In re K.D.N. (J.N. v. State)

1. The Honorable Pamela T. Greenwood, Senior Judge, sat by
special assignment as authorized by law. See generally Utah Code
Jud. Admin. R. 11-201(6).
2013 UT App 298
_________________________________________________________
THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
STATE OF UTAH, IN THE INTEREST OF K.D.N., A.N.L.,
K.N.N., M.S., A.L., AND K.N., PERSONS UNDER
EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE.
J.N.
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF UTAH,
Appellee.
Memorandum Decision
No. 20130387-CA
Filed December 27, 2013
Third District Juvenile Court, Tooele Department
The Honorable Mark W. May
No. 1073858
Wayne A. Freestone, Attorney for Appellant
Brian L. Tarbet and John M. Peterson,
Attorneys for Appellee
Martha Pierce, Guardian ad Litem
JUDGE GREGORY K. ORME authored this Memorandum Decision,
in which JUDGE MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN and SENIOR JUDGE
PAMELA T. GREENWOOD concurred.1
ORME, Judge:

In re K.D.N.
20130387-CA 2 2013 UT App 298
¶1 J.N. (Mother) appeals the juvenile court’s adjudication that
she abused and/or neglected her three biological children and her
three stepchildren. We affirm.
¶2 The juvenile court took numerous facts into account before
arriving at its determination, but four incidents involving Mother
and the children are of particular relevance in this case. Police
responded to a domestic disturbance involving Mother in August
2012. Two of Mother’s stepchildren had been screaming at their
father (Father) and refusing to go to their room. Mother then
“popped” one of them in the mouth hard enough that the blow
chipped the child’s tooth. While denying any intent to chip the
tooth, Mother claimed she struck the child to stop her from hitting
Father in the back where he had recently undergone surgery.
¶3 Mother called the police three months later. On this
occasion, one of the teenagers had been acting out and Mother told
her to hand over her iPod. The child refused, later testifying that
the iPod was not her own but one that she had borrowed from her
boyfriend. The child also yelled profanities at Mother. Mother then
climbed on top of the child and tried to wrestle the device away
from her. While it is unclear who bit whom first, the incident
entailed the child’s biting Mother and Mother’s admitted biting of
the child, which Mother claimed to be only responsive.
¶4 Two months later, a caseworker was in the home when
another fracas ensued and one of the teenagers again needed to be
disciplined. Mother told the child to go to her room, but she
refused. Mother asked the caseworker what she should do, and the
caseworker replied that she would not tell Mother how to parent
but that Mother should not physically engage the child. Mother
nevertheless grabbed the child and dragged her down the stairs to
her room.
¶5 Later that same month, Mother barricaded this same child
in the basement by placing a couch in front of the basement door
and then proceeded to taunt the child. The child then broke a hole
in the door with a toy guitar. Mother reached through the hole and

In re K.D.N.
2. It should be noted that the children were a difficult lot. As found
by the juvenile court, “Some or all of the three oldest children
refuse to obey their parents, spray graffiti on the walls of their
home, punch holes in the walls and doors, scream profanities at
their parents and each other, go on shoplifting sprees, use illegal
drugs and engage in sexual relations.” The juvenile court, however,
rejected the suggestion that this was due to some organic defect on
the part of the children, instead attributing the fact that they were
“completely out of control” to the parents’ “lack of parenting
skills.”
20130387-CA 3 2013 UT App 298
grabbed the child’s hair, pulling her head into the closed door. The
child testified that Mother used such force that she pulled some of
the child’s hair out, leaving a small bald spot. Mother testified that
the child had threatened to harm or kill herself and the younger
children, and that she had merely held the child’s head in place to
prevent the child from harming others.2
¶6 Following these incidents, the parents placed two of the
children in State custody. A third child had left the home to live
with an aunt following the iPod incident. A trial was held in March
2013. The juvenile court entered its final order the next month. It
found that all six of the children were abused and/or neglected by
Mother and Father. Mother appeals.
¶7 Mother first argues that the juvenile court erred in
determining that she abused the children because her behavior was
justified under the “reasonable discipline,” “self-defense,” and
“defense of others” exceptions to a finding of abuse. See Utah Code
Ann. § 78A-6-105(1)(b) (LexisNexis 2012). Mother argues that she
was merely trying to discipline the children when she accidentally
chipped a child’s tooth, tried to wrestle away the iPod, and locked
a child in the basement. She also argues that she was acting in
defense of self or others when she “popped” a child in the mouth
in order to stop the child from hitting Father, who had recently had
surgery; bit a child to get that child to release her own bite on

