Filed 11/1/21 In re L.A. CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions 

not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion 

has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

In re L.A., et al., Persons Coming 

Under the Juvenile Court Law,

 B310329

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. 20CCJP04574)

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent

v.

R.A.,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County, Emma Castro, Judge Pro Tempore. Affirmed.

Jacob I. Olson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, 

for Defendant and Appellant.

Rodrigo A. Castro-Silva, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,

Assistant County Counsel, and David Michael Miller, Deputy 

County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
2

R.A. (Mother) challenges the case plan the juvenile 

court ordered for her in dependency proceedings regarding her 

three adopted children. We conclude the court did not abuse 

its discretion by requiring R.A. to participate in both individual 

and anger management counseling. Accordingly, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

In 2014, Mother and her husband1 adopted L.A. 

(born 2004), J.A. (born 2005), and A.A. (born 2009) following 

dependency proceedings and failed reunification efforts with the

children’s biological parents. Mother is the children’s biological 

great aunt.

In August 2020, the Los Angeles Department of Children 

and Family Services (DCFS) received two referrals regarding 

then-16-year-old L.A. The first referral alleged that Mother 

searched for a cell phone Mother believed L.A. was hiding by 

putting her hands in L.A.’s underwear and putting her fingers

in L.A.’s vagina. It further alleged that when Mother eventually 

found the phone, she grabbed L.A.’s hair, threw her to the floor, 

and permitted Mother’s adult son to kick L.A. in the back. 

Following the incident, L.A. ran away to her uncle’s home in 

San Diego.

The second referral alleged that L.A. feared for her safety 

after returning to Mother’s home and was contemplating running 

away again. It further alleged that Mother had been coaching 

L.A. and her siblings not to tell anyone, especially social workers 

and police, about what was going on in the home.

1 Mother’s husband is not a party to this appeal. 
3

In August 2020, DCFS initiated dependency proceedings 

by filing a Welfare and Institutions Code section 3002 petition 

alleging that Mother had been physically abusing the children 

for years. Specifically, the petition alleged the events reflected 

in the first referral, as well as that Mother regularly abused 

L.A. “by striking the child’s face, grabbing the child by the hair 

and dragging the child by her hair on to the floor[,]” that Mother 

“struck the child’s face and caused the child to sleep on the floor 

without a blanket[,]” and that Mother had on numerous occasions 

“pulled the child’s hair, struck the child’s arms, legs and feet with 

objects including spoons, a pan and a broom” and “forced the 

children to kneel for extended periods of times, up to six hours.”

The petition alleged Mother similarly abused L.A.’s siblings, 

J.A. and A.A., on a regular basis. Mother submitted to DCFS’s 

recommendation that the children be detained from her (and her 

husband’s) care.

At the combined jurisdiction/disposition hearing, the 

court sustained the petition. Neither Mother nor any other 

party has challenged the court’s jurisdictional findings, and 

DCFS presented extensive evidence at the hearing to support 

those findings. This evidence included consistent reports from 

all three children that Mother’s physical abuse had been regular

and ongoing for years. The children were initially hesitant to 

speak with DCFS about Mother’s abuse, and only shared it when 

interviewed in private, explaining that they feared retaliation by 

Mother. In addition, Mother told J.A. that, if he reported what 

2 All further statutory references and citations are to the 

Welfare and Institutions Code. 
4

was happening, he and his siblings would be placed in separate 

foster homes.

Mother’s physical abuse sometimes left injuries on the 

children, such as bruises or welts on their heads where Mother 

struck them with a pan or a broomstick, and bleeding scabs 

on J.A.’s ears from Mother pulling on them. As to the incident 

of Mother inappropriately touching L.A.’s vagina and breasts, 

several witnesses described how Mother, in an effort to find and 

retrieve a cell phone from L.A., placed her hands under L.A.’s 

clothing and ultimately placed her fingers in L.A.’s vagina and 

“continued moving her hand in and around the child’s vaginal 

area,” all while yelling and cursing at L.A. L.A. repeatedly asked 

Mother to stop and tried to move away during this incident, but 

Mother “forcibly held [L.A.]”

In addition to evidence of physical abuse, DCFS presented 

extensive evidence of Mother degrading and being cruel to the 

children in various ways. For example, when L.A. was crying 

after the incident during which Mother inappropriately touched 

L.A.’s vaginal area, Mother ridiculed her for crying and took 

photographs of L.A. in distress. Mother regularly told all three 

children she had never wanted to adopt them, excluded them 

from family events, called them names and yelled at them, 

blamed and punished them for things Mother’s biological children 

had done, and told them they were only part of the family as a 

source of income. On one occasion, when Mother believed the 

children had eaten some candy, Mother instructed J.A. to lie

down on the kitchen floor while Mother was holding a knife

and told him she was going to cut him open to retrieve the candy. 

