Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
The Department of Family and Protective Services investigated after two-month-old J.G.S. was taken to a hospital and medical personnel reported that she had not gained weight since birth. Evidence indicated that Mother had run out of the child’s formula and substituted diluted packaged iced tea and grape juice. J.G.S. began gaining weight after hospital staff provided formula under supervision.
Following a December 2025 trial, the district court terminated Mother’s parental rights. It found that Mother knowingly placed or allowed J.G.S. to remain in endangering conditions, engaged in endangering conduct or placed the child with persons who did so, constructively abandoned the child, and that termination was in J.G.S.’s best interest. Mother challenged those findings, argued that her service plan failed to accommodate an alleged disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and asserted that she should have received more time to complete services.
The Court’s Holding
The First Court of Appeals affirmed. Applying its precedent, the court held that alleged ADA noncompliance is an affirmative defense in a parental-termination proceeding and must be raised in the trial court. Because Mother admitted that she had not presented that defense below, she waived it. The court declined to depart from that precedent based on the Texas Family Code’s reasonable-efforts provisions or later decisions recognizing the fundamental nature of parental rights.
The court also held that Mother failed to preserve her complaint concerning additional time to complete services. The record did not show that the trial court ruled on her motion, refused to rule after an objection, or otherwise had an opportunity to exercise its discretion. Finally, the court concluded that clear and convincing evidence supported the statutory endangerment findings and the determination that termination was in J.G.S.’s best interest.
Key Takeaways
- A parent must raise an ADA reasonable-accommodation defense in the trial court to preserve it for appeal in the First Court of Appeals.
- Merely filing or mentioning a motion for additional time does not preserve error without a ruling or an objection to the trial court’s refusal to rule.
- Evidence concerning an infant’s inadequate nutrition, failure to gain weight, and improved weight gain under supervised feeding supported the trial court’s endangerment findings.
Why It Matters
The decision maintains the First Court of Appeals’ treatment of ADA noncompliance as a waivable affirmative defense, notwithstanding statutory reasonable-efforts requirements and the constitutional importance of parental rights. Parents seeking disability-related modifications to reunification services must identify the disability, the needed accommodations, and the alleged deficiency in the trial court.
The opinion also underscores the procedural importance of obtaining rulings on requests for additional time while confirming that unsafe feeding practices and resulting failure to thrive may support termination on endangerment grounds.