In re K.D.N.
20130387-CA 4 2013 UT App 298
Mother; and grabbed a child’s hair through a hole in a door to
prevent her from harming others.
¶8 “Because of the complex contextual nature of child abuse
proceedings,” whether behavior constitutes abuse is a highly
factual question properly entrusted to the juvenile court. In re L.P.,
1999 UT App 157, ¶ 9, 981 P.2d 848. Juvenile courts are required to
make comprehensive and detailed factual findings in support of
their ultimate conclusions. Id. ¶¶ 8–9. We review a juvenile court’s
findings for clear error, In re S.O., 2005 UT App 393, ¶ 12, 122 P.3d
686, and we review its ultimate determination of abuse only to
assure that the court has not exceeded the bounds of sound
discretion, see In re L.P., 1999 UT App 157, ¶ 8.
¶9 Here, the juvenile court entered detailed findings supporting
its ultimate determination that Mother abused and neglected the
children. The juvenile court found that Mother considers “[y]elling,
screaming profanities, biting, hitting, wrestling, etc.” to be normal
and acceptable parenting techniques and that she has “no sense of
appropriate disciplinary boundaries.” The juvenile court also found
that Mother was dishonest on the witness stand, that the home was
lacking in sufficient food for the children, and that Mother has a
“profound lack of parenting skills.” Additionally, the juvenile court
recounted the relevant incidents, finding that regardless of who
was responsible for initiating the altercations, the parents failed “to
comprehend that they played a role in the chaos of the home.”
¶10 Because Mother has not challenged the juvenile court’s
factual findings, we accept them as valid and take them as the
starting point of our legal analysis. See State v. Benvenuto, 1999 UT
60, ¶ 13, 983 P.2d 556. We conclude that the juvenile court did not
exceed its broad discretion in determining that the children were
abused and/or neglected by Mother. See In re L.P., 1999 UT App
157, ¶ 8.
¶11 First, the juvenile court’s findings certainly support a
conclusion of neglect—a determination that contains no exception
for reasonable discipline or defense of self or others. See Utah Code

In re K.D.N.
20130387-CA 5 2013 UT App 298
Ann. § 78A-6-105(27)(c)–(d) (identifying certain religious and
health care decisions as the only exceptions to a finding of parental
neglect). Neglect is defined, in part, as “lack of proper parental care
of a child by reason of the fault or habits of the parent” or the
“failure or refusal of a parent . . . to provide proper or necessary
subsistence, education, or medical care, or any other care necessary
for the child’s health, safety, morals, or well-being.” Id. § 78A-6-
105(27)(a)(ii)–(iii). The juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in
determining that the lack of food, “profound lack of parenting
skills,” violence, and “chaos” in the home constituted neglect.
Indeed, Mother herself even testified that she had no control over
the situation or the children.
¶12 Second, we conclude that the juvenile court did not exceed
its discretion in determining that Mother’s abusive behavior was
not excusable as either reasonable discipline or defense of self or
others. See id. § 78A-6-105(1)(b). Here, the juvenile court detailed its
concerns about a blow so hard that a tooth was chipped; an
incident where Mother had just been told by a caseworker not to
use physical discipline, but Mother saw fit to grab a child and drag
her downstairs anyway; an incident that escalated from a request
for surrender of an iPod to wrestling a child to the ground and
sitting on her in aid of a forcible seizure of the iPod, with Mother
resorting to biting the child, albeit possibly after being bitten first;
and an incident where Mother pulled a child’s hair through a hole
in a door with sufficient force that it left a bald spot. Indeed, at one
point Mother agreed to a safety plan that involved no physical
discipline of the children, but she was not able to keep herself from
acting out physically on the children. Under these egregious
circumstances, we determine that it was not an abuse of discretion
for the juvenile court to find that these attempts at discipline “went
well beyond permissible ‘reasonable discipline’” and that Mother
“repeatedly crossed the line” and committed “physical abuse”
¶13 Affirmed.