On this same occasion, Mother ran a knife along A.A.’s chest and 
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stomach and poked A.A. with the knife while making similar 

threats.

During interviews and in her testimony (which the 

juvenile court expressly found was not credible), Mother 

consistently denied all allegations against her—and any form 

of corporal punishment whatsoever—claiming that maternal 

relatives had conspired with the children to falsely accuse her 

of abuse, and that L.A.’s “behavioral problems” were the source 

of the family’s dysfunction. Nevertheless, as noted, Mother 

has not challenged the court’s jurisdictional findings based 

on physical abuse. 

At disposition, the juvenile court declared the children 

dependents of the court, removed them from Mother, and 

ordered Mother to participate in family reunification services. 

These included parenting classes, individual counseling, 

anger management counseling, and conjoint counseling with 

the children. The court denied Mother’s request that she be 

allowed to participate in either individual counseling or anger 

management counseling instead of both. The court explained 

that the nature of the abuse—including specifically, “[t]he use 

of implements to strike children and leave marks on children’s 

bodies on a regular and ongoing basis, [and] the use of physical 

punishment by having children kneel outside on hard surfaces 

such as cement or patio floors for extended periods of time”—

indicated Mother had anger management issues “towards these 

children” that could not be addressed with individual counseling 

alone.

Mother filed a timely notice of appeal challenging the 

court’s jurisdictional and dispositional orders.
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DISCUSSION

On appeal, Mother challenges only the case plan contained 

in the dispositional orders. “We review the juvenile court’s 

disposition case plan for an abuse of discretion.” (See In re I.R. 

(2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 510, 522.) Mother contends the court

abused its discretion by ordering her to participate in both anger 

management and individual counseling, because the orders were

“overly burdensome and contrary to her family’s needs.” We 

disagree and affirm. 

Section 362, subdivision (d) authorizes the juvenile court 

to “direct any reasonable orders to the parents” of a dependent 

child as the court deems necessary and proper to ensure 

appropriate care, supervision, custody, conduct, maintenance, 

and support of the child, including orders containing “a direction 

to participate in a counseling or education program,” provided 

that the “program in which a parent or guardian is required to 

participate shall be designed to eliminate those conditions that 

led to the court’s finding that the child is a person described 

by Section 300.” (§ 362, subd. (d).) Thus, although section 362 

grants juvenile courts broad discretion to fashion family case 

plan orders, such orders must be both “reasonable” and tailored 

to addressing the issues leading to juvenile court jurisdiction.

(Ibid.; see In re D.P. (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 1058, 1071; In re 

Nolan W. (2009) 45 Cal.4th 1217, 1229.) A case plan “ ‘ “must 

be appropriate for each family and be based on the unique facts 

relating to that family.” ’ ” (In re Basilio T. (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 

155, 172, superseded by statute on another point in In re 

Lucero L. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1227, 1239−1242.)

Mother contends that requiring her to participate in anger 

management counseling was “not [a requirement] designed to 
7

eliminate those conditions that led to the court’s jurisdiction”

(boldface omitted), because the abuse leading to juvenile court 

jurisdiction “did not appear to be fueled by uncontrollable anger, 

but rather, was the result of poor parenting skills that appeared 

to have gone on for too long. . . . While appellant was likely often 

angry when enacting poor parenting decisions, anger issues were 

not a condition that led to dependency jurisdiction in this case.” 

Mother offers no basis for this characterization of the record, 

with which we disagree. The record evidences consistent acts 

of physical abuse, the violent and cruel nature of which alone 

provides a basis on which the court reasonably could have 

concluded that these acts were at least in part the result of

Mother’s inability to manage her anger towards the children. 

Further supporting this conclusion is evidence that Mother 

constantly yelled at the children and called them names. 

Mother further argues that the case plan requirement 

that she participate in both anger management and counseling 

was “overly burdensome” because counseling alone would be 

“sufficient to assist [her] in eliminating the conditions that 

led to dependency jurisdiction.” This argument fails for the 

reasons discussed above, as the court did not err in concluding 

individual counseling alone would be insufficient. Mother 

identifies no other reason why the court-ordered case plan was 

overly burdensome. In any event, although “[j]uvenile courts

should be mindful of the burdens their disposition orders impose 

on parents already grappling with difficult conditions and

circumstances[,] . . . the paramount concern always must be

the child’s best interests, and we cannot reverse a disposition 

order reasonably fashioned to eliminate the conditions that 

led to dependency jurisdiction, no matter how burdensome its 
8

requirements may seem from the parent’s perspective.” (In re 

D.P., supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1071−1072.)

The court acted within its discretion in ordering Mother 

participate in anger management in addition to individual 

counseling as part of her case plan. 

DISPOSITION

The court’s dispositional orders are affirmed. 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

We concur:

CHANEY, J.

CRANDALL, J.*

* Judge of the San Luis Obispo Superior Court, assigned 

by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the 

California Constitution.