Utah Court of Appeals hears dispute over whether 'strictly necessary' standard was misapplied in parental-termination order

A three-judge panel of the Utah Court of Appeals on Tuesday heard arguments in an appeal of a juvenile-court order that terminated a mother’s parental rights and favored adoption over a permanent custody-and-guardianship placement with relatives. Judge Ryan Tenney chaired the panel, which included Judges Michelle Christiansen Forrester and John Luthy.

The appeal centers on whether the juvenile court treated the statutory "strictly necessary" requirement in isolation instead of as part of the broader best-interest analysis required by the statute. Counsel for the mother, Sonia Turchic, argued the juvenile court had repeatedly found termination was in the child’s best interest but then erred in how it applied the strictly necessary language; counsel for the guardian and the Office of the Guardian ad Litem defended the court’s overall findings and urged that a remand would not change the outcome.

The issue at the heart of the argument is statutory interpretation. Counsel for the parent said the juvenile court compartmentalized its analysis — drawing a separate block labeled "strictly necessary" and concluding that, on that discrete point,…