Fourth Court Affirms Best-Interest Termination Based on Mother’s Drug Use, Unsafe Housing, Domestic Violence, and Noncompliance

In the Interest of E.M.M. Jr., N.M.M., N.J.M., I.A.M., M.S.R., A.L.M., Children, 04-25-00790-CV, April 29, 2026.

On appeal from 408th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed termination of Mother’s parental rights, holding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the trial court’s best-interest finding under Texas Family Code section 161.001(b). The court relied on evidence of ongoing drug use, unsafe and unstable housing, domestic-violence exposure, refusal or failure to comply with services, and a lengthy period of non-contact with both the Department and the children.

Relevance to Family Law

Although this is a CPS termination appeal, its practical importance reaches well beyond Title 5 cases. For Texas family-law litigators handling SAPCRs, modifications, divorce-related conservatorship disputes, and supervised-possession fights, the opinion is a useful reminder that trial courts may infer future endangerment and parental unfitness from a pattern of past conduct—especially where substance abuse, domestic violence, unstable housing, and noncompliance with court-ordered or agency-directed services converge. The case also underscores an appellate reality that applies in ordinary custody litigation: if a party narrows the appeal and leaves foundational findings unchallenged, those findings can materially shape and constrain review of the remaining issues.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The case began with a 2023 referral after Mother and newborn A.L.M. tested positive for marijuana at birth. During the ensuing investigation, the older children made outcries that they had witnessed domestic violence by Father against Mother. The Department implemented a safety plan requiring monitoring by the maternal and paternal grandmothers.

That safety plan quickly deteriorated. In January 2024, the Department learned that both parents had violated it. The Department attempted to address the violations through a family team meeting, but Mother refused to participate and told the investigator she was no longer willing to comply with the Department or engage in services.

A second referral followed in May 2024, this time focusing on the children’s living conditions and suspected drug use by Mother. At that point, Mother and the children were living with Mother’s father in a residence without electricity, and there were observed markings on the children. The Department removed the children for neglectful supervision and placed them with the paternal grandmother, where they remained during the case.

Mother’s service plan required, among other things, a psychological assessment, therapy, drug testing, a substance-abuse assessment, parenting classes, domestic-violence classes, and proof of stable housing and employment. Although she did not sign the plan, the caseworker testified it was reviewed with her and that she understood it. The evidence further showed a lengthy period—175 days—in which Mother ceased communicating with the Department and did not visit the children. Mother acknowledged there had been “an extensive time” without visitation, attributing it to a personal “life crisis” following removal.

The trial court terminated Mother’s rights under section 161.001(b)(1)(E), (N), and (P), found termination was in the children’s best interest, adjudicated Father as the father of all six children, and appointed him sole managing conservator. On appeal, Mother challenged only best interest.

Issues Decided

The court decided the following issue:

• Whether legally and factually sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding, by clear and convincing evidence, that termination of Mother’s parental rights was in the children’s best interest under Texas Family Code section 161.001(b).

The court did not revisit the predicate grounds because Mother did not challenge them on appeal.

Rules Applied

The court applied the familiar termination framework under Texas Family Code section 161.001(b) and section 161.206(a): the Department must prove by clear and convincing evidence both a predicate ground and that termination is in the child’s best interest.

For sufficiency review, the court relied on the established clear-and-convincing standards articulated in cases such as:

• In re J.P.B., 180 S.W.3d 570 (Tex. 2005), for legal sufficiency
• In re H.R.M., 209 S.W.3d 105 (Tex. 2006), for factual sufficiency
• In re A.L.E., 279 S.W.3d 424 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2009, no pet.), emphasizing deference to the trial court’s credibility determinations in a bench trial

On best interest, the court relied on both the statutory and common-law frameworks:

• Texas Family Code section 263.307(a), which presumes that prompt and permanent placement in a safe environment is in the child’s best interest
• Texas Family Code section 263.307(b), listing factors bearing on a parent’s willingness and ability to provide a safe environment
• Holley v. Adams, 544 S.W.2d 367 (Tex. 1976), identifying the nonexclusive best-interest factors
• In re C.H., 89 S.W.3d 17 (Tex. 2002), recognizing that evidence supporting a predicate ground may also be probative of best interest
• In re E.D., 419 S.W.3d 615 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2013, pet. denied), allowing a factfinder to measure future conduct by past conduct
• In re S.J.R.-Z., 537 S.W.3d 677 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2017, pet. denied), for the proposition that unchallenged predicate findings are accepted as true on appeal

The opinion also reiterated two important guardrails: the strong presumption favoring preservation of the parent-child relationship, and the countervailing principle that best interest is child-centered, not parent-centered.

Application

The Fourth Court’s application is straightforward but strategically significant. Because Mother challenged only the best-interest finding, the appellate court began from the premise that the predicate grounds—including constructive abandonment under section 161.001(b)(1)(N)—were established and had to be accepted as true. That mattered because the same evidentiary record supporting those predicate findings also informed the best-interest analysis.

From there, the court viewed the record through the combined lens of section 263.307 and Holley. The evidence reflected persistent marijuana use serious enough to trigger the initial referral at childbirth, domestic-violence exposure reported by the older children, and a subsequent living arrangement lacking electricity and marked by conditions that raised neglectful-supervision concerns. Those facts went directly to the children’s physical and emotional danger, their vulnerabilities, and Mother’s ability to provide a safe, stable environment.

