ALBANY, N.Y., June 7 (Reuters) - Family courts in New York do not have the authority to permit contact between a parent and a child once parental rights have been terminated, the state's top court has ruled, resolving a conflict between midlevel appeals courts.

In a 6-1 decision, the Court of Appeals on Thursday held that a family court properly decided that it was barred from permitting a father visitation rights with his daughter once the father's parental rights were terminated.

"The legislature ... has not sanctioned judicial imposition of post-termination contact where parental rights are terminated after a contested proceeding," Judge Susan Read wrote for the court.

The ruling overturns nearly a decade of precedent from the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, which is based in Buffalo, New York, and upholds the decisions of the First and Third departments.

The father in the case, identified in court papers as Ricky ZZ, was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison for an undisclosed crime in early 2008, when his daughter, Hailey, was three months old. Later that year, Tompkins County social workers removed Hailey and her half-sister from their mother's care and placed them with foster parents.

In 2010 the mother surrendered her parental rights, and the county pursued proceedings against the father to terminate his parental rights. Acting State Supreme Court Justice William Ames found that the father had failed to find an adequate alternative to placing Hailey in foster care while he remained in prison, and terminated his parental rights. Ames also denied the father's request for continuing visitation with Hailey, who is now 4 years old.

The Third Department last year affirmed, holding that the county had fulfilled its legal obligation to attempt to return Hailey to her father's care. The court also dismissed the father's request for post-termination visitation rights, finding that the hearing court had no authority to grant them.

The Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed.

To hold otherwise "would appear to be inconsistent with this state's view as expressed by the legislature that (termination) relieves the biological parent of all parental duties toward and of all responsibilities for the adoptive child over whom the parent shall have no rights," Read wrote.

Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and judges Carmen Ciparick, Victoria Graffeo, Theodore Jones and Robert Smith concurred.

In dissent, Judge Eugene Pigott said that the father's rights should not have been terminated and that the ruling effectively bars family courts from fulfilling their responsibility to make decisions in the best interest of children.

"I would prefer to sanction, rather than restrict, the hearing court's exercise of discretion, particularly in the area of family law where flexibility in judicial decision-making is a virtue of the highest order," Pigott wrote.

The Fourth Department, Pigott continued, "had it right" in its 2006 decision in the Matter of Kahlil S, in which the court found that post-termination contact is an issue best left to the discretion of family courts.

The Fourth Department has since remanded a number cases to trial courts for so-called "Kahlil hearings" to determine whether post-termination contact should be allowed.

In a brief submitted on behalf of the father, the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo wrote that the hearings are particularly useful in cases where parental rights are terminated because of mental illness, rather than neglect. But Thursday's decision means the hearings can no longer be held.

"In these situations," Pigott wrote, "the child's attachment to a natural parent who is incapable of looking after a child through no fault or his or her own may be profound, and worthy of preservation."

The case is the Matter of Hailey ZZ, New York State Court of Appeals, No. 103.

For the child: Randolph Kruman.

For the father: Paul Connolly.

For Tompkins County Department of Social Services: Daniel Feder.

(Reporting by Dan Wiessner)

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