Filed 7/29/19

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

In re E.W., a Person Coming Under 

the Juvenile Court Law.

 B295083

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

F.D.,

Defendant and Appellant.

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. 18CCJP05284)

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County. Kristen Byrdsong, Juvenile Court Referee. Affirmed.

Nicole Williams, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

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

Assistant County Counsel, and Stephanie Jo Reagan, Principal 

Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

__________________________
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The mother in this dependency case, F.D., appeals from the 

court’s orders declaring her son, E.W., a dependent of the court; 

removing the child from the care, custody and control of the 

mother; releasing the child to the home of the father; terminating 

jurisdiction with a custody order awarding the father sole legal 

and physical custody; and ordering that the mother have no 

visitation with the child. 

We need not recite the circumstances that led to the court’s 

orders or the evidence that supports the orders. Mother’s sole 

claim on appeal is that, under the Uniform Child Custody 

Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA; Fam. Code, § 3400 

et seq.),1 the court had no jurisdiction to make the orders. 

Mother is mistaken.

Mother and father are divorced. Mother lives in South 

Carolina and father resides in Los Angeles. Under a Family Law 

Order issued in California dated January 2, 2014, the parents 

shared joint legal custody of E.W. The child lived with mother in 

South Carolina and, among other visitation arrangements, spent 

nine weeks during the summers with his father in Los Angeles. 

The circumstances precipitating the removal of the child from his 

mother (allegations of physical abuse) were disclosed by the child 

shortly before he was to return to South Carolina in August 2018, 

when he was 13 years old. 

At the detention hearing on August 21, 2018, mother’s 

counsel told the court “there may be a UCCJEA issue here,” 

because “the child resided in South Carolina between 2014 to the 

present.” Father’s counsel observed there was no UCCJEA issue, 

because the Orange County court issued the January 2, 2014 

Family Law Order; there was no other order by any other state; 

 

1 Further statutory references are to the Family Code.
3

and California has existing and continuing jurisdiction. The 

court responded by saying, “The court does not find that UCCJEA 

applies to this case.” 

On appeal, mother argues that “[t]he court was wrong,” 

that California was not the child’s “home state” under the 

UCCJEA when the dependency proceeding began, and that the 

court should have conducted an evidentiary hearing to determine 

whether South Carolina or California was the child’s home state.

Mother has misconstrued the UCCJEA. It does apply, in 

the sense that it governs the jurisdiction of a California court to 

make a child custody determination, but in this case its 

application plainly results in jurisdiction in California. The

UCCJEA specifies the circumstances under which a California 

court “has jurisdiction to make an initial child custody 

determination” (§ 3421, subd. (a), italics added), and this depends 

on the home state of the child. As pertinent here, a California 

court “has jurisdiction to make an initial child custody 

determination only if . . . . [¶] . . . [t]his state is the home state of 

the child on the date of the commencement of the proceeding 

. . . .” (§ 3421, subd. (a)(1).) “ ‘Home state’ means the state in 

which a child lived with a parent . . . for at least six consecutive 

months immediately before the commencement of a child custody 

proceeding.” (§ 3402, subd. (g).) 

The UCCJEA further specifies that a California court that 

has made a custody determination consistent with section 3421 

“has exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over the determination” 

until either of two delineated circumstances occur: “(1) A court 

of this state determines that neither the child, nor the child and 

one parent, nor the child and a person acting as a parent have a 

significant connection with this state and that substantial 
4

evidence is no longer available in this state concerning the child’s 

care, protection, training, and personal relationships. [¶] 

(2) A court of this state or a court of another state determines 

that the child, the child’s parents, and any person acting as a 

parent do not presently reside in this state.” (§ 3422, subd. (a)(1)

& (2).) Neither of those circumstances has occurred in this case.

Here, the dependency court’s custody determination was 

not the “initial child custody determination.” (§ 3421, subd. (a).) 

The initial child custody determination was made by the court in 

Orange County on January 2, 2014. Mother does not suggest, nor 

could she, that California was not the child’s home state when 

the initial custody determination was made. In short, in this case 

the child’s “home state” when the dependency proceeding began 

does not matter, because a California court had already made the 

initial child custody determination, consistent with section 3421, 

in January 2014, and California has exclusive, continuing 

jurisdiction.

In her reply brief, mother alters course and contends 

California courts were divested of jurisdiction under the first of 

the two occurrences described in section 3422, subdivision (a), 

under which continuing jurisdiction terminates. Specifically, she 

claims that, under section 3422, subdivision (a)(1), “substantial 

evidence” concerning the allegations of her physical abuse of the 

child existed in South Carolina, not California. This contention

has no merit either. Even if it were so, all the conditions 

specified in section 3422, subdivision (a)(1) – not just the 

substantial evidence prong – must be met before the court’s 

continuing jurisdiction may be terminated. Thus:

“California courts must retain continuing jurisdiction 

unless both conditions are met that cause that jurisdiction to be 
5

terminated: neither the child, nor the child and the parent have 

a significant connection with the state and substantial evidence 

is no longer available in this state.” (Grahm v. Superior Court

(2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 1193, 1199; id. at p. 1200 [“the original 

state retains continuing exclusive jurisdiction as long as the 

parent who is exercising visitation rights still lives in that state 

and the relationship between that parent and the child has not 

deteriorated to the point at which the exercise of jurisdiction 

would be unreasonable”].) Mother does not suggest any 

deterioration in the relationship between father and child, and 

the evidence is entirely to the contrary. The conditions for 

termination of California’s exclusive, continuing jurisdiction 

clearly have not occurred in this case.

In sum, “[t]he UCCJEA takes a strict ‘first in time’ 

approach to jurisdiction.” (In re Marriage of Paillier (2006) 

144 Cal.App.4th 461, 469.) The rule, subject to exceptions that do 

not apply here, is that once the court of an “appropriate state” –

one having jurisdiction under section 3421, subdivision (a) – has 

made a child custody determination, “that court obtains 

‘exclusive, continuing jurisdiction . . . .’ ” (In re Marriage of 

Paillier, at p. 469.) That is the case here.

DISPOSITION

The orders are affirmed.

GRIMES, J.

WE CONCUR:

BIGELOW, P. J. STRATTON, J.