DHS contempt finding upheld

The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Thursday a Crawford County circuit judge’s finding of contempt against a Department of Human Services attorney and caseworker in a dependency-neglect case.

Circuit Judge Mike Medlock had declared attorney Tony Huffman and caseworker Erica Eneks in contempt last year and accused Huffman of telling Eneks to leave the courtroom so she would not be available to testify in a change-of-custody hearing.

Medlock said Huffman and Eneks acted deliberately to deprive him of “relevant information to make the best decision for the children involved,” the opinion written by Justice Josephine Linker Hart said.

Justice Shawn Womack dissented.

An attorney representing the children in a 2016 hearing who were removed from the home wanted the grandparents to be given custody. The Department of Human Services objected, as a matter of policy, because the grandfather was a registered sex offender. Medlock awarded custody to the grandparents.

Four months later, the Human Services Department asked for a change of custody and a hearing was scheduled for March 2, 2017. Just before the hearing, Eneks, the caseworker, got up and left the courtroom. When that was pointed out to Medlock by the children’s attorney, Medlock accused attorney Huffman of signaling Eneks to leave so she couldn’t be called by the children’s attorney to testify, the opinion said.

Huffman told Medlock, the opinion said, “‘I thought it was possible they would try,’” to call Eneks to testify.

“‘And anything she might say would probably be contrary to what you’re urging me to do, wouldn’t it?’ ” Medlock said.

“‘I didn’t want her [Eneks] put on the spot by anybody if she wasn’t subpoenaed,’” Huffman replied.

Medlock set a show-cause hearing for two weeks later and after the hearing declared Huffman and Eneks in contempt.

“To intensely engage in an activity to deprive the court of relevant information in any case involving the welfare and best interest of minor children over which this court has jurisdiction and which the [Department of Human Services] has responsibility cannot be handled as a chess game,” Medlock said from the bench, according to the opinion.

Medlock ordered Huffman and Eneks to complete eight hours of community service, write a one-page treatise on the importance of presenting all relevant facts to the court in child-welfare cases and complete an hour of ethics training, the opinion said.

The court’s majority agreed there was substantial evidence to support Medlock’s decision. The opinion said Huffman, as an officer of the court, “owed the court a duty of candor.” The opinion said Eneks leaving the courtroom deprived Medlock of relevant material testimony and that she knew the Department of Human Services’ intention was to keep her testimony from the hearing.

In his dissent, Womack wrote the evidence of contempt was thin. Eneks testified she had not recommended anything that contradicted department policy in the case. She was not subpoenaed and was not scheduled to testify in the change-of-custody hearing. And a department area director admitted to Medlock that Eneks might have only had a difference of opinion from the department in this case.

Instead of the contempt power being used to maintain the authority and dignity of the court, Womack wrote, the majority’s expansive view of the contempt power could open the door to expanding it further to micromanage case presentation decisions that normally are left to attorneys and their clients.

“While I support a broad interpretation of the contempt power, I am concerned this new expansion may lead to abuse,” he wrote.