Dep’t of Children & Families v. J.H., No. 6D2025-0304, 2025 WL 2180468 (Fla. 6th DCA Aug. 1, 2025). In this case, the trial court ruled in favor of our clients, the adoptive parents of a foster child’s siblings. DCF made a mistake by not placing the foster child with them when he was born. When the adoptive parents found out that the baby had been placed in foster care and alerted DCF to their mistake, DCF stonewalled. The Statewide Guardian Ad Litem ignored the case. And the foster parents aggressively thwarted sibling visitation. The Sixth District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court, reweighing its most important factual findings and essentially holding that trial judges need to rubberstamp DCF’s adoption decisions by deferring on both conclusions of law and an agency committee’s “fact” findings. This case involves (and ignores) crucial issues about the independence of the judiciary and due process. 

K.R. v. Department of Children & Families, Case No. 23-4842RX (Fla. DOAH Apr.12, 2024). Our clients were about to finally adopt the child they had fostered for years–ever since she had been an infant. But when a 5th degree relative applied to  the child, DCF approved that applicant using an administrative rule that said relative adoption applications were more valuable than long term foster parents’ applications.  We challenged that rule and the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) found in our clients favor. The “kinship preference” rule, used for more than 20+ years to uproot children from their long term foster parents, is now invalid.

K.N. v. Department of Children & Families, 359 So. 3d 741 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023); decision clarified on denial of reh’g, 359 So. 3d 792 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023), and review granted, SC2023-0665, 2023 WL 5011735 (Fla. Aug. 7, 2023). A lovely couple volunteered to adopt hard-to-place siblings after learning about them from a Heart Gallery. A few months after placement, the couple learned why the siblings were hard to place: the older sibling had severe behavioral issues that involved abusing the younger sibling. Our clients notified DCF of the danger and requested removal of the older sibling because he needed a higher level of care (which costs DCF more money). The younger sibling was thriving and had developed a strong bond with our clients. DCF and the GAL Office retaliated by getting an emergency hearing to remove both children. At the request of DCF and the GAL Office, the judge kicked our (perfectly behaved) clients out of the courtroom and refused to allow our firm to submit evidence, cross-examine witnesses, offer any witnesses for direct examination, or object to the proceedings.

The appellate court didn’t think any of this was a denial of due process, and affirmed the trial court’s decision to move the children to a home that wasn’t even an adoptive placement. During oral argument, it became apparent that the appellate panel thought our clients would eventually get a fair hearing in the related adoption case. They were wrong.

Our clients were eventually able to get an adoption trial and present evidence and witnesses. At the request of government attorneys (DCF & the GAL Office), the judge refused to hear any evidence of the children’s best interests and even walked out of the courtroom and refused to hear our clients’ testimony about their bond with the child. The judge denied our clients’ adoption, even though the children’s new foster parent testified that DCF was removing the children from her home because it was too difficult to protect the younger child from the older one. The new foster mom testified that the siblings were not good for each other and should not be adopted together. In fact, the younger child–a preschooler–had devolved so much in the year since removal from our clients that the new foster home had to Baker Act this very preschooler multiple times. During the adoption trial and pending appeal at the Florida Supreme Court, the government agencies and the judge secretly coordinated to move the children to yet another placement. Shockingly, the GAL Office represented to the Florida Supreme Court that no one else had any concerns about the children being together. And, in a brief that shows a horrendous attitude toward loving caregivers and the rule of law,  the GAL Office called our clients “self-serving” and “myopic” for daring to disagree with them. The last we heard, the siblings were being moved to their 10th or 11th placement. 

Department of Children & Families v. S.T., 353 So. 3d 1246 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022). We represented a grandfather who wanted to be involved with his grandchildren’s dependency case. The trial court allowed this, but the GAL Office appealed. The appellate court reversed the trial court and held that a person’s ability to be involved in a dependency case is very narrow and limited by the definition section of the dependency code. 

Guardian ad Litem Program v. Campbell, 348 So. 3d 1177 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022). DCF filed a very weak termination of parental rights case against a parent, who then signed a private consent to adoption for the grandparents to adopt. We acted as the adoption entity and requested the child be moved to his grandparents so they could immediately adopt him. DCF and the GAL Office stalled the case for many months, then claimed the child was too bonded to his foster parents to move. The trial court ruled in our favor, but the GAL Office appealed and the appellate court reversed the trial court. About 2 years later, we heard that DCF had still not managed to terminate the parent’s rights. By refusing to honor the parent’s adoption plan, DCF and the GAL Office delayed permanency for the child by at least a couple years.

T.R.-B. v. Department of Children & Families, 335 So. 3d 729 (Fla. 3d DCA) (2022). DCF refused to allow our clients, the grandparents,  to adopt their grandson even though he had lived with them most of his life and was thriving in their safe and loving home. The reason? As a teenager, the grandfather had committed a robbery. Despite the passage of 30+ years, his commendable rehabilitation, and his strong family life, DCF insisted the rules that they themselves wrote prevented the court from finalizing the adoption. DCF even tried to remove the little boy from the only home he had ever known. Thankfully, the family filed their adoption petition and appealed the court’s refusal to fairly hear their case. Our firm won on appeal and our clients were ultimately able to adopt their grandson.