The court also treated Mother’s noncompliance as highly probative. She refused to participate in the family team meeting after the safety-plan violations, told the investigator she was no longer willing to comply with the Department or do services, did not sign the service plan, and failed to maintain meaningful engagement. Most damaging, the record showed a 175-day period in which she neither communicated with the Department nor visited the children. While Mother offered an explanation—that she was in crisis after the children’s removal—the trial court, as sole judge of credibility, was not required to credit that explanation as outweighing the pattern of abandonment and nonparticipation.

In practical terms, the appellate court accepted the trial court’s ability to infer from this history that Mother had not demonstrated the willingness or ability to make timely, durable changes. The case is a textbook example of how appellate courts synthesize substance abuse, domestic violence, unstable housing, noncompliance, and prolonged absence into a coherent best-interest finding, even without a challenge to the underlying predicate grounds.

Holding

The court held that legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s best-interest finding. Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment, a reasonable factfinder could have formed a firm belief or conviction that termination of Mother’s parental rights was in the children’s best interest based on Mother’s drug use, the unsafe home environment, domestic-violence concerns, her refusal and failure to comply with services, and her extended lack of contact with the children and the Department.

The court also held that the evidence was factually sufficient. Considering the entire record, including Mother’s explanation for her absence and nonparticipation, the disputed evidence was not so significant that the trial court could not reasonably have formed a firm belief or conviction in favor of termination. Accordingly, the Fourth Court affirmed the trial court’s order.

Practical Application

For trial lawyers, this opinion reinforces that best-interest proof is rarely one fact deep. The Department prevailed because the record reflected a pattern: prenatal or perinatal drug exposure, domestic-violence outcries, unsafe housing, disregard of the safety plan, resistance to services, and extended non-visitation. In conservatorship litigation outside the termination context, the same pattern logic often drives restrictions on possession, supervised access, geographic limitations, or sole decision-making.

The case also highlights an appellate preservation point that family lawyers should not ignore. If an appellant challenges only best interest and leaves endangerment, abandonment, or substance-abuse predicate findings untouched, the appellate court will treat those findings as established. That substantially narrows the available path to reversal. For appellate counsel, issue selection in termination cases must be strategic, but it cannot be artificially cramped where the unchallenged findings themselves carry heavy best-interest weight.

For parents’ counsel at trial, the opinion is a reminder that “noncompliance” is not merely a box-checking problem. It becomes a narrative problem. Refusal to attend meetings, failure to engage services, lack of contact, and absence of documented progress allow the opposing party to frame the client as unwilling—not just unable—to protect or prioritize the children. Countering that narrative requires contemporaneous evidence: documented barriers, treatment efforts, housing progress, employment records, communication logs, and credible explanations tied to actual corrective action.

For counsel representing the Department, an amicus, or the other parent, the case validates a cumulative-evidence approach. No single fact needed to carry the entire best-interest inquiry. The record worked because each concern corroborated the others and supported a forward-looking inference about risk, instability, and inability to provide safe parenting within a reasonable time.

Checklists

Preserving Error and Framing the Appeal

• Identify every predicate ground found by the trial court and decide expressly whether each will be challenged.
• Do not assume a best-interest-only appeal is sufficient where unchallenged predicate findings heavily overlap with best-interest evidence.
• Track whether the judgment cites a renumbered or amended statutory ground and confirm the correct version of the statute applies.
• Frame sufficiency arguments under the clear-and-convincing standard, not ordinary civil sufficiency language.
• Address adverse facts cumulatively; appellate courts often view best interest as a pattern rather than isolated incidents.

Building a Best-Interest Record at Trial

• Develop evidence on section 263.307 factors and Holley factors, even if the witnesses do not use those labels.
• Tie drug use to parenting impact, child safety, supervision, and housing instability.
• Present specific evidence of domestic-violence exposure, including child outcries and resulting emotional or physical risk.
• Document the condition of the residence with photographs, testimony, utility records, or investigative observations.
• Introduce service-plan requirements clearly and establish that the parent understood them.
• Show not only incomplete services, but the significance of the missed services to child safety and reunification.
• Create a detailed timeline of visitation, missed visits, gaps in communication, and efforts to re-engage the parent.
• Offer evidence of the children’s placement stability and the comparative safety of the proposed permanent arrangement.

Defending a Parent Against a Pattern-Based Best-Interest Case

• Humanize noncompliance with corroborated evidence, not explanation alone.
• Document barriers to participation, including transportation, mental health crises, hospitalization, domestic-abuse dynamics, or housing displacement.
• Produce objective evidence of recovery efforts, negative tests, counseling attendance, and treatment participation.
• Show current housing conditions with leases, utility records, photographs, and witness testimony.
• Re-establish consistent visitation as early as possible and maintain logs, messages, and attendance records.
• Demonstrate concrete behavioral change, not merely future intentions.
• Challenge the causal link between historical misconduct and present/future risk where the record supports meaningful remediation.
• Avoid leaving predicate grounds unchallenged on appeal if they materially reinforce best interest.

Using the Case in Non-Termination Family Litigation

• Cite the case for the proposition that a court may assess future risk from past conduct.
• Use it in modification or conservatorship disputes involving substance abuse, domestic violence, or chronic instability.
• Argue that refusal to comply with safety measures or court-directed services can support restrictions short of termination, including supervised possession.
• Emphasize that housing instability and prolonged absence can bear directly on possession and conservatorship terms.
• Distinguish the case where your client has completed services, maintained sobriety, secured stable housing, and re-established consistent contact.

Citation

In re E.M.M. Jr., N.M.M., N.J.M., I.A.M., M.S.R., A.L.M., Children, No. 04-25-00790-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—San Antonio Apr. 29, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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