Family Code 161.001(D),(E) Endangerment Suffices | In re J.C.B.G. (2025)

In the Interest of J.C.B.G., et al., Children, 04-25-00675-CV, June 17, 2026.

On appeal from 37th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed termination, holding legally and factually sufficient evidence supported endangerment findings under Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E). The record showed unsafe conditions, chronic inadequate supervision, transportation-related safety failures, and a broader course of conduct that endangered the children’s physical and emotional well-being; with best interest also upheld, termination stood.

Relevance to Family Law

Although this is a termination case, its reach extends well beyond CPS dockets. For Texas family-law litigators handling SAPCRs, modifications, conservatorship disputes, and even protective-order-adjacent custody litigation, In re J.C.B.G. reinforces how courts evaluate patterns of instability, supervision failures, exposure to unsafe adults or domestic conflict, and post-incident parental decision-making when assessing a child’s safety. The opinion is particularly useful where one side seeks sole managing conservatorship, restricted possession, supervised access, geographic limits, or injunctive relief based on an opposing parent’s chronic judgment deficits rather than a single dramatic event.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The Department’s involvement did not arise from an isolated lapse. The opinion describes a lengthy CPS history involving repeated allegations of abuse, neglectful supervision, and physical neglect. The family had been the subject of approximately sixteen prior Department matters, and there had been at least one previous removal with placement through the maternal grandmother. By the time of the suit, six children ranging from infancy to about eleven years old were removed and placed with their maternal grandmother, where they remained throughout the case.

The factual core of the appellate analysis focused on an unstable and unsafe home environment. The evidence showed persistent supervision failures, including circumstances in which younger children were left to older siblings and an autistic toddler had previously wandered from the home without Mother realizing the child was missing. The children were also exposed to domestic violence, adult situations, and inappropriate individuals, with evidence that these conditions manifested in behavioral and emotional consequences such as boundary issues, anxiety, stress, diminished social skills, and self-esteem problems.

The court also emphasized transportation-related danger. Testimony reflected repeated reports that children rode in vehicles unrestrained. The record included an automobile accident in which unrestrained children were injured, followed by Mother’s failure to secure appropriate medical care. The most severe incident involved the infant J.A.H., who sustained serious mixed second- and third-degree burns to both legs while in Mother’s care, resulting in prolonged hospitalization, surgeries, skin grafting, and extensive medical intervention. The appellate court treated these facts not as disconnected episodes, but as part of a larger pattern of environmental danger and parental conduct.

Issues Decided

• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) that Mother knowingly placed or knowingly allowed the children to remain in conditions or surroundings that endangered their physical or emotional well-being.

• Whether factually sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D).

• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(E) that Mother engaged in conduct, or knowingly placed 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 finding under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(E).

• Whether the predicate findings under subsections (D) and (E), together with the best-interest finding, supported affirmance of the termination order, especially where other predicate grounds were unchallenged.

Rules Applied

The court applied the familiar two-element termination framework under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b): the Department had to prove at least one predicate ground and that termination was in the children’s best interest, all by clear and convincing evidence. It also applied the heightened standards of appellate review described in In re A.C., 560 S.W.3d 624 (Tex. 2018), In re J.O.A., 283 S.W.3d 336 (Tex. 2009), and In re A.B., 437 S.W.3d 498 (Tex. 2014), distinguishing legal-sufficiency review from factual-sufficiency review while deferring to the factfinder on credibility and weight.

On subsection (D), the court emphasized that the focus is the child’s environment—conditions and surroundings that endanger physical or emotional well-being. On subsection (E), the focus is the parent’s conduct—acts, omissions, and failures to act amounting to a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct that endangers the child. The opinion relied on Texas Department of Human Services v. Boyd, 727 S.W.2d 531 (Tex. 1987), for the definition of “endanger,” and on San Antonio and other appellate authorities recognizing that actual injury is unnecessary and that supervision failures, unsafe transportation, prior CPS history, and post-removal conduct can all bear on the endangerment inquiry.

The court also followed In re N.G., 577 S.W.3d 230 (Tex. 2019), and In re R.R.A., 687 S.W.3d 269 (Tex. 2024), making clear that even where unchallenged predicate grounds independently support affirmance, appellate courts must still review challenged findings under subsections (D) and (E) because those findings carry collateral consequences in future termination proceedings.

Application

The opinion’s practical force lies in how it synthesizes a broad evidentiary record into a coherent endangerment theory. The court did not require the Department to show a single dispositive act. Instead, it treated Mother’s history with the Department, the recurring supervision failures, the children’s exposure to unsafe people and domestic conflict, the transportation safety problems, and the serious injury to J.A.H. as mutually reinforcing proof of both an endangering environment and an endangering course of conduct.

For subsection (D), the court focused on the children’s surroundings and Mother’s knowing tolerance of those surroundings. The evidence permitted the trial court to conclude that the home environment was not merely imperfect or chaotic, but affirmatively dangerous. Children were left inadequately supervised, younger children were dependent on older siblings for care, and the record reflected repeated exposure to adult dysfunction and physical risk. The transportation evidence mattered because it showed not just negligence in the abstract, but repeated disregard of obvious safety measures and the resulting injuries.

For subsection (E), the court moved from environment to conduct. It read Mother’s repeated failures—not noticing a vulnerable child had wandered away, allowing children to ride unrestrained, failing to obtain appropriate care after injuries, and maintaining conditions that exposed the children to recurring danger—as a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct. The court also rejected any appellate effort to offset this proof with selective evidence of service participation, counseling, visitation, or lack of drug use. Those facts existed in the record, but they did not compel the factfinder to disregard contrary evidence showing chronic instability and endangerment. In other words, compliance evidence did not erase the endangerment narrative.

