Endangerment by Domestic Violence Course of Conduct | In re A.M. (2026)

In the Interest of A.M., J.M., and K.W., Children, 02-26-00083-CV, June 04, 2026.

On appeal from 233rd District Court, Tarrant County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fort Worth Court of Appeals held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported termination under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(E) where the mother engaged in a years-long course of conduct exposing the children to violent men, repeatedly returned to abusive relationships, left the children with a known violent caregiver, and minimized or concealed the violence. The same pattern, combined with instability in housing, employment, and decision-making, also supported the trial court’s best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2).

Relevance to Family Law

Although this is a termination case, its reasoning matters well beyond CPS litigation. For Texas family law litigators handling SAPCRs, modifications, conservatorship restrictions, supervised possession disputes, family-violence protective-order overlap, and even divorce cases involving conservatorship, In re A.M. reinforces a recurring theme: domestic violence is not legally confined to incidents where a child is the direct target. A parent’s repeated exposure of children to violent partners, refusal to acknowledge danger, and continued entrustment of children to known abusers can become decisive evidence on endangerment, best interest, sole managing conservatorship, possession limits, geographic restrictions, and conditions precedent to expanded access.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The record reflected a nearly decade-long pattern of the mother’s relationships with violent men. The opinion recounts successive abusive partners, multiple assaultive incidents, and the mother’s repeated tendency to downplay the violence even after criminal convictions and visible injuries. The evidence included one boyfriend’s family-violence conviction for hitting the mother shortly after one child’s birth, another boyfriend’s repeated physical assaults on the mother while children were nearby, and a gun incident occurring just outside a house where the children were steps away inside.

The most consequential facts involved the mother’s relationship with a third boyfriend whom she admitted she had heard was violent and dangerous. Even after that relationship ended, he remained in the grandmother’s home, and the mother routinely left the children there for extended periods despite knowing he was present. During one such period, that boyfriend murdered one of the mother’s children, Zack. At the time of Zack’s death, bruises were found on his body, and the surviving children also exhibited bruising. The Department removed the surviving children.

The pattern did not end after removal. The mother remained involved with another abusive partner after Zack’s death and after the Department case began. While pregnant, she was choked and punched in the stomach by that boyfriend, yet later denied to a caseworker that there had been domestic violence between them. She then began another relationship marked by severe abuse, including kicking, punching, biting, use of a gun, hostage-like restraint, and threats to kill her. Even after a particularly violent assault led to police involvement and the recovery of a loaded firearm, she minimized the incident to the Department and continued communicating with that boyfriend in jail despite a no-contact protective order.

By the time of trial, the mother had shown some late movement toward services, including domestic-violence classes, trauma-related intervention training, and a safety plan. But the trial court also heard evidence of continuing instability: repeated arrests during the pendency of the case, years of driving without a valid license, admitted prostitution during the case, and unstable housing culminating in eviction and a return to living with the grandmother. Against that backdrop, the trial court terminated under subsections (D) and (E) and found termination to be in the children’s best interest. The appeal, as described in the opinion snippet, focused on the sufficiency of the evidence supporting endangerment by course of conduct under subsection (E) and best interest.

Issues Decided

• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(E) that the mother engaged in conduct, or knowingly placed the children with persons who engaged in conduct, that endangered the children’s physical or emotional well-being.

• Whether factually sufficient evidence supported the same endangerment finding under Section 161.001(b)(1)(E).

• Whether legally and factually sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(2) that termination was in the children’s best interest.

Rules Applied

The court applied the familiar termination framework requiring clear and convincing evidence of at least one predicate ground under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1) and a separate best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2).

Key rules and principles reflected in the opinion include:

• Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(E): Endangerment under subsection (E) focuses on the parent’s conduct, including a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct that jeopardizes the child’s physical or emotional well-being.

• Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(2): Even if a predicate ground is established, termination also requires clear and convincing evidence that termination is in the child’s best interest.

• Clear-and-convincing standard: The reviewing court examines both legal and factual sufficiency through the heightened evidentiary burden applicable in parental-rights termination cases.

• Domestic violence as endangerment evidence: Texas appellate courts consistently treat domestic violence, including violence directed primarily at the parent rather than the child, as probative of endangerment because of the instability, trauma, and risk it creates for children.

• Course-of-conduct analysis: Endangerment may be established through a pattern rather than a single act. Repeatedly choosing violent partners, exposing children to those partners, and minimizing known danger may collectively satisfy subsection (E).

• Best-interest analysis: Although the snippet does not set out the full best-interest discussion, Texas courts ordinarily evaluate best interest through the statutory and common-law framework, including the Holley factors and evidence bearing on parental abilities, stability, danger to the child, and acts or omissions indicating an improper parent-child relationship.

The opinion cites In re A.C., 560 S.W.3d 624, 630 (Tex. 2018), for the general termination standard.

Application

The court’s application centered on continuity, not isolated events. This was not a record of one bad relationship followed by reform. It was a record of repeated relationships with violent men over many years, children repeatedly placed in proximity to violence, and a parent who repeatedly discounted what had happened. The court viewed the evidence as showing a persistent pattern of exposing the children to danger and failing to internalize the seriousness of that danger.

The mother’s attempts to distinguish some of the violence or to characterize it as insufficiently proven did not materially help her because the record included criminal convictions, her own admissions, visible injuries, police involvement, and the children’s proximity to assaultive episodes. Most damaging was the evidence that she left the children with the third boyfriend despite knowing he was reputed to be violent and despite indications that he was disciplining the children behind her back. That course of conduct culminated in the murder of one child and bruising on the surviving children. For subsection (E) purposes, the court treated this as powerful proof not merely of tragic hindsight, but of knowingly exposing children to a dangerous environment through parental conduct.

The court also placed weight on minimization and concealment. The mother repeatedly denied or softened domestic violence to Department personnel even after severe incidents, including one involving choking during pregnancy and another involving a loaded firearm and death threats. That minimization mattered because it bore directly on future risk. A parent who does not acknowledge danger is less likely to protect children from its recurrence. Her continued communication with the latest abusive partner, even while he was jailed and subject to a no-contact order, reinforced the trial court’s ability to infer that the pattern had not truly ended.

On best interest, the endangerment evidence did double work. The same facts that established an endangering course of conduct also supported the conclusion that termination was in the children’s best interest. The trial court was not required to credit the mother’s late-stage efforts as outweighing years of violent relationships, instability, criminal and quasi-criminal conduct, housing insecurity, and poor judgment. The appellate court’s affirmance reflects significant deference to a trial court’s resolution of whether recent compliance is genuine reform or merely too little, too late.

Holding

The court held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported termination under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(E). A parent endangers children by engaging in a continuing course of conduct that exposes them to domestic violence, violent caregivers, and the risk of physical and emotional harm, even when the violence is directed primarily at the parent. Repeatedly returning to abusive relationships, leaving children with a known violent partner, and minimizing or concealing the abuse was enough to support the endangerment finding.

The court also held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported the best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2). The same course of conduct, considered alongside the mother’s instability in housing, employment, legal compliance, and protective decision-making, permitted the trial court to conclude that termination was in the children’s best interest.

Practical Application

For practitioners representing petitioners, intervenors, or children, In re A.M. is a strong authority for framing domestic violence as a longitudinal parental-conduct case rather than a series of disconnected incidents. The case supports the proposition that you do not need evidence that the parent personally struck the child. If the parent repeatedly chooses violent partners, keeps returning to them, leaves the child with them, or lies about the violence, the record can support endangerment and best interest. In modification or conservatorship litigation outside the CPS context, that logic translates naturally into arguments for sole managing conservatorship, supervised possession, exchange safeguards, injunctions against contact with specific third parties, and therapy or battering-intervention-related conditions.

For defense counsel, the opinion is a cautionary reminder that minimization is often more damaging than the underlying event. Once there is evidence of repeated violence, the defense case must be organized around acknowledgment, documented separation, verifiable compliance, durable protective measures, independent housing, safe childcare alternatives, and corroborated behavioral change over time. Last-minute service participation may help, but standing alone it will rarely neutralize a record showing years of unsafe partner selection and continued contact with abusers during the case.

