Facts: Grandparents obtained custody of Father’s two children in September 2021 after the Department of Children’s Services intervened because of concerns about Father’s substance abuse and parenting. Mother surrendered her parental rights, leaving Father as the only parent contesting termination.

The children did well in Grandparents’ care. They had stability, good school performance, extracurricular activities, and supportive family relationships. Grandparents intended to adopt them.

Father had no contact with the children after September 2021. He also provided no child support to Grandparents. Father admitted that he continued receiving one child’s Social Security disability benefits after the children were removed from his custody and spent that money on himself instead of providing it to Grandparents for the child’s benefit.

Father struggled with addiction and was incarcerated for several months in 2022. After his release, he entered drug court, lived in sober living homes, participated in recovery programs, passed drug screens, and worked toward sobriety. At trial, he was still living in a sober living house with six roommates. He admitted he could not take custody of the children immediately because of his housing situation.

Grandparents petitioned to terminate Father’s parental rights on three grounds: abandonment by failure to visit, abandonment by failure to support, and failure to manifest an ability and willingness to assume custody or financial responsibility for the children.

The trial court found all three grounds proven by clear and convincing evidence. It also found that termination was in the children’s best interests.

Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment in all respects except that vacated the trial court’s finding on the ground of failure to manifest an ability and willingness to assume custody because the trial court’s order lacked the specific factual findings that are required.

Tennessee law requires trial courts to include detailed written findings of fact and conclusions of law in every parental termination order. Tennessee’s appellate courts have long held that conclusory statements are insufficient; the court must explicitly state the findings of fact that underlie the conclusions of law supporting termination. This requirement matters because appellate courts cannot conduct meaningful review when trial courts merely recite statutory language or state legal conclusions.

The Court found no problem with the trial court’s analysis of abandonment by failure to visit and abandonment by failure to support. The Court found that the evidence clearly supported termination for abandonment.

The problem came with the third ground: failure to manifest an ability and willingness to assume custody or financial responsibility. This ground requires proof of two elements. First, the parent must have failed to manifest either the ability or willingness to assume custody or financial responsibility. Second, placing the children in the parent’s custody must pose a risk of substantial harm to the children’s physical or psychological welfare.

The trial court made factual findings on the first element. Father was living in a sober living house with six roommates and admitted he could not care for the children immediately. The Court found the record supported the trial court’s finding that Father lacked the present ability to assume custody.

But the trial court’s order did not contain factual findings on the second element, the risk of substantial harm. Instead, the order merely stated that placing the children in Father’s custody would pose a risk of substantial harm. The Court held that this was a legal conclusion, not a factual finding.

However, while the trial court made several factual findings regarding the first prong of this ground, the trial court failed to make specific findings of fact regarding the second prong. The order provides only that “The Court finds that placing the children in the father’s legal and physical custody would pose a risk of substantial harm to the physical or psychological welfare of the children.” Unfortunately, this statement does not contain findings of fact that explain what led the trial court to form its conclusion that placing the children with [Father] would place them at a risk of substantial harm. Rather, this statement is merely a conclusion of law. “Mere legal conclusions” do not “fulfill the trial court’s obligations [and] are [not] sufficient to satisfy the directive of Tennessee Code Annotated Section 36-1-113(k).” Instead, the court’s order “must set forth the findings of fact that underlie the conclusions of law.” Failure to enter an order compliant “with subsection (k) ‘fatally undermines the validity of a termination order.”’ Here, the trial court has not explained what facts led it to determine that the children would be at risk of suffering substantial harm if placed back in Father’s custody. “It is not the role of this Court . . . to make factual findings where the trial court fails to do so.” Therefore, we must vacate the portion of the trial court’s order related to this ground for termination.

Even though the Court vacated that ground, the trial court’s termination was still affirmed because the two abandonment grounds were independently sufficient and the best-interest finding was supported by clear and convincing evidence.

K.O.’s Comment: Termination cases turn on the details, and that includes the details of the order. Even when the proof is solid, a drafting deficiency can derail the result. I have seen variations of this story repeatedly in recent appeals, with vacaturs and remands that delay permanency for children already settled in stable homes. If you want to spare your client and the children an unnecessary round trip to the Court of Appeals, build the § 36-1-113(k) findings into your proposed order from the start. A few extra pages of factual recitation is cheap insurance against a remand.

Source: In re Sylis K. (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Eastern Section, May 28, 2026).

If you find this helpful, please share it using the buttons below.