## Facts

- Six-week-old Michael Ray T. was hospitalized with critical, life-threatening injuries after being repeatedly attacked by rodents in his parents’ home.
- The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) filed an abuse and neglect petition and sought immediate temporary custody of Michael and his siblings, Scottie Lee T. and Tonya Lynn T., citing imminent danger if the children remained with their biological parents, Frank T. and Lizzie T.
- The circuit court found an emergency and transferred temporary custody of all three children to DHHR.
- Scottie and Tonya were placed in the home of Paul and Virginia Williams as a temporary placement; after Michael was released from the hospital, he was placed with the Williamses as well.
- About a year later, DHHR decided it was in the children’s best interest to move them to a different temporary home, citing concerns that included behavioral problems in the Williams home and the need to instruct the Williamses about appropriate discipline.
- DHHR removed the children and placed them with another family.
- The Williamses moved to intervene in the ongoing abuse and neglect case and also filed a motion seeking custody of the children.
- The circuit court denied intervention and refused to consider the Williamses’ custody motion in the abuse and neglect proceeding.
- The Williamses appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether former temporary caregivers, after the children are removed from their home, have standing or a right to intervene in ongoing abuse and neglect proceedings involving those children.
2. Whether the circuit court must consider a custody motion filed by those former caregivers within the abuse and neglect proceeding.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the circuit court.
- The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Williamses’ motion to intervene because they no longer had physical custody of the children and were no longer the children’s placement providers.
- Because intervention was properly denied, the circuit court did not err by refusing to consider the Williamses’ custody motion within the abuse and neglect case.
- The Court treated the standing question for former placement providers as a matter of first impression and declined to extend prior case law allowing limited intervention by current placement providers who have physical custody.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate review of dispositional rulings in abuse and neglect matters is for abuse of discretion; findings of fact are reviewed for clear error; legal questions are reviewed de novo.
- Abuse and neglect proceedings must receive the courts’ highest priority; unjustified procedural delay harms children’s development, stability, and security.
- Cases involving children are not decided solely by weighing competing adult claims; courts must also account for the rights and interests of the children.
- Prior decisions allowing limited intervention by current placement providers rested on their physical custody and the court’s need for information about the child; that limited allowance does not automatically extend to former placement providers after removal.
- Former placement providers, without current physical custody, do not have standing to intervene as parties in the abuse and neglect action merely based on a prior caregiving relationship.
- When a movant is not granted intervenor status, the circuit court may refuse to entertain that movant’s custody request within the abuse and neglect proceeding.
- Appellate review is confined to the record designated on appeal; the burden to provide an adequate record rests on the parties.

## Conclusion

In re Michael Ray T. held that once DHHR has removed children from a temporary placement, the former caregivers do not have standing to intervene as parties in the ongoing abuse and neglect case, and the trial court may refuse to consider their custody motion within that proceeding.


In re Michael Ray T., 525 S.E.2d 315 (1999)