Over the summer Toia Potts testified to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for North Carolina about her unjust experiences in the child welfare system. Yesterday, one commissioner, Gregory Wallace, spoke up about her case to discount her, stating that the termination of her parental rights was upheld by the Court of Appeals. To provide further context on the unfair legal principle that justified the termination of Toia’s parental rights, her attorney, Elizabeth Simpson sent the following response.
On October 29, 2024, Gregory Wallace suggested he had read the 95-page opinion upholding the termination of Toia Potts’ parental rights and that it was legally justified. See Matter of M.T. & K.T., No. 21-755 (2022). It is true that the courts of North Carolina have sanctioned the termination of Toia’s parental rights, but this does not mean that it was just or fair. The law in North Carolina for parents accused of abuse is one of vicarious liability.
Vicarious liability means that even if a mother has never hurt her child, would never hurt her child, has tried her best to protect her child, and does not witness any harm to her child, she can still have her parental rights terminated. Even if she separates from an abusive father after abuse occurs, she can still have her parental rights terminated. This means that in North Carolina, mothers are held accountable for the violence of men. It means that North Carolina’s children lose loving mothers because of the violence of men. It means that victims of domestic violence are blamed for their partner’s abuse in North Carolina. Because this rule is so unfair, Toia’s appellate case drew four amicus briefs: from the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the NAACP of North Carolina, the ACLU of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Justice Center.
Nevertheless, despite our best efforts to overturn this rule, vicarious liability remains the law for parents in North Carolina. Toia Potts never hurt her child and never would. You heard her compelling testimony and you have read the in-depth article about her case. You know that it is heartbreaking and unfair.
In the 95-page decision on appeal, the Court of Appeals explained very clearly that “the trial court was not inferring Mother participated in or condoned abuse and it need not have.”