A Jefferson County judge declined to postpone proceedings and instead terminated a father’s parental rights as he struggled to connect to the virtual hearing, a decision the state’s second-highest court has now reversed.

District Court Judge Ann Gail Meinster should have granted the request to postpone the February 2021 hearing, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals decided, after the father, identified as R.B., was present but had difficulty connecting to public wireless Internet. Allowing R.B. to be heard was in his child’s interest, the panel observed, and there was no indication that a delay would have been egregious.

“To the contrary, the record reveals that he was making efforts to secure Wi-Fi access so that he could participate in the hearing,” wrote Judge Craig R. Welling in the Jan. 6 opinion. “Yet, other than briefly pausing the hearing, the court didn’t facilitate father’s efforts to personally participate in this hearing. This is significant.”

After Jefferson County assumed temporary custody of R.B.’s newborn in early 2020, the government moved to terminate the legal relationship between father and child. Meinster held a hearing on the virtual platform Webex, which Colorado’s state courts have used during the pandemic to conduct business in order to protect against the spread of COVID-19.

Although R.B. was not present at the start of the hearing, Meinster called a recess midway through after noting that R.B. had apparently been trying to log in. One of the other lawyers also stated that R.B. was having trouble accessing the proceedings.

R.B.’s lawyer was unable to reach his client, and noted that R.B. had attempted to contact him multiple times over the past two weeks. Communication was difficult, however, because R.B. could only use his phone while connected to Wi-Fi.

The attorney asked to continue, or postpone, the hearing. He wanted to present R.B.’s testimony, and he also told the judge he learned R.B. had been asked to leave the gas station where he was accessing Wi-Fi for the hearing.

Meinster refused the request. R.B., she said, “had ample opportunity to prepare to join today. I’m sorry he wasn’t able to. But case law is clear. He’s been represented by counsel throughout. So that motion … is denied.”

The Court of Appeals panel explained that judges in juvenile cases need to balance the parents’ procedural right to be heard against the requirement that they speedily reach a decision in the best interest of the child. In addition, for children younger than six, Colorado law dictates that hearings not be postponed without good cause.

Given the circumstances of the case, Welling reasoned, a brief delay was warranted to protect R.B.’s procedural rights. Welling reiterated Meinster’s justification that R.B. had “ample opportunity to prepare.”

“But we are unable to understand the basis for this conclusion given father’s multiple unsuccessful attempts to communicate with his counsel during the twelve-day period between his release from custody and the termination hearing,” he wrote.

Last year, a different Court of Appeals panel upheld the use of Webex for parental rights hearings, so long as judges provided substantially similar procedures to those for hearings conducted in person.

The panel sent the case back to Meinster to reconsider her termination decision. The case is People in the Interest of E.B.