A divided Court of Appeals panel has held that trial courts kept the power to continue CHINS factfinding hearings past the statutory deadlines for good cause, even during the six months when no trial rule or statute expressly said so. The case fills the gap between the January 1, 2025 repeal of Indiana Trial Rule 53.5 and the July 1, 2025 amendment to Indiana Code section 31-34-11-1(d).
The panel produced three opinions. Chief Judge Tavitas wrote for the court, grounding the good-cause exception in a court’s inherent authority over its docket. Judge Weissmann concurred in result on a narrower emergency-power theory. Judge Foley dissented, concluding the statute’s plain text required dismissal.
The opinion is not yet certified, and the split makes it a natural candidate for transfer.
DCS removed two children after their 5-month-old sibling died in December 2024. Investigators described a home with garbage, cockroaches, black mold, and little food. DCS filed CHINS petitions on December 4, 2024, alleging the home conditions, the sibling’s death, and Father’s delayed return home.
The 60-day factfinding deadline fell on February 3, 2025. The factfinding hearing began on January 24, 2025, but on January 29, 2025 the court continued the hearing over Father’s objection because DCS’s counsel was ill. After the 60-day deadline had passed, Father moved to dismiss the CHINS matter under Indiana Code section 31-34-11-1(d). The factfinding hearing concluded in April 2025.
In In re M.S., 140 N.E.3d 279 (Ind. 2020), our Supreme Court held that Indiana Trial Rule 53.5’s good cause continuance language trumped the statute’s deadlines because trial rules control procedural statutes. Its replacement, Indiana Trial Rule 7(D), sets out filing requirements but says nothing about good cause. The core dispute, then, was whether the Court’s holding in M.S. survived the repeal of Trial Rule 53.5. Father argued that, absent any conflicting rule, the statute governed.
Two of the judges held that the CHINS court had inherent authority to continue the case, but they disagreed on the source of that authority. Chief Judge Tavitas held that the source was the trial court’s inherent authority to manage its docket. Judge Weissmann argued that the source was the court’s inherent authority to respond to emergencies.
Judge Foley dissented, arguing that while a court has the inherent authority to continue cases due to an emergency, the court cannot does so when the continuance exceeded a legislative deadline.
So where does that leave us? The statutory deadlines still apply by default, but no version of the law has made them absolute. The statute uses language that could be ready broadly enough to excuse practically any delay. And the majority’s inherent authority holding may now operate as a separate exception to the statutory deadlines.