Rel: July 2, 2026
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter.
ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
SPECIAL TERM, 2026
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Ex parte P.R.P.
PETITIONS FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS
(In re: Matter of J.A.J.R.)
(Marshall Juvenile Court: JU-19-739.01 and JU-19-739.03)
MOORE, Presiding Judge.
As recounted by this court in P.R.P. v. Marshall County
Department of Human Resources, 419 So. 3d 1018 (Ala. Civ. App. 2024)
("P.R.P."), J.A.J.R. ("the child") was born in Guatemala in 2014 to F.M.
("the father") and P.R.P. ("the mother"). In early 2019, with the
permission of the mother, the child illegally immigrated to the United
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States with the father. In March 2019, the father and the child settled
in Marshall County, while the mother remained in Guatemala. On July
18, 2019, the father was arrested and charged with a sexual offense
against the child, and, without contacting the mother, the Marshall
County Department of Human Resources ("DHR") took the child into
protective custody and commenced dependency proceedings relating to
the child in case number JU-19-739.01 ("the .01 action"). Id. The
Marshall Juvenile Court adjudicated the child to be a dependent child,
and DHR placed the child into foster care.
In June 2020, still without having contacted the mother, DHR filed
a petition to terminate the parental rights of the mother and of the father;
that petition was assigned case number JU-19-739.02. See P.R.P., supra.
In December 2023, the juvenile court entered a judgment terminating the
mother's parental rights, finding, among other things, that the mother
had abandoned the child and that reunification was impossible or that
DHR's reunification efforts had failed because of the distance between
DHR and the mother and the language barrier. The mother appealed.
On appeal, this court determined that the juvenile court had
acquired subject-matter jurisdiction over the child pursuant to Ala. Code
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1975, § 30-3B-201(a)(2), a part of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction
and Enforcement Act ("the UCCJEA"), Ala. Code 1975, § 30-3B-101 et
seq. See P.R.P., 419 So. 3d at 1021 n.1. We also determined that the
evidence did not support the juvenile court's finding that the mother had
abandoned the child by allowing the child to immigrate to Alabama. Id.
at 1025. We further concluded that, in the absence of abandonment, DHR
had a duty to use reasonable efforts to reunite the child with the mother,
regardless of any language or geographic barriers. Id. As we explained,
that duty required DHR to use reasonable efforts to locate the mother, to
identify any obstacles to reuniting the child with the mother, to notify
the mother of those issues, to develop a plan tailored to overcome any
reunification problems, to execute that plan, and to assess the success of
that plan. Id. at 1025-30. We held that DHR had not used reasonable
efforts to reunite the mother with the child. Id. at 1030.
First, we held that the evidence showed that DHR had not used
reasonable efforts to locate the mother. 419 So. 3d at 1027. Eventually,
the mother learned that the child was in DHR's custody and that the
juvenile court had entered a judgment terminating her parental rights
on July 12, 2021. The mother secured legal counsel and successfully
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moved the juvenile court to set aside that judgment on January 19, 2022.
Id. at 1021.
Second, we held that DHR had failed to provide the mother with an
opportunity to address its concerns relating to her relationship with the
father. DHR finally met with the mother for the first time on July 6,
2022, to formulate an individualized-service plan ("ISP") to reunite the
mother with the child. Id. at 1028. DHR did not present any evidence of
the barriers to family reunification it had identified, but the evidence
showed that the mother had met all the goals set for her in the ISP. Id.
At trial, however, DHR social workers testified regarding their concern
that the mother had not separated from the father, and, based on that
evidence, the juvenile court determined that the mother lacked
appropriate protective capacity to safeguard the child from the father.
Id. at 1028-29. However, this court determined that the mother had not
been informed of that concern by DHR and that she had not been given a
fair opportunity to rectify that barrier to reunification. The court said:
"Before trial, DHR never identified the mother's alleged
continuing relationship with the father as an impediment to
her reunification with the child, nor did it establish any
means by which the mother could strengthen her protective
capacity, assure that the father would be restrained from the
child, or verify his absence from the family home."
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419 So. 3d at 1029. We concluded that DHR had not followed the
framework established in H.H. v. Baldwin County Department of Human
Resources, 989 So. 2d 1094, 1105 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007) (plurality opinion),
to make a fair and serious attempt to rehabilitate the mother and to
reunite her with the child. Therefore, we reversed the judgment, and we
"remand[ed] the case for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion." 419 So. 3d at 1030 (emphasis added).
