Filed 12/3/19

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

In re I.I. et al., Persons Coming 

Under the Juvenile Court Law.

 B298184

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

M.I., 

Defendant and Appellant;

I.I. et al., Minors,

Respondents.

 (Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No. 19CCJP01193)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles

County, Martha A. Matthews, Judge. Affirmed.

Megan Turkat-Schirn, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant M.I.
2

Mary C. Wickham, County Counsel, Kristine P. Miles, 

Assistant County Counsel, and Sarah Vesecky, Deputy County 

Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent Los Angeles County 

Department of Children and Family Services.

Neale Gold, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for 

Respondents I.I. and M.I., Jr., Minors.

_________________________________

Appellant M.I. (Father) challenges the juvenile court’s 

jurisdictional order and findings that his children, I.I. (born 

in 2016) and M.I., Jr. (born in 2017) (the Minors), are persons

described by Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, 

subdivision (f),1 based on the juvenile court’s previously sustained 

petition finding that the Minors’ mother, R.R. (Mother), and Father 

caused the death of a child through abuse or neglect. Father argues 

that, because the court found there was no current risk to the 

children, the court erred in finding that the Minors were persons 

described under section 300, subdivision (f). As we explain, the 

court is required to sustain a petition and assert jurisdiction if the 

facts described in section 300, subdivision (f) exist. And because it 

was uncontroverted that, in the earlier case, the juvenile court had 

found Mother and Father caused the death of their child through 

abuse or neglect, the court did not err in asserting jurisdiction here. 

Accordingly, we affirm.

 

1 All statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions 

Code.
3

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND2

The family consisted of Father, Mother, the Minors, the 

Minors’ siblings (twins Ad.R. and A.R. (born in 2010) (collectively 

the twins)) and the Minors’ half siblings, R.V. (born in 2006), 

S.V. (born in 2007), and S.R. (born in 2013).

3

A. Prior Child Welfare History

In the summer of 2010, Mother gave birth to the twins. 

In November 2010, Los Angeles County Department of Children 

and Family Services (DCFS) received a referral that Mother 

had taken the four-month-old twins to the hospital and that 

medical personnel had determined they were suffering from 

injuries consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome. DCFS 

investigated and filed a juvenile dependency petition on behalf of 

the twins and their half siblings, R.V. and S.R., under section 300, 

subdivisions (b), (e), and (f), alleging that the twins were suffering 

from severe brain injuries consistent with nonaccidental trauma 

and that all four children were at substantial risk of harm based 

on the twins’ injuries. Twin Ad.R. died in 2011 as a result of his 

injuries.

 

2 Because Father’s only contention is whether the court 

properly asserted jurisdiction, we recite only the facts necessary 

to the resolution of that contention.

3 Neither Mother nor the Minors’ half siblings are parties 

to the appeal. R.R. is the Mother of all of the children. Appellant 

is the father of the Minors and the twins. Mother was previously 

married to R.V., Sr., who is the father of two of the Minors’ 

half siblings, R.V. and S.V., and is not a party to this appeal. The

father of half sibling S.R. is deceased.
4

The court detained the children from the parents.4 The 

court subsequently sustained the petition, continued the foster 

care placement of the twin, A.R., and ordered reunification services 

for the family.

5 Mother and Father failed to reunify with A.R.

In 2014, their parental rights to A.R. were terminated, and the

foster parents adopted A.R. 

B. Current Proceedings

The parents ended their relationship. Thereafter, Mother 

had a relationship with another man, which resulted in the birth 

of half sibling, S.R., in 2013. Mother and Father subsequently 

reunited, and the Minors, I.I. in 2016 and M.I. in 2017, were 

born as a result of that relationship. The parents, the Minors,

and half sibling S.R. lived together. Half siblings R.V. and S.V. 

periodically stayed with them.

On November 28, 2018, the family came to the attention of

DCFS again when DCFS received a referral alleging that Mother 

took two-year-old I.I. to the emergency room because she had 

a vaginal rash. Although the examining physician suspected 

that the child had vaginal herpes and thus was a possible victim 

of sexual abuse, subsequent examinations revealed that a yeast 

infection caused the rash and that the child had no signs of abuse. 

DCFS found no safety issues with the children other than the 

concern relating to the earlier sustained petition.

The juvenile court granted DCFS’s request for an order 

authorizing the removal of the children. On February 22, 2019, 

DCFS filed a petition under section 300, subdivisions (b), (f), and (j), 

on behalf of the Minors and their half siblings. The petition alleged

 

4 R.V. and S.V. were placed with their father.

5 Here, Father does not challenge that the prior dependency

findings concerning the twins are binding in the current proceeding.
5

identical counts under each subdivision that: In November 

2010, Mother physically abused the children’s now deceased 

four-month-old sibling Ad.R. by violently shaking the child 

and causing severe brain injuries; that Father knew of Mother’s 

abuse and failed to protect Ad.R.; that parental rights to twin

A.R. had been terminated; and that Mother’s and Father’s physical

abuse of the twins and their failure to protect placed the children 

at risk of serious physical harm.

