At a fact-finding hearing in a neglect proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 10, the petitioner has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the subject child was neglected. Unlike other forms of neglect, which require a showing that a child’s well-being has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired, proof that a parent repeatedly misuses a drug or drugs, to the extent that it has or would ordinarily have the effect of producing in the user thereof a substantial state of stupor, unconsciousness, intoxication, hallucination, disorientation, or incompetence, or a substantial impairment of judgment, or a substantial manifestation of irrationality, shall be prima facie evidence that a child of such person is a neglected child, unless the parent is voluntarily and regularly participating in a recognized rehabilitative program.

Here, we agree with the Family Court’s finding that the father and the mother neglected the child. The evidence of the father and the mother’s repeated misuse of heroin to the extent that they were in states of stupor and had impaired judgment, as adduced at the fact-finding hearing, established a prima facie case of neglect pursuant to Family Court Act § 1046(a)(iii). Therefore, neither actual impairment of the child’s physical, mental, or emotional condition, nor a specific risk of impairment, needed to be established. The father and the mother failed to rebut this showing.

Matter of Rylee K., – NYS3d – , 2020 WL 5807311 (2nd Dep’t. 2020)