In our opinion, we noted that DHR had established a concurrent
permanency plan for the child of either return to the mother or
termination of her parental rights with subsequent adoption by the
child's foster parents. 419 So. 3d at 1028. DHR had already worked
toward adoption. It was this court's intention that, on remand, DHR
would formulate a proper ISP designed to achieve the concurrent
permanency plan of reuniting the mother with the child by identifying
any and all circumstances it considered to be impeding the reunification
of the mother and the child, communicating those concerns to the mother,
developing a reasonable plan with the mother tailored toward alleviating
the identified problems as quickly and as safely as possible, and assessing
the success of that plan. We contemplated that the juvenile court would
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conduct periodic permanency hearings to determine the appropriate
permanency plan for the child, as required by Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-315, and that it would enter appropriate orders determining whether
DHR had used reasonable efforts to finalize the permanency plan for the
child, as required by Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-312(a)(3) and § 12-15-315(c)(3). Finally, we remanded the case for the juvenile court to conduct
proceedings to ultimately decide the proper disposition of the child, i.e.,
whether reasonable family-reunification efforts had succeeded so that
the child could be safely returned to the custody of the mother, whether
those efforts had failed so that the concurrent permanency plan of
termination of parental rights with adoption by the foster parents should
be finalized, or whether some other final disposition would serve the best
interests of the child.
On remand, the juvenile-court clerk assigned a new case number --JU-19-739.03 ("the .03 action") -- for the further proceedings ordered by
this court.1 Beginning on March 6, 2025, the mother filed several motions
1In April 2025, the mother filed a petition for the writ of mandamus
requesting that this court direct the juvenile court to dismiss the .03
action for lack of UCCJEA jurisdiction. This court determined that our
holding in P.R.P. that the juvenile court had UCCJEA jurisdiction was
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in the .03 action to facilitate her reunification with the child in
compliance with our remand instructions, as she understood them. In
those motions, the mother claimed that DHR was not using reasonable
efforts to reunite the child with her and that it had unilaterally, and not
collaboratively, developed an ISP for her that was designed to obstruct
family reunification. DHR responded to those motions by insisting that
it was following proper ISP protocol in formulating a plan tailored toward
ameliorating the obstacles to reunification that it had identified. On
January 14, 2026, the juvenile court held a hearing to discuss the status
of the case, and, at that hearing, it stated that a "dispositional" hearing
should be held to determine whether DHR had used reasonable efforts to
finalize the concurrent permanency plan, whether the mother had
cooperated with those efforts, whether the efforts had failed or succeeded,
and whether the child should be returned to the custody of the mother or
another petition to terminate parental rights should be filed. On
January 15, 2026, the juvenile court entered an order in the .03 action
the law of the case, and we denied the petition. Ex parte P.R.P. (No. CL2025-0293, June 6, 2025).
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scheduling the hearing for March 11, 2026,2 which it later rescheduled to
April 29, 2026.
On April 22, 2026, the juvenile court entered an administrative
order transferring all motions and orders entered in the .03 action to the
.01 action. On April 24, 2026, the juvenile court entered an order in the
.01 action providing that, on April 29, 2026, it would be conducting both
a permanency hearing and a dispositional hearing in the .01 action. On
April 27, 2026, the mother filed two identical petitions for the writ of
mandamus with this court, one referencing the .01 action and the other
referencing the .03 action.
In her petitions, the mother primarily argues that the juvenile court
has been violating the mandate of this court from P.R.P. Seeking
mandamus relief is a proper method to test whether a trial court has
properly interpreted and applied an appellate opinion. Ex parte
2On the same date, the juvenile court entered an order denying the
mother the right to attend hearings remotely via the Zoom
videoconferencing application. The mother petitioned this court for the
writ of mandamus, and we granted the petition, directing the juvenile
court to reconsider its order. See Ex parte P.R.P., [Ms. CL-2026-0223,
Apr. 24, 2026] ___ So. 3d ___ (Ala. Civ. App. 2026). Upon reconsideration,
the juvenile court entered an order allowing the mother to attend
hearings remotely.
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Edwards, 727 So. 2d 792, 794 (Ala. 1998). A trial court must comply
strictly with an appellate mandate, but, when the appellate court gives
no precise directions as to how a matter must proceed on remand, the
trial court may proceed in any manner that is not inconsistent with the
appellate court's opinion. See J.B. v. J.R., 426 So. 3d 1222, 1227-28 (Ala.
Civ. App. 2025). The writ of mandamus will be issued only when it is
shown that the lower court has acted in a manner inconsistent with the
appellate court's mandate. See, e.g., Ex parte United States Fid. & Guar.
Co., 585 So. 2d 922, 924 (Ala. 1991).