At the February 25, 2019 detention hearing, the juvenile 

court found a prima facie case for asserting jurisdiction based 

on the findings of the earlier case and ordered the children 

released to their respective parents. In April 2019, DCFS filed 

a jurisdiction/disposition report. DCFS assessed that the children 

were at risk of substantial future harm because of the family’s prior 

child welfare history. DCFS recommended that the juvenile court 

declare all the children dependents of the court, remove them from 

parental custody, and order reunification services and monitored 

visits for the parents.

In April 2019, at the combined jurisdiction/disposition 

hearing, the court found there was no evidence that any of 

the children subject to the current petition had been abused 

or neglected or were, independent of the findings of the earlier 

petition, at current risk of abuse or neglect. Nonetheless, the court 

determined that under section 300, subdivision (f), it was required 

to sustain the petition if “the child’s parents or guardian caused the

death of a child through abuse or neglect.” And, because the court 

found that in the earlier action Mother and Father had caused the 

death of Ad.R. through abuse and neglect, it sustained the petition, 

asserted jurisdiction over all the children, declared S.R. and the 
6

Minors dependents of the court, maintained them in parental 

custody, and ordered Mother and Father to participate in services.6

Father timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

Father argues that the juvenile court erred in concluding that 

it was required to sustain the section 300, subdivision (f) allegation

in the petition.

7 He maintains the dependency court had the 

discretion to dismiss the section 300, subdivision (f) allegation and 

should have done so because there was no evidence that the Minors 

had been abused or neglected or were at risk of harm based on the 

sustained allegations in the prior proceeding involving the twins. 

As we explain, the juvenile court correctly understood the extent of 

its legal authority and properly exercised it. 

Section 300 provides in pertinent part: “A child who comes 

within any of the following descriptions is within the jurisdiction 

of the juvenile court which may adjudge that person to be a 

dependent child of the court: [¶] . . . [¶] (f) The child’s parent 

or guardian caused the death of another child through abuse 

or neglect.” (§ 300, subd. (f).) The California Supreme Court 

in In re Ethan C. (2012) 54 Cal.4th 610, recognized, inter alia, that 

section 300, subdivision (f) does not require evidence or findings 

that the particular circumstances of the child’s fatality demonstrate 

a current risk of substantial harm to surviving children in the 

parent’s care. (In re Ethan C., supra, 54 Cal.4th at pp. 637–639.) 

 

6 As to siblings, R.V. and S.V., the court terminated the 

case as to them with a home-of-parents order. The propriety of 

the orders concerning R.V. and S.V. have not been challenged on 

appeal.

7 Father challenges only the court’s jurisdiction order; he 

has not asserted any errors with respect to the court’s disposition 

orders.
7

The Court in In re Ethan C. acknowledged that the Legislature 

has determined that if section 300, subdivision (f) facts exist, that 

is risk enough to warrant jurisdiction. (See In re Ethan C., supra,

at p. 638 [observing that section 300, subdivision (f) reflects that 

a parent’s “neglectful or abusive responsibility for a child fatality 

may inherently give rise to a serious concern for the current safety 

and welfare of living children under the parent’s . . . care, and 

may thereby justify the juvenile court’s intervention on their 

behalf without the need for separate evidence of findings about 

the current risk of such harm” (italics omitted)].) Thus, even in 

the absence of evidence of actual harm or current or future risk 

of harm to surviving children, the juvenile court must sustain the

petition if it finds the section 300, subdivision (f) facts exist. (See 

In re Ethan C., supra, at pp. 637–639.)

Father’s argument to the contrary conflates the requirement 

under section 300 that the court asserts jurisdiction if it finds

a section 300, subdivision (f) allegation true, with the court’s 

discretion to adjudge the minor a dependent of the court under 

section 360. Where, as here, there is uncontroverted evidence to 

support the allegation, the court’s decision to find a section 300, 

subdivision (f) allegation to be true, and establish jurisdiction 

is not discretionary; the court is required to assert jurisdiction. 

(§ 300.) At the dispositional phase of the proceedings, however, the 

court has discretion to adjudge the minor a dependent of the court

and to enter dispositional orders. (See § 360, subd. (d) [“if the court 

finds that the child is a person described by Section 300, it may 

order and adjudge the child to be a dependent child of the court”

(italics added)]; see also In re Ethan C., supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 637.)
8

Here, the record discloses the court understood the 

statutory scheme and In re Ethan C. Accordingly, Father has not 

demonstrated legal error concerning the court’s order sustaining 

the section 300, subdivision (f) allegation and exercising its

jurisdiction over the Minors.

DISPOSITION

The order is affirmed.

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION.

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

We concur.

JOHNSON, J.

WEINGART, J.*

 

*

 Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the 

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

Constitution.