For divorce and SAPCR litigators, this opinion should influence discovery and evidentiary strategy. Obtain criminal judgments, police reports, protective orders, jail calls, text messages, medical records, photos of injuries, third-party caregiver information, and testimony from children’s therapists, investigators, or family members who observed the pattern. The key evidentiary move is to show not merely that violence occurred, but that the parent knew of the danger, normalized it, and continued exposing the children to it anyway.

For trial lawyers on either side, the case also underscores the importance of timeline presentation. In domestic-violence-driven custody litigation, chronology is often the theory of the case. A clean timeline showing relationships, assaults, police responses, protective orders, child exposure, denials to professionals, and resumed contact can be outcome-determinative.

Checklists

Building an Endangerment Record Under Section 161.001(b)(1)(E)

• Create a chronology of every violent relationship, including dates, cohabitation periods, and the children’s exposure.
• Obtain certified copies of assault-family-violence judgments, deferred adjudications, indictments, and protective orders.
• Tie each incident to the child’s physical proximity, awareness, emotional exposure, or caregiving disruption.
• Develop evidence that the parent knew or should have known the partner was violent.
• Show repeat conduct, not just isolated events.
• Identify any instances where the parent resumed the relationship after assaults, threats, arrests, or protective orders.
• Document occasions when the parent left the children with the violent partner or in a home where the partner was present.
• Use admissions, texts, jail calls, or Department statements showing minimization, denial, or concealment.

Proving Best Interest When Domestic Violence Is the Core Theme

• Link domestic violence to instability in housing, employment, schooling, medical care, and childcare.
• Present evidence of the child’s bruising, behavioral changes, fear responses, regression, or therapy needs.
• Address the parent’s protective capacities, not just the existence of violence.
• Show whether the parent accepts responsibility and demonstrates insight into the danger.
• Contrast late-stage services with the full historical pattern.
• Offer evidence of a safer, more stable placement and continuity plan for the child.
• Use witness testimony to explain how repeated exposure to violence affects emotional development and security.

Defending Against an Endangerment Theory in a Domestic Violence Case

• Advise the client immediately to cease all contact with the abusive partner and preserve proof of separation.
• Gather independent corroboration of no-contact compliance, including address records, phone records, and witness testimony.
• Present evidence of completed domestic-violence services, counseling, trauma treatment, and safety planning.
• Show concrete replacement supports for childcare, transportation, and housing.
• Prepare the client to acknowledge prior danger without equivocation.
• Eliminate minimization language from testimony and affidavits.
• Demonstrate sustained stability over time rather than recent aspirational change.
• Be ready to distinguish historical victimization from current protective incapacity, while recognizing that the latter remains the court’s focus.

Discovery Targets for SAPCR, Modification, and Divorce Cases Involving Violent Partners

• Police offense reports and supplemental narratives
• 911 calls and dispatch logs
• Protective-order applications, orders, and return-of-service documents
• Medical and EMS records
• Photos of injuries and property damage
• Criminal docket sheets and judgments
• Jail calls, letters, and visitation logs
• Text messages, social media posts, and app-based communications
• Landlord records, eviction filings, and utility records showing residence patterns
• School, counseling, and therapy records reflecting child impact
• Third-party caregiver records and witness statements

Avoiding the Downside That Drove the Result Against the Mother

• Do not leave children with a person known to be violent or credibly suspected of abusing others.
• Do not minimize domestic violence to the court, the Department, evaluators, or opposing counsel.
• Do not continue romantic or supportive contact with an abusive partner during pending litigation.
• Do not rely on late-enrolled services as a substitute for documented behavioral change.
• Do not ignore ancillary instability issues such as housing, transportation legality, arrests, or unsafe income sources.
• Do not present a trial narrative that treats each violent incident as unrelated.
• Do create a verifiable protection plan with safe caregivers, safe housing, and enforceable no-contact boundaries.

Citation

In re A.M., J.M., and K.W., Children, No. 02-26-00083-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 4, 2026, no pet. h.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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