The mother argues that the juvenile court has not complied with
our mandate because, she says, it has failed to order DHR to reunite the
child with her. However, this court did not order the juvenile court to
conduct further proceedings to ensure that the child was promptly
returned to the mother's custody, as she contends. We ordered only that
the juvenile court conduct further proceedings to ensure that DHR was
making reasonable efforts toward finalizing the concurrent permanency
plan and that the juvenile court conduct further proceedings to evaluate
the success of those efforts before disposing of the permanent custody of
the child. In the months between March 2025 and January 2026, the
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mother filed several motions asserting that the ISP developed by DHR
was not reasonably formulated to achieve the permanency goal of
returning the child to the mother, and she advanced her own alternative
reunification plan to facilitate that goal. On January 14, 2026, after
hearing oral argument, the juvenile court concluded that it needed to
conduct an evidentiary hearing before ruling on the motions so that it
could determine the reasonableness and success of DHR's efforts, and it
scheduled a hearing for that purpose, as well as for the purpose of
determining the final permanency plan for the child. Although the
juvenile court could have scheduled the hearing sooner, we do not
perceive that the juvenile court has acted in a manner inconsistent with
our mandate.3
We also do not agree that the juvenile court has violated our
mandate by maintaining the .01 action. The mother contends that, in
3We do not express any opinion on the merits of the ISP developed
by DHR, or the propriety of the manner in which the ISP was formulated,
which issues remain subject to discretionary review by the juvenile court
at this time. A writ of mandamus may compel the exercise of discretion,
but it will not direct the manner in which discretion must be exercised
when the requested act depends on the ascertainment of facts or the
exercise of judgment. See Ex parte Moulton, 116 So. 3d 1119, 1131 (Ala.
2013).
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P.R.P., we determined that the child was no longer dependent because
she had not abandoned the child. However, this court did not review,
much less reverse, the dependency judgment that had been entered in
the .01 action. Our determination that the mother had not abandoned
the child did not mean that we determined that the child was no longer
dependent. Dependency, within the meaning of Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-102(8), is not even an issue in a termination-of-parental-rights
proceeding. See M.G.S. v. Lee Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 403 So. 3d 166,
181 (Ala. Civ. App. 2024). We determined in P.R.P. only that the mother
had not abandoned the child, so DHR had to exhaust reasonable efforts
toward reuniting her with the child before the juvenile court could
consider terminating her parental rights. We did not find that the child
was no longer dependent as to the mother so that she would have a right
to his custody. The dependency determination made in the .01 action
remains intact. The juvenile court intends to hold a permanency hearing
and a dispositional hearing in the .01 action only to adjudicate the
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outstanding issues affecting the permanency and final custodial
disposition of the child, in accordance with our mandate.4
In Ex parte C.B.S., [Ms. CL-2025-0653, Sept. 26, 2025] ___ So. 3d
___, ___ (Ala. Civ. App. 2025), this court restated the standard governing
mandamus review:
" 'This Court has consistently held that the writ of
mandamus is an extraordinary and drastic writ
and that a party seeking such a writ must meet
certain criteria. We will issue the writ of
mandamus only when (1) the petitioner has a clear
legal right to the relief sought; (2) the respondent
has an imperative duty to perform and has refused
to do so; (3) the petitioner has no other adequate
remedy; and (4) this Court's jurisdiction is
properly invoked. Ex parte Mercury Fin. Corp.,
715 So. 2d 196, 198 (Ala. 1997). Because
mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, the
standard by which this Court reviews a petition for
the writ of mandamus is to determine whether the
trial court has clearly abused its discretion. See Ex
parte Rudolph, 515 So. 2d 704, 706 (Ala. 1987).'
"Ex parte Flint Constr. Co., 775 So. 2d 805, 808 (Ala. 2000)."
4We do not consider any other arguments objecting to the order
scheduling a dispositional hearing. The juvenile court originally entered
an order on January 15, 2026, setting the case for a dispositional hearing.
The mother had 14 days to file a petition for the writ of mandamus
directed toward that order. See Rule 21(a)(3), Ala. R. App. P. The orders
continuing the hearing to a later date did not revive her time to file a
petition or present good cause for filing an untimely petition. See Ex
parte Cassimus, 426 So. 3d 403 (Ala. 2025).
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We conclude that the mother has not met that exacting standard to
warrant extraordinary mandamus relief in this case. For the
aforementioned reasons, we deny the petitions.
CL-2026-0319 -- PETITION DENIED.
CL-2026-0321 -- PETITION DENIED.
Edwards, Hanson, Fridy, and Bowden, JJ., concur.
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