Endangerment Evidence Supports Termination | In re B.A. and B.A. (2026)

In the Interest of B.A. and B.A., Children, 02-26-00055-CV, June 04, 2026.

On appeal from 325th 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)(D) and (E) where the mother persistently minimized repeated domestic violence, denied illegal drug use, and failed to protect the children from an endangering environment and endangering conduct. The same course of conduct 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 practical reach extends well beyond CPS litigation. For Texas family lawyers handling divorce, SAPCR modification, custody, protective-order, and even disproportionate-property-division disputes, the opinion is a pointed reminder that a parent’s minimization of domestic violence can be as damaging as the violence itself. The court’s treatment of repeated recantation, selective memory, and refusal to acknowledge risk offers a useful framework for litigators trying conservatorship restrictions, supervised possession, geographic limitations, family-violence findings, and credibility-driven best-interest disputes. In short, this case reinforces that endangerment analysis often overlaps with the same evidentiary themes that drive Holley best-interest determinations, conservatorship allocations, and family-violence findings across the family-law docket.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The Department became involved with the family in June 2024 through Family Based Safety Services and quickly escalated from a safety-plan posture to removal and a termination suit. At trial, the Department developed two central themes: first, Father had a substantial history of violence, much of it directed at Mother and known to her; second, Mother consistently minimized, reframed, or denied that violence and separately denied illegal drug use despite contrary evidence.

The opinion recounts a pattern of violent conduct stretching back years. The record included evidence of violence involving Father in 2018, including criminal cases arising from aggravated-assault allegations and resulting deferred-adjudication dispositions for deadly conduct involving the discharge of a firearm at a vehicle. Some of that conduct involved individuals connected to Mother’s older children. The court emphasized not simply Father’s criminal history in the abstract, but Mother’s awareness of enough surrounding facts to understand that Father posed a danger.

The Department also presented evidence of an August 2019 domestic-violence incident between Mother and Father. At trial, Mother attempted to describe the event as little more than a “debate” and denied meaningful injury. But the contemporaneous police report, which she acknowledged accurately reflected what she had reported then, described visible bleeding from her head and a sequence in which Father shoved her repeatedly until she fell on concrete. The contrast between Mother’s trial testimony and her prior statements was a recurring feature of the court’s reasoning.

That pattern repeated in 2024. In April, after Mother had taken the children to Paternal Grandmother’s home, Father arrived with another woman, broke Mother’s car window, climbed into the vehicle, fought with her inside the car, pulled her out, slammed her to the ground, and allegedly bit her ear, leaving visible injuries. At trial, Mother initially downplayed the event, but she again conceded the truth of the incident report when confronted with it.

The most significant episode occurred in May 2024, when Father assaulted Mother in the home while the children were present. Mother again softened the account in her testimony, claiming limited recall and characterizing the event vaguely. Yet the police report and related testimony reflected far more serious conduct: Father bit the top of her head, punched her in the ribs, kicked a bathroom door off its hinges, choked her, overturned furniture, and left visible marks on her neck and a knot on her head that required hospital treatment. The children were in the home. Even if Mother insisted they were asleep, the trial court was free to evaluate whether that claim was credible in light of the violence and commotion.

The opinion also notes evidence that Mother posted Father’s bail multiple times and that she continued to minimize his conduct throughout the case. The Department paired that evidence with proof that Mother denied illegal drug use despite contrary indications in the record. The appellate court treated those denials and minimizations not as isolated credibility defects, but as evidence that Mother lacked protective capacity and would continue exposing the children to danger.

Issues Decided

• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported termination under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(D) based on Mother’s knowingly allowing the children to remain in conditions or surroundings that endangered their physical or emotional well-being.
• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported termination under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(E) based on Mother’s engaging in conduct, or knowingly placing the children with persons who engaged in conduct, that endangered their physical or emotional well-being.
• Whether factually sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s findings under Section 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E).
• Whether legally and factually sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s best-interest finding under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(2).

Rules Applied

Termination requires clear and convincing evidence of at least one predicate ground under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1) and a separate finding that termination is in the child’s best interest under Section 161.001(b)(2). Because the trial court relied on Subsections (D) and (E), the court of appeals reviewed those findings with the heightened standards applicable to legal- and factual-sufficiency review in termination cases.

