R.P., THE FATHER, APPELLANT,
v.
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2006-12-20
No. 4D06-3492
POLEN and GROSS, JJ., concur.
945 So. 2d 612 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2006) Caution
Cited by 2 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

A Florida appellate court vacated a dependency adjudication order because it was merely a verbatim recitation of the Department's petition allegations rather than findings based on actual trial evidence. The court remanded for the trial court to enter a new order complying with statutory requirements to specify facts supporting the dependency finding.


Holding

The adjudication order failed to comply with section 39.507(6), Florida Statutes, and Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.330(g) because it did not specify the actual facts upon which the trial court relied to find dependency, making it impossible to determine what evidence supported the judgment where conflicting evidence was presented.


Headnotes

[1] A trial court must enter a written order stating the legal basis for a finding of dependency and specifying the facts upon which the finding is made.

[2] An order of adjudication that merely repeats the allegations of a dependency petition as findings of fact, without being supported by evidence presented at trial, does no…

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“Because the order of adjudication was simply a verbatim recitation of the allegations of the Department of Children and Families' petition, many of which were unsupported by any evidence at trial and conflicted with the trial court's oral findings at the hearing, we vacate the order and remand for further proceedings.”

Establishes the core holding that orders must reflect actual evidence and trial court findings, not mere petition allegations.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

At an adjudicatory hearing, the trial court found a child dependent on grounds of abandonment, imminent threat of neglect, and imminent risk of harm b…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
WARNER, J.

WARNER, J.

R.P., the father, appeals the final order adjudicating his daughter, R.C., dependent. Because the order of adjudication was simply a verbatim recitation of the allegations of the Department of Children and Families’ petition, many of which were unsupported by any evidence at trial and conflicted with the trial court’s oral findings at the hearing, we vacate the order and remand for further proceedings.

At the conclusion of the adjudicatory hearing, the trial court found the child dependent as to the father on the grounds of abandonment, imminent threat of neglect, and imminent risk of harm or physical abuse by the father. However, the court also found that the Department failed to satisfy its burden of proving that the father physically abused the child. The trial court directed the Department’s lawyer to prepare the order of adjudication. The “findings of fact” set forth in the order of adjudication were taken verbatim from the allegations in the dependency petition. Unfortunately, many of those allegations were never proven at trial, and others were specifically rejected by the trial court in its oral ruling.

Section 39.507(6), Florida Statutes (2005), generally requires the trial court to set forth the facts upon which a finding of dependency is made. Likewise, Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.330(g) requires that in all cases in which dependency is established, the court must enter a written order stating the legal basis for a finding of dependency and specifying the facts upon which the finding of dependency is made.

In this case, the order of adjudication1 fails to meet that standard. Where, as here, the order of adjudication merely repeats the allegations of the dependency petition as findings of fact, which appear in many respects unrelated to the actual evidence presented, the court has not complied with the statute. While the Department may have offered sufficient evidence to sustain its burden of proof, we are unable to determine from the written order of adjudication what facts the trial court actually relied upon in support of the finding of dependency where there was conflicting evidence presented, particularly as to the issues of neglect and abandonment.

Therefore, we vacate the adjudication order and remand this case to the trial court to enter an order of adjudication in compliance with section 39.507(6) and based on the evidence presented at the adjudicatory hearing. See J.C.G. v. Dep’t of Children & Families, 780 So. 2d 965 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) (while there was sufficient evidence to support a finding of dependency, Florida law mandates that, where no findings of fact are provided to support the adjudication of dependency, the matter must be remanded' with instructions to the trial court to provide such findings).

Reversed and remanded.

POLEN and GROSS, JJ., concur. . We recognize that the trial court rendered a second order of adjudication, which did not include some of the findings of fact which were completely unsupported by the evidence. However, the subsequent order of adjudication was rendered after the notice of appeal had already been filed, and therefore the trial court would not have had jurisdiction to enter it where its purpose was to amend or clarify the prior order of adjudication. Since the order did not state what its purpose was, the record simply reflects that two different orders of adjudication were entered, the second being entered after the notice of appeal was filed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • T.P. v. Dep't of Child. & Families, 954 So. 2d 677 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007)
    …esented ’at the hearing proved the allegations in the petition. The written order of adjudication also contained specific findings of fact to support the adjudication of dependency. T.P. contends, citing to R.P. v. Department of Children & Families, 945 So. 2d 612 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), that these factual findings are insufficient because the written order merely recites the allegations contained in the dependency petition. While some of the findings in the order of adjudication are similar to the allegations i…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw