In re the Matter of the Welfare of the Child of: J. C., Father.

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-1016

In re the Matter of the Welfare of the Child of:
J. C., Father.

Filed December 23, 2019
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-JV-17-2125

Jerry A. Burg, The Law Office of Jerry A. Burg, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Stephanie Wiersma, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)

Kim Lee, St. Paul, Minnesota (guardian ad litem)

Considered and decided by Rodenberg, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and
Klaphake, Judge.*
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
ROSS, Judge
Former foster parent S.R. challenges the district court’s order denying her motion
to intervene in foster child A.K.’s child -protection case and her request for an order for
adoptive placement with her. Because the district court acted within its discretion by

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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denying S.R.’s motion for permissive intervention and because S.R. lacked standing to
present her adoptive-placement request in that proceeding, we affirm.
FACTS
Ramsey County c hild-protection workers who suspected prenatal drug exposure
removed newborn A.K. from his mother shortly after his birth in October 2016. The county
placed A.K. with foster parent S.R., who began the process of adopting A.K. after the
district court terminated A.K.’s parents’ parental rights. But in April 2019, the county
received a report of A.K.’s maltreatment in S.R.’s care. The report alleged that S.R. had
left the toddler unsupervised and closed in a bedroom with a childproof doorknob while
she walked her grandchild to a bus stop, that S.R. had fallen asleep with the oven on and
was awakened only by A.K.’s crying, and that S.R. had left A.K. in the custody of a man
she barely knew and who had a drinking problem.
The county investigated the allegations and, finding that maltreatment had occurred,
removed the child from S.R.’s custody and placed him in a different foster home. S.R.
moved the district court to intervene as a party in A.K.’s child-protection case. She also
asked the district court to order adoptive placement with her. Concluding that S.R. failed
to show that allowing her to intervene would serve the child’s best interests, the district
court denied S.R.’s motion to intervene under rule 34 of the Minnesota Rules of Juvenile
Protection Procedure.1 Concluding that the county had not been unreasonable in failing to
make the adoptive placement with S.R., the district court denied S.R.’s request to order

1 The Minnesota Rules of Juvenile Protection Procedure were extensively renumbered
effective September 1, 2019. We cite the current rules in their renumbered form.
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adoptive placement under Minnesota Statutes section 260C.607, subdivision 6(a) (2018).
S.R. appeals.
D E C I S I O N
S.R. challenges the district court’s denial of her motion to intervene in A.K.’s
child-protection case and its failure to issue an order for adoptive placement. A person who
is not entitled to intervene as a matter of right may intervene in a child-protection case if
the district court finds that the intervention meets the child’s best interests. Minn. R. Juv.
Prot. P. 34.02. We review a district court’s denial of a request for permissive intervention
for an abuse of discretion. State v. Deal, 740 N.W.2d 755, 760 (Minn. 2007). The district
court here acted within its broad discretion.
S.R. insists that the district court abused its discretion by rejecting her request to
intervene. A district court abuses its discretion if its decision is against logic and the facts
in the record. State v. Guzman, 892 N.W.2d 801, 810 (Minn. 2017). S.R. fails to identify
any intervention-related reason that she presented to the district court demonstrating how
her intervention in the proceeding serves the child’s best interests. The record shows that
the district court considered S.R.’s intervention motion and her supporting documents. It
also heard S.R.’s argument, in which she maintained that she should be permitted to
permissively intervene because “it would be in the best interest of the child that the child
remain with her [as] that is the only place he has ever lived.” The district court concluded
that S.R. made “no significant showing . . . that intervening in this case as a party would
serve the child’s best interests.” S.R. cites nothing in the record that would lead us to deem
that conclusion against logic or the facts in the record.
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S.R.’s focus in the district court, and again on appeal, appears to be a conflation of
unrelated issues. The district court’s order denying S.R.’s intervention motion emphasized
that the “[i]ssues concerning a child’s placement are distinct from issues concerning
permissive intervention.” The same must be emphasized on appeal, where S.R. supports
her position with the rhetorical question, “How could it NOT be in his best interests for
[S.R.] to fully participate in the proceeding? ” after listing circumstances focusing on the
stability of her home environment and the child’s favorable developmental progress in her
care. These are clearly circumstances that might bear on a placement decision, but S.R.
does not explain how her success as the child’s foster parent, or the child’s success in her
foster care, bears on her effort to intervene as a party in his child-protection case.
The district court’s decision is highly discretionary, meaning that we will not merely
substitute our judgment for the district court’s. S.R. has not established on appeal that the
district court’s intervention decision was an abuse of discretion.
We observe that the district court’s order might in one respect be mistaken to suggest
that S.R.’s intervention motion would succeed only if she asserted some “specific needed
legal right[] in th[e] proceeding.” Instead, again, a party may succeed by demonstrating
that “intervention is in the best interests of the child.” Minn. R. Juv. Prot. P . 34.02. The
movant need not assert any legal right to participate in the proceedings. In context,
however, the district court may have been attempting to emphasize that S.R.’s focus on her
foster-care success with the child does not establish a legal right to intervention. And even
if this is not so and the district court’s statement reflects a legal error, we still would not
reverse. That is because the district court clearly and correctly identified S.R.’s burden to
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show that her intervention is in the child’s best interests, and then it concluded that S.R.
failed to carry that burden. This logically supported conclusion is a sufficient ground to
affirm, making the possible legal misstatement merely a harmless error.
S.R. also contends that the district court erred when it failed to grant her request to
issue an order of adoptive placement with S.R. A nonparty, nonparticipant who fails to
intervene in a child-protection proceeding lacks standing to participate in the proceeding.
See Minn. R. Juv. Prot. P. 32.02–33.02 (describing the rights of parties and participants in
juvenile-protection matters); see also Minn. R. Juv. Prot. P. 33.01(g) (noting that “current
foster parents” are participants). The district court denied S .R.’s motion for permissive
intervention, leaving her without standing to move the district court to take any action in
that proceeding regarding adoptive placement. The legislature has provided an implicit
limited exception to the rule, authorizing “a relative or the child’s foster parent” to move
for adoptive placement. Minn. Stat. § 260C.607, subd. 6(a). But the record informs us that
S.R. was not the child’s relative and had been replaced as his foster parent. We therefore
affirm the district court’s decision rejecting her adoptive-placement request.
Affirmed.