In re Luka OO.
Opinion of the Court
Appeal from an order of the Family Court of Clinton County (Lawliss, J.), entered December 24, 2012, which granted petitioner’s application, in a proceeding pursuant to Family Ct Act article 10, to adjudicate the subject children to be neglected.
Respondent and his wife were responsible for the care of three children, Luka OO. (bom in 2007), Logan PP. (born in 2010) and Taylor QQ. (born in 1996).
Respondent and his wife admitted to the allegations in the petitions, resulting in Family Court adjudicating that they neglected the three children. Despite it being agreed to by all parties, the court did not accept the proposed disposition, which would have extended the orders of protection and required that respondent and his wife engage in certain services. Following a dispositional hearing, the court released the children to the custody of respondent’s wife, with supervision by petitioner, required respondent and his wife to comply with certain services and continued the orders of protection for one year. Respondent appeals.
Respondent mainly argues that Family Court should have allowed him and his wife to have some supervised time together with the children. The orders of protection essentially prevented respondent from reuniting with his wife because she had
The dispositional order is problematic in that it released the children into the custody of respondent’s wife but did not provide for any contact between respondent and the children. As visitation with a noncustodial parent is presumed to be in a child’s best interests and should only be denied in exceptional situations (see Matter of Marshall v Bradley, 59 AD3d 870, 871 [2009]; Matter of Frierson v Goldston, 9 AD3d 612, 614 [2004]), we remit for Family Court to include a schedule or other provision for parenting time with respondent.
Garry, Rose and Egan Jr., JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law and the facts, without costs, and matter remitted to the Family Court of Clinton County for further proceedings not inconsistent with this Court’s decision.
. Logan is respondent’s biological child, Luka is his stepson, and Taylor is his wife’s younger sister.
. In a separate custody proceeding, Family Court placed Taylor with her biological father shortly before the commencement of this proceeding.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.