06-0143 C.W. V. DCFS

State: Florida

Court: Florida Third District Court

Docket No: 06-0143 C.W. V. DCFS

Case Date: 12/20/2006

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IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA THIRD DISTRICT JULY TERM, A.D. 2006

C.W., the father, Appellant, vs. DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Appellee.

** ** ** ** ** ** LOWER TRIBUNAL NO. 05-15171 CASE NO. 3D06-143

Opinion filed December 20, 2006. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, John Schlesinger, Judge. Marc Anthony Douthit, for appellant. Karla Perkins, Department of Children and Family Services, for appellee.

Before FLETCHER, SHEPHERD, and SUAREZ, JJ. SUAREZ, J. C.W. (the "father") appeals the order adjudicating his

daughter (the "child") dependent. We reverse.

The father argues that the adjudication of dependency must be reversed because there is no competent substantial evidence that the child is at substantial risk of imminent harm. We

agree. The father and mother 1 lived with the father's ten-year-old niece and the child, their own infant daughter. The niece was removed from the home when the police discovered that the mother subjected her to severe corporal punishment which left scars on her body. The Department of Children and Family Services ("DCF") initially left the child at issue with the parents because there was no evidence that she had been abused. After an adjudicatory hearing, the court found that the father had failed to protect his niece from severe physical abuse at his wife's hands. The court found that the child was at substantial risk of imminent abuse due to the father's failure to protect the niece from the wife's excessive corporal punishments and declared the child

dependent. This appeal by the father followed. A child who is "dependent" is one who has been abused, abandoned, or neglected, or who is found by a court "[t]o be at substantial risk of imminent abuse, abandonment, or neglect by the parent or parents or legal custodians."

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