The court applied the familiar distinction between the two endangerment predicates:

• Subsection (D) focuses on the child’s environment, including the suitability of the child’s living conditions and whether the parent knowingly allowed the child to remain in endangering surroundings.
• Subsection (E) focuses on parental conduct, including a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct that endangers the child’s physical or emotional well-being.

The opinion also reflects settled Texas law that domestic violence, even when not directed at the child, may support findings under both Subsections (D) and (E). A parent’s failure to protect a child from exposure to domestic violence can itself constitute endangerment. Similarly, illegal drug use, denial of use, and refusal to acknowledge the effect of that conduct on the child are all probative of endangerment and future risk.

On best interest, the court relied on the principle that the same evidence supporting endangerment under Subsections (D) and (E) may also be probative of the best-interest inquiry under Section 161.001(b)(2), consistent with the nonexclusive Holley framework and the statutory best-interest considerations embedded in Texas family-law jurisprudence.

Application

The appellate court’s reasoning turned on pattern, credibility, and protectiveness. This was not a one-incident case. Rather, the record showed repeated episodes of Father’s violence over a period of years, Mother’s awareness of that violence, and her ongoing refusal to meaningfully recognize it as a danger to the children. The trial court was entitled to view Mother’s testimony not as benign inconsistency, but as substantive evidence that she would not protect the children going forward.

On Subsection (D), the court treated the children’s surroundings as endangering because Mother knowingly kept them in proximity to recurring domestic violence. The April and May 2024 incidents were especially significant because the children were either present or in the home while the violence occurred. The mother’s insistence that “nothing happened,” or that events were merely arguments or debates, did not neutralize the evidence; if anything, it strengthened the inference that she could not or would not assess risk accurately. A parent who repeatedly reclassifies assaults as verbal disputes creates a record from which the trial court can find knowing exposure to endangering conditions.

On Subsection (E), the court focused on Mother’s course of conduct. Endangerment under (E) does not require direct injury to the child, and it does not require that the parent personally commit every act of violence. It was enough that Mother repeatedly involved herself and the children in a relationship marked by serious assaultive behavior, continued facilitating Father’s return after arrests, posted his bail, and failed to separate the children from him in any durable way. Her denials regarding drug use and her overall lack of candor reinforced the conclusion that the endangering conduct was ongoing and that future danger remained likely.

The court also treated Mother’s minimization as highly probative on best interest. In termination litigation, acknowledgment matters. A parent who admits the danger and demonstrates protective change may still contest future-risk inferences. Here, however, Mother’s inability or unwillingness to describe the violence accurately permitted the trial court to infer that the same dynamics would continue. Thus, the evidence that established endangerment simultaneously supported the finding that termination, rather than a lesser restriction, was in the children’s best interest.

Holding

The court held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported termination under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(D). The record permitted the trial court to find that Mother knowingly allowed the children to remain in endangering surroundings by keeping them in an environment marked by repeated domestic violence, instability, and unaddressed risk, while persistently minimizing what had occurred.

The court likewise held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported termination under Section 161.001(b)(1)(E). Mother’s conduct, viewed as a continuing course rather than as isolated moments, showed that she engaged in or knowingly permitted endangering conduct by maintaining the children’s exposure to Father’s violence, failing to protect them, and denying related drug-use concerns and safety implications.

Finally, the court held that the same body of evidence supported the best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2). The trial court could reasonably conclude that a parent who repeatedly minimizes choking, biting, physical assault, and related instability lacks the protective capacity necessary to keep the children safe in the future. The judgment terminating Mother’s parental rights was therefore affirmed.

Practical Application

For family-law litigators, the opinion underscores that credibility is often the case. Where domestic violence is a recurring issue, the decisive question may not be whether an assault occurred—police reports, medical records, photographs, and criminal dispositions often answer that—but whether the parent seeking conservatorship or resisting restriction has demonstrated insight, acknowledgment, and a protective response. A parent who insists that repeated assaults were merely “debates” is vulnerable not only in a termination case, but in any custody contest where the court must assess future risk to the children.

