Page:Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Dowdy.pdf/2

 permanency-planning hearing. According to the ad litem's representations, DHS objected at the permanency-planning hearing to the placement of the children with the grandparents because the grandfather is a registered sex offender, and it is DHS's policy to always object to such a placement. The circuit court, after considering all the evidence presented at the hearing, nonetheless elected to place the children with their grandparents, reflecting its decision in an order that, according to the ad litem, was entered on November 21, 2016.

More than ninety days later, DHS filed a motion for change of custody, citing the fact that the grandfather is a registered sex offender as the basis for change of custody. The circuit court took up DHS's motion for change of custody at a hearing on March 2, 2017. At the hearing, the attorney ad litem and the attorney for the grandparents argued that the motion for change of custody was baseless because there were no new facts since the November 3, 2016 hearing; therefore, res judicata applied. DHS argued that the grandfather's sex-offender status had not actually been addressed at the November 3, 2016 hearing. The attorney ad litem argued that the change-of-custody hearing should be continued so that the parties could obtain the transcripts from the November 3, 2016 hearing.

Additionally, and more important to the issue presently before this court, at the March 2, 2017 hearing, the attorney ad litem took serious exception to the fact that Erica Eneks, the caseworker who had testified at every prior hearing in this case and who had been in the courtroom all day, Eneks had gotten up and left the courthouse right before the