## Facts

- Ty M. (born 1997) and Devon M. (born 1998) were removed from their parents’ home in November 1998 after a welfare check found severe neglect and hazardous living conditions.
- The home was extremely unsanitary, with widespread garbage, spoiled bottles, and soiled bedding; the environment posed heightened risk given Devon’s reactive airway disease and continued tobacco smoke in the home.
- DHHS took custody and placed the children out of the home; the case proceeded in juvenile court through adjudication and multiple dispositional orders.
- Over roughly three years, DHHS provided extensive reunification services and repeated case plans requiring the parents to maintain a safe and sanitary home, improve parenting skills, address family dysfunction, and cooperate with services.
- Despite prolonged services and repeated opportunities, the parents did not make sustained progress sufficient to safely parent the children.
- The State filed a petition to terminate both parents’ parental rights; the juvenile court terminated the rights of both parents, finding statutory grounds and that termination served the children’s best interests.
- The father appealed and the mother cross-appealed, including challenges to evidentiary rulings admitting prior juvenile court records and case plans.

## Issues

1. Whether clear and convincing evidence established statutory grounds to terminate each parent’s rights under Nebraska’s Juvenile Code.
2. Whether termination of parental rights was in the best interests of Ty and Devon.
3. Whether the juvenile court committed reversible error by admitting or considering its prior records and case plans in the same juvenile matter.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed termination of both parents’ rights.
- The Court held the State proved statutory grounds for termination by clear and convincing evidence, including persistent failure to correct the conditions leading to removal after the children had been in out-of-home placement for the required period.
- The Court held termination served the children’s best interests given the parents’ continued inability to provide safe care and the children’s need for permanency.
- The Court held the juvenile court did not err by admitting or taking judicial notice of its own prior records and case plans in the same proceeding.

## Legal Principles

- Parental rights may be terminated only upon clear and convincing evidence of at least one statutory ground and that termination is in the child’s best interests.
- In termination appeals, factual questions are reviewed de novo on the record, though an appellate court may give weight to the juvenile court’s credibility assessments when evidence conflicts.
- The child’s best interests are the primary consideration, including the need for safety, stability, and timely permanency when reunification efforts have failed.
- A juvenile court may take judicial notice of, and admit, its own records from earlier stages of the same juvenile case, including prior orders and court-approved case plans, when relevant to reasonable efforts and parental progress.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed termination because prolonged reunification efforts did not result in sustained parental capacity to provide safe and adequate care, and the juvenile court properly relied on the ongoing record—including prior orders and case plans—to determine that statutory grounds and the children’s best interests warranted termination.


In re Interest of Ty M., 655 N.W.2d 672 (Neb. 2003)