Passaic County DYFS Lawyers win fact finding trial

CW

Passaic County

Client and his wife were accused of abusing and neglecting their children for being drunk at home after a party. When the police came to the house, they saw that both parents were intoxicated. After sustaining an injury, the father had to be taken to the hospital and thus, the police didn’t want to leave the Mother home alone with the children. DYFS was then called and the children were placed with their grandparents. Complicating this matter was that both parents had a DYFS history. In fact, the Mother was actually in the process of appealing a finding of abuse and neglect when this happened due to an earlier incident. That incident involved the Mother walking around the street while with her children while apparently intoxicated. When the police went to the home to speak to the Father, he was apparently intoxicated as well. Thus, DYFS decided to try both the old case and the new case at the same time.

This case posed a number of challenges for me because I had to not only help my client, the father, but I had to also help the mother who had her own attorney. The fear was that if the father won but the mother lost, the mother would lose her job and put the family in a very tough financial position. Furthermore, it would be tough to tackle both cases at the same time. This limits our defenses and it gives the State two chances to win the case. DYFS only needs to show that the children were abused in one incident, not both to win. In the end, we used a great plan, tough cross examination and a great legal brief to win the case. The Court found that the State did not prove that the clients were intoxicated and thus, could not prove that the children were abused and neglected.

If you are facing a DYFS / DCPP case in Passaic County, call the team of tough, smart Passaic County DYFS lawyers today to discuss your case.