## Facts

- The Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) removed M.B. and S.B. from their mother in August 2002 after her arrest on drug charges and lack of suitable caregivers.
- After Mother’s release, the State sought involuntary termination of her parental rights based on continued instability, including inadequate housing, lack of stable employment, and noncompliance with drug-treatment-related orders.
- Mother executed a statutory consent to termination of parental rights rather than litigating the involuntary petition.
- Mother’s written consent included an addendum that purported to allow post-adoption visitation, conditioned on the children’s best interests.
- The trial court accepted the voluntary termination and allowed Mother to have post-termination visits; Mother visited the children biweekly for approximately three months.
- At a later review hearing, DCS requested that visitation be ended, and the trial court terminated the visits; Mother asserted she lacked notice and an opportunity to be heard.
- Mother challenged the termination of visitation and argued her consent to termination was conditioned on continued contact.

## Issues

1. Whether a parent may condition a voluntary consent to termination of parental rights on court-recognized post-adoption visitation.
2. Whether an invalid post-adoption-visitation addendum renders the underlying termination consent invalid.
3. Whether ending post-termination visitation at a review hearing without notice and an opportunity to be heard warrants relief when the parent’s rights have already been terminated and the asserted visitation right lacks statutory support.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court held the post-adoption visitation addendum conflicted with Indiana’s termination/adoption statutory scheme and was void and unenforceable.
- The Court upheld the termination of Mother’s parental rights, concluding the invalid addendum did not negate an otherwise valid, statutory-compliant consent to termination.
- The Court declined to treat Mother as having an enforceable legal entitlement to continued visitation after termination; any post-termination contact could not be compelled through the termination judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Indiana’s statutory framework does not authorize courts to create enforceable post-adoption visitation rights for a parent whose rights have been terminated through a consent addendum attached to a termination judgment.
- A void provision attached to a termination consent (such as a post-adoption visitation addendum) may be treated as severable, leaving intact a properly executed and valid consent to termination.
- After termination of parental rights, any contact between a child and the former parent is not a continuing parental right enforceable through the termination decree absent statutory authorization; decisions about contact must be driven by the child’s best interests and left to legally authorized decisionmakers.

## Conclusion

The Indiana Supreme Court held that an agreement attempting to secure court-enforced post-adoption visitation as part of a voluntary termination of parental rights is unenforceable under Indiana law, but the invalid visitation addendum does not, by itself, invalidate a properly executed consent to termination.


In re M.B. & S.B., 921 N.E.2d 494 (Ind. 2009)