In The Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana No. 06-18-00046-CV IN THE INTEREST OF T.M.E., A.J.E., AND R.J.E., CHILDREN On Appeal from the 102nd District Court Bowie County, Texas Trial Court No. 14C0249-102 Before Morriss, C.J., Moseley and Burgess, JJ. Opinion by Justice Burgess OPINION The Department of Family and Protective Services (the Department) filed a petition to terminate Aurelio Ron’s 1 parental rights to his three children. The trial court granted the Department’s petition and terminated Ron’s parental rights following a bench trial establishing that Ron was a Mexican national living in Mexico. On appeal, Ron argues that he was never served with notice of the Department’s suit against him. Because we agree, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand the case for a new trial. I. Factual and Procedural Background This case began in 2013 when the Department initiated an investigation of the children’s mother, Amber Kim. Kim informed Department caseworkers that Ron was voluntarily living in Mexico and was the father of all three children. As a result of Kim’s drug tests that were positive for marihuana, the Department filed an original petition in 2014 to terminate Kim’s and Ron’s parental rights to their children. Although the Department filed an amended petition alleging grounds for termination against Kim only, on July 14, 2015, the trial court also terminated Ron’s parental rights, even after finding that he was not notified of and did not appear at the final hearing. In fact, the Department had not served Ron with its petition. As a result, on July 26, 2017, the Department filed a petition which asked the trial court to vacate its prior order terminating Ron’s parental rights so it could consider its new request to terminate those rights. The Department’s new petition, filed under the same cause number as prior proceedings which had resulted in the void order against Ron, alleged that Ron’s address was 1 We use pseudonyms for involved parties to protect the confidentiality of the children. See TEX. R. APP. P. 9.8. 2 “CARR ACAPULCO MEXICO SN, LOC ORGANOS DE J R ESCUDERO, ACAPULCO DE JUAREZ, GRO MEXICO 39901.” It also attached an affidavit executed by April Hays, a Child Protective Services Supervisor, which stated: On June 6th 2016, I received contact from Juan Carlos Galicia Villanueva, representative of the Mexican Consulate, requesting information on the father’s behalf. A copy of the termination order was sent to him on that date. At that time, I researched the case and discovered that the father had never been served and no pleadings of termination where [sic] contained in the petition for [Ron]. Later that month, Caseworker Chanda Zachery, [sic] received a letter from the father requesting an extension. The letter included an address and email address. Since that time, the Department has attempted to reach him through the contact information that he provided and he has not responded. He is a citizen of Mexico. At this time, his whereabouts are unknown and the ...
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