In Re Bernard T.

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the juvenile court's termination of Junior D.'s parental rights to all five children. The court held that the Department of Children's Services used reasonable efforts — efforts must be reasonable, not Herculean — to help the father address the conditions leading to removal and to establish his parentage, and that clear and convincing evidence supported termination under Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-113(g)(2)-(3) as to the four children to whom he stood as legal parent, biological parent, or putative biological father, and under § 36-1-113(g)(9)(A)(iv), (vi) as to Jordan T., to whom he had no legally recognized relationship. The court further held that the reasonable-efforts obligation is triggered by removal and does not turn on the parent's legal status, but that the Department need not supply putative fathers with counsel or litigation funding to establish paternity. Clear and convincing evidence also showed that termination served the children's best interests.