| Matter of Suzanne RR. |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 01467 [48 AD3d 920] |
| February 21, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
| In the Matter of Suzanne RR., a Child Alleged to be Neglected.Clinton County Department of Social Services, Respondent; Wendy SS.,Appellant. |
—[*1] John Dee, Clinton County Department of Social Services, Plattsburgh, for respondent. Aaron Turetsky, Law Guardian, Keeseville.
Carpinello, J. Appeal from an order of the Family Court of Clinton County (Lawliss, J.),entered April 20, 2007, which granted petitioner's application, in a proceeding pursuant to FamilyCt Act article 10, to adjudicate respondent's child to be neglected.
The facts underlying this Family Ct Act article 10 proceeding were set forth in detail in aprior decision of this Court and will not be repeated at length (Matter of Suzanne RR., 35 AD3d1012 [2006]). Briefly, respondent's two older daughters were adjudicated to be neglected inDecember 2003 because she failed to protect them from her then paramour, and a dispositionalorder placing them in the custody of their maternal grandparents was entered in May 2004. Atsome point during this time period, respondent became pregnant, thus prompting a senior childprotective caseworker and an adult services caseworker to meet with her and her currentparamour (the unborn child's father) in November 2004 to discuss making alternative custodialarrangements for the child at birth. Respondent's refusal to do so upon the subject child's birth inJanuary 2005 resulted in this proceeding. Following a fact-finding hearing ordered by this Court(id.), Family Court found that respondent directly and derivatively neglected the subjectchild. [*2]She now appeals.
Upon our review of the evidence adduced at that hearing, coupled with the strong negativeinference applied against respondent for her failure to testify at it (see e.g. Matter of Collin H., 28 AD3d806, 809 [2006]; Matter of JohnQQ., 19 AD3d 754, 756 [2005]), we affirm. Testimony at the hearing established thatrespondent, during the November 2004 meeting with caseworkers, disputed that her olderchildren were removed from her care and instead insinuated that her parents simply sought, andreceived, custody. During this meeting, respondent was also advised that her current paramourhad been found over the years to have abused or neglected each of his own four children and thatall four children had been freed for adoption. Armed with this information, respondent didnothing, that is, she took no steps to make alternative plans for the child's care at birth andcontinued to reside with this new paramour with every intention to raise the subject child withhim. Hearing testimony further established that, while respondent did attend court-orderedcounseling following the removal of her older children (Matter of Suzanne RR., supra),she never acknowledged most issues which led to their removal during such sessions.
Given evidence of the recent and significant problems concerning respondent's own parentalneglect of her two older children, respondent's refusal to directly acknowledge that these childrenwere in her parents' care because of this neglect and her failure to adequately address all issueswhich led to their removal during counseling, derivative neglect was established (seeFamily Ct Act § 1046 [a] [i]). In short, the evidence demonstrated that the priordetermination of neglect was sufficiently proximate in time to the birth of the subject child thatthe conditions which led to the older children's removal continued to exist, and that respondentsuffers from such an impaired level of parental judgment as to create a substantial risk of harm toany child in her care (see e.g. Matter ofEvelyn B., 30 AD3d 913, 914 [2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 713 [2006]; Matter of Hunter YY., 18 AD3d899, 900 [2005]; Matter of D'Anna KK., 299 AD2d 761, 762 [2002]). Moreover,evidence that respondent failed to take appropriate action to protect the subject child uponlearning about her new paramour's prior history of abuse and neglect supported the finding ofneglect (see Family Ct Act § 1012 [f] [i]).
Cardona, P.J., Peters, Rose and Malone Jr., JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is affirmed,without costs.