The case is particularly useful in several litigation settings:

• Divorce and SAPCR conservatorship trials: Use it to frame the argument that minimization of family violence bears directly on best interest, managing conservatorship, supervised access, exchange protocols, and protective restrictions.
• Modification suits: Where a parent has re-entered a violent relationship or continues exposing the child to a dangerous partner, this case supports the proposition that ongoing minimization itself is changed circumstances evidence and future-risk evidence.
• Protective-order proceedings: The opinion reinforces that the court may draw strong inferences from a victim-parent’s recantation, partial recantation, or downplaying when tested against contemporaneous police and medical evidence.
• Property cases with fault allegations: In divorces involving cruel treatment or family violence, the case supports building the evidentiary bridge between assaultive conduct, credibility determinations, and equitable outcomes.
• CPS defense: If representing the parent, this opinion is a warning that denial without explanation is often catastrophic. The better strategy is usually acknowledgment, corroborated treatment, safety planning, separation proof, and evidence of durable behavioral change.

Strategically, the case also teaches that contemporaneous reports matter. The court repeatedly relied on Mother’s prior statements to law enforcement after she retreated from them at trial. That is a trial blueprint: when the live testimony softens, move methodically through prior reports, photographs, treatment records, criminal records, and collateral witnesses to show not only the underlying conduct but the parent’s current inability to confront it honestly.

Checklists

Building an Endangerment Record

• Obtain all police reports involving family violence, even if no charge resulted.
• Secure body-camera footage, 911 recordings, dispatch logs, and EMS records.
• Introduce photographs of injuries, damaged property, and scene conditions.
• Gather criminal judgments, deferred-adjudication orders, revocations, bond records, and plea paperwork involving the violent partner.
• Tie each incident to the child’s presence, proximity, awareness, or likely exposure.
• Develop evidence that the parent knew of the violence before the most recent incident.
• Show post-incident conduct, including reconciliation, bail posting, resumed contact, or violation of safety plans.
• Use prior inconsistent statements carefully to establish both the event and the parent’s minimization.

Proving Protective Capacity

• Ask whether the parent acknowledges each specific act of violence, not merely “conflict.”
• Elicit whether the parent has ended the relationship and, if so, when and how.
• Confirm whether the parent has changed locks, moved, sought a protective order, or implemented exchange safeguards.
• Document participation in domestic-violence counseling, therapy, or safety planning.
• Examine whether the parent continues to communicate with, financially support, or facilitate access for the violent partner.
• Test whether the parent can articulate how the violence affected the children emotionally and physically.
• Probe whether the parent understands strangulation, choking, and escalating violence as lethality indicators.

Defending Against an Endangerment Claim

• Advise the client early that minimization will likely be treated as evidence of future danger.
• Present candid testimony acknowledging the abuse and the prior failure to protect.
• Corroborate separation with leases, utility transfers, text messages, no-contact evidence, and witness testimony.
• Offer certified completion records for counseling, substance-abuse treatment, parenting services, and domestic-violence programming.
• Explain discrepancies between prior statements and current testimony directly rather than evasively.
• Address drug-use allegations with testing records, treatment records, and a coherent timeline.
• Present a concrete safety plan for the children, including childcare, exchanges, school notifications, and emergency contacts.

Trial Presentation for Family-Law Litigators

• Organize incidents chronologically to show a continuing course of conduct.
• Pair each minimized trial answer with the exact prior report or record contradicting it.
• Use short, controlled cross-examination questions when confronting recantation.
• Avoid overreliance on a single dramatic incident; emphasize pattern and foreseeability.
• Connect domestic violence to conservatorship, possession restrictions, and best interest in closing.
• Request findings that separately address environment, conduct, credibility, and protective capacity.
• Preserve sufficiency themes by ensuring the record contains both the underlying acts and the parent’s knowledge of them.

Preventing the Non-Prevailing Parent’s Mistakes

• Do not characterize assaults as “arguments” or “debates” when the record shows physical violence.
• Do not assume the child must witness the violence directly for the court to find endangerment.
• Do not ignore prior criminal history of the partner, including violence against others.
• Do not post bond, resume cohabitation, or facilitate renewed access without anticipating how that will be used at trial.
• Do not deny drug use reflexively if testing, reports, or admissions can disprove the denial.
• Do not rely on memory-loss explanations unless supported by credible medical evidence and consistent testimony.
• Do not go to trial without a documented, credible account of what has changed and why the children are now safe.

Citation

In re B.A. and B.A., Children, No. 02-26-00055-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 4, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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