Holding

The court held the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support termination under Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D). Mother knowingly allowed the children to remain in conditions and surroundings that endangered their physical and emotional well-being, and the trial court could reasonably rely on longstanding instability, unsafe supervision, exposure to inappropriate environments, transportation safety failures, and the family’s extensive CPS history in reaching that conclusion.

The court also held the evidence was legally and factually sufficient under Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(E). The record demonstrated a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct endangering the children, and the inquiry properly included conduct before and after removal. Mother’s contrary proof—principally service participation and favorable evidence regarding visitation and substance use—did not render the endangerment findings insufficient because the factfinder remained free to credit the Department’s evidence over Mother’s explanations.

Finally, the court affirmed the termination order because only one predicate ground is necessary when coupled with a valid best-interest finding, and Mother did not defeat the best-interest determination. The opinion further underscores that appellate review of subsection (D) and (E) findings remains mandatory when challenged, notwithstanding other unchallenged predicate grounds, due to the serious collateral consequences those findings carry under In re N.G.

Practical Application

For trial lawyers, In re J.C.B.G. is a strong reminder that endangerment cases are built through accumulation. In custody litigation outside the termination context, the same evidentiary architecture often drives temporary-orders outcomes and final conservatorship rulings. A parent’s repeated inability to supervise children, poor transportation safety decisions, tolerance of unsafe adults, minimization of serious incidents, and persistent instability can justify restrictions even if the record lacks drug use, criminal convictions, or a fresh act of overt physical abuse.

For petitioners, the case supports framing danger as a pattern rather than overcommitting to one catastrophic episode. The better approach is to connect prior CPS history, school or therapy concerns, medical records, witness testimony, photographs, police reports, and digital communications into a narrative showing the parent either created or knowingly tolerated conditions that jeopardized the child. For respondents, the lesson is equally sharp: technical service compliance will rarely overcome a well-developed record of chronic judgment failures unless counsel can show sustained behavioral change, credible insight, corroborated safety planning, and a measurable break from the historical pattern.

This opinion is also strategically important in appellate preservation. Because subsection (D) and (E) findings have future consequences, practitioners representing parents should specifically challenge them even when other predicate grounds exist. Practitioners representing the Department or intervenors should ensure the record clearly distinguishes environmental endangerment from conduct-based endangerment, while also showing how the same facts may support both theories.

Checklists

Building a Subsection (D) Record

• Identify the specific dangerous conditions or surroundings in which the child lived.
• Prove the parent knew of those conditions or knowingly allowed the child to remain there.
• Develop evidence of inadequate supervision, unsafe caretakers, domestic violence exposure, or environmental instability.
• Gather transportation-safety evidence, including seatbelt or car-seat noncompliance and resulting injuries.
• Use prior CPS history carefully to show knowledge, recurrence, and failure to correct.
• Tie the environment to actual risk of physical or emotional harm, even if no additional injury occurred.

Building a Subsection (E) Record

• Organize the proof chronologically to show a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious course of conduct.
• Include omissions and failures to act, not just affirmative misconduct.
• Highlight repeated decision points where the parent chose unsafe conduct or ignored known risks.
• Include post-removal conduct where it shows continuing instability, poor judgment, or lack of insight.
• Connect each incident to a broader pattern rather than presenting events as isolated.
• Anticipate the argument that services participation offsets endangerment, and be ready to show why it does not.

Defending Against Endangerment Allegations

• Separate isolated incidents from claimed patterns and force the petitioner to prove continuity.
• Contest the knowledge element under subsection (D) where the parent lacked awareness of the alleged condition.
• Challenge whether the conduct was truly voluntary, deliberate, and conscious under subsection (E).
• Present corroborated evidence of changed circumstances, not merely self-report.
• Use counselors, providers, relatives, teachers, and supervisors to verify improved parental judgment and safety practices.
• Demonstrate concrete corrective measures: childcare plans, transportation compliance, medical follow-up, housing stability, and protective boundaries with unsafe adults.

Preserving Error for Appeal

• Specifically challenge subsection (D) and subsection (E) findings by name.
• Raise both legal-sufficiency and factual-sufficiency complaints where supported.
• Preserve objections to improperly admitted historical evidence if the Department relies heavily on prior investigations.
• Request findings or a clear record identifying which facts support each predicate ground.
• Address best interest independently; do not assume attacking predicate grounds alone is enough.
• Remember the collateral-consequence doctrine under In re N.G. and treat (D) and (E) findings as uniquely significant.

Using This Case in SAPCR and Modification Litigation

• Use the opinion to support restrictions where the opposing parent shows chronic supervision failures.
• Frame unsafe transportation practices as conservatorship-relevant endangerment, not merely poor parenting.
• Leverage evidence of exposure to domestic conflict or inappropriate adults to support supervised possession or decision-making limits.
• Argue that repeated minimization of serious child injuries reflects impaired parental judgment.
• Use historical instability to support primary conservatorship, exclusive decision-making, or geographic restraints.
• Distinguish cases involving a single corrected lapse from cases showing persistent unsafe conduct.

Citation

In the Interest of J.C.B.G., et al., Children, No. 04-25-00675-CV, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. App.—San Antonio June 17, 2026, no pet. h.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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