## Facts

- Granville Frazier Toms, III and his wife were parents of eight children; six children were the subject of termination proceedings.
- After a domestic-violence incident, law enforcement found the children unattended and in danger; some were discovered hiding outdoors for hours in freezing conditions and were improperly dressed.
- The family home lacked basic utilities and sanitary conditions, including no plumbing or electricity; the structure was filled with trash and the yard contained numerous empty alcohol bottles.
- Toms arrived intoxicated, acted angrily, refused to assist in locating the children, and was arrested; he was later convicted and incarcerated for offenses including abuse and neglect.
- The mother was hospitalized for mental illness.
- After foster care placement, evaluations showed the children had severe social, emotional, and intellectual delays, including extremely low developmental testing and limited speech.
- A psychological evaluation of Toms identified serious mental health disorders and chronic alcoholism, with a poor rehabilitation prognosis and low likelihood of timely correction of the conditions causing foster care.

## Issues

1. Whether clear and convincing evidence supported termination of Toms’s residual parental rights under Va. Code § 16.1-283(B).
2. Whether termination under § 16.1-283(B) required proof that the Department provided rehabilitative services to Toms.
3. Whether due process requires the state to provide rehabilitative services before terminating parental rights under § 16.1-283(B).

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the circuit court’s order terminating Toms’s residual parental rights and approving the permanency goal of adoption.
- The evidence supported findings that the children suffered serious neglect posing a substantial threat to their life, health, or development, and that it was not reasonably likely the causal conditions could be substantially corrected within a reasonable time.
- The court held § 16.1-283(B) does not make rehabilitative services a prerequisite to termination.
- The court held due process does not impose an independent constitutional requirement that rehabilitative services be provided in every termination case, where statutory grounds are proven by clear and convincing evidence and the parent receives procedural protections.

## Legal Principles

- Under Va. Code § 16.1-283(B), parental rights may be terminated upon clear and convincing evidence of serious abuse or neglect threatening the child’s welfare and a finding that correction of the causal conditions is not reasonably likely within a reasonable time.
- Appellate review defers to the trial court’s ore tenus findings; evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, and reversal is warranted only if the decision is plainly wrong or unsupported by evidence.
- When the General Assembly includes a services requirement in certain statutory subsections but omits it from § 16.1-283(B), courts will not add a rehabilitative-services prerequisite by interpretation.
- Due process in termination proceedings requires heightened proof (clear and convincing evidence) and fair procedure, but does not categorically require the state to provide rehabilitative services before termination under § 16.1-283(B).

## Conclusion

The court affirmed termination of the father’s residual parental rights because the record proved serious neglect and an unlikely prospect of timely remediation, and because neither § 16.1-283(B) nor due process required the Department to prove it provided rehabilitative services as a condition of termination.


Toms v. Hanover Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 46 Va. App. 257, 616 S.E.2d 765 (Va. Ct. App. 2005)