.
The Foster Parents’ adoption petition was in furtherance of that secondary permanency plan. The trial court’s bifurcation of the adoption proceeding such that the court initially considered whether Mother’s and Father’s consents to the adoption were required, and then set the final hearing on the adoption petition for a to-be-determined date, was also in furtherance of that secondary permanency plan. [Footnote omitted.] We conclude that the goals of the two proceedings at this point are in alignment and, thus, that the trial court did not err as a matter of law when it considered whether Mother’s and Father’s consents to the adoption were required. [Footnote omitted.]
…..
Conclusion
In sum, the trial court did not err as a matter of law when it considered whether Mother’s and Father’s consents to the adoption were required despite an ongoing CHINS proceeding with Child. Further, the record supports the trial court’s findings that Father’s consent to the adoption is not required, and the court’s findings support its judgment dispensing with Father’s consent. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Affirmed.
Pyle, J., and Tavitas, J., concur.