Filed 6/24/21 In re K.B. CA2/5

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for 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 FIVE

In re K.B., a Person Coming Under 

the Juvenile Court Law.

___________________________________

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent, 

v.

T.B.,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B308059

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No.

18CCJP08103C)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Annabelle G. Cortez, Judge. Affirmed.

Jack A. Love, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, 

for Defendant and Appellant.

Rodrigo Castro-Silva, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, 

Assistant County Counsel, and Kimberly Roura, Senior Deputy 

County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
2

T.B. (Father) and N.C. (Mother) are the parents of a 

daughter, K.B. (Minor), who was seven weeks old when the Los 

Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services 

(the Department) commenced dependency proceedings. The 

juvenile court found dependency jurisdiction was warranted 

because Mother had a history of substance abuse and was a 

current user of methamphetamine and because Father knew of 

Mother’s substance abuse but failed to protect Minor. Only 

Father appeals the jurisdiction finding against him and we 

consider whether Father’s appeal is justiciable in light of the 

uncontested jurisdiction finding against Mother. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Referral and Minor’s Detention

In February 2020, the Department received a referral 

alleging general neglect of Minor, who was less than a week old 

at the time. In response, a Department social worker interviewed 

Mother and Father at their home.

Mother admitted to using methamphetamine in the past 

and to testing positive eight months earlier, but she claimed she 

had tested negative more recently. Father also admitted to using 

methamphetamine in the past and to testing positive eight 

months earlier, but he too denied any recent use. Mother told the 

social worker that her two older children, who had been removed 

from her care because of her substance abuse, were scheduled to 

be reunited with her later that month. 

Shortly after reuniting with her two older children, 

however, Mother used methamphetamine while on a trip to the 

store to purchase baby formula for Minor. Father was upset after 

learning of Mother’s relapse, but he elected not to immediately 
3

inform the Department, believing that he and Mother could 

address her relapse on their own. Father believed Mother’s 

relapse was a “one time slip up” and she had “learned her lesson.”

Mother, however, eventually admitted to the Department 

that she had relapsed. She explained she thought it happened as 

a result of the stress of caring for Minor and her half siblings. 

The Department had Mother sign a safety plan in which she 

committed to submit to drug testing and to participate in an 

aftercare program. The Department advised Mother that if she 

failed to adhere to the terms of the safety plan, her children 

would be removed from her care.

Mother later did not live up to her safety plan obligations: 

she missed a scheduled drug test and did not attend the aftercare 

program. The Department, pursuant to a court order, removed

Minor and her half siblings from Mother’s care, placed the two 

older siblings in foster care, and, pursuant to Mother’s agreement 

to move out of the family home, placed Minor in Father’s care.

B. The Petition and Post-Petition Investigation

Less than a week after Minor was removed from Mother’s 

care, the Department received another general neglect referral, 

this one arising from Father’s decision to allow Mother to move 

back into the family home. The Department promptly sought an 

order removing Minor from Father’s care. Then, on July 7, 2020, 

the Department filed a two count petition asking the juvenile 

court to assume jurisdiction over Minor under Welfare and 

Institutions Code section 300.

1

1 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the 

Welfare and Institutions Code.
4

The petition alleged Minor was at substantial risk of 

suffering serious physical harm due to Mother’s substance abuse 

and Father’s failure to protect Minor from the dangers arising 

from that abuse. The juvenile court ordered Minor detained from 

Mother, denied the Department’s request to remove Minor from 

Father, and placed Minor in Father’s care under the 

Department’s supervision. Shortly after the detention hearing, 

Mother moved back out of the family home.

In advance of the adjudication hearing, a Department 

dependency investigator interviewed Father. He stated that 

when he and Mother were first together, approximately twelve 

years earlier, they had both used methamphetamine. Father 

conceded he still has urges to use drugs but he said he does not 

give into those cravings because it is not worth it.

2 Father 

acknowledged it was possible Mother would relapse yet again but 

stated he was not concerned she would because she knew she 

“messed up” and was doing everything she could to be reunited 

with her children. Father told the investigator that while he 

believed Mother would benefit from substance abuse counseling, 

it was not essential because “she knows what to do and what not 

to do.” Father also explained that when he allowed Mother back 

into the family home, a decision that prompted the second neglect 

referral and the filing of the dependency petition, neither Minor 

nor the other children were then at home; they were staying with 

Father’s mother at the time. 

Mother refused to make herself available for an interview 

by the dependency investigator. The investigator, however, was 

2 During the dependency proceedings, the results from 

Father’s drug tests were consistently negative. 
5

able to interview Mother’s substance abuse counselor who said

Mother “doesn’t utilize what she learns in class,” “minimizes why 

she uses,” and is “very impatient dealing with long term goals.”

3

 

In June 2020, Mother again tested positive for 

methamphetamine. At the time, Mother was participating in a 

30-day outpatient program following her relapse three months 

earlier. Although she had relapsed twice in a three-month 

period, Mother stated she did not want to complete either an 

inpatient or an outpatient treatment program. Father continued 

to remain in a relationship with Mother and did not rule out the 

possibility of her moving back into the family home. Five weeks 

after her second relapse, and approximately one month before the 

adjudication hearing, Mother once more tested positive for 

methamphetamine.

C. Adjudication and Disposition

In August 2020, the juvenile court held a jurisdiction and 

disposition hearing. Various reports and court documents offered 

by the Department were admitted in evidence and no witnesses 

testified.

The juvenile court dismissed the allegation in the amended 

petition alleging Minor was at risk from Father’s substance abuse

because there was no evidence Father was currently using drugs. 

But the court sustained the petition’s allegation that Minor was 

3 The Department filed a first amended petition alleging

Minor was at risk due to Father’s history of substance abuse, his 

current cravings to use drugs, and his decision to allow Mother 

back into the family home after Minor and his half siblings were 

detained from Mother.
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at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm from

Mother’s substance abuse and from Father’s failure to protect

Minor from that abuse. The court explained Father’s decisionmaking showed “a lack of protective ability,” especially in light of 

Minor and her half siblings’ tender ages.

The juvenile court ordered Minor removed from Mother’s 

custody and care and placed with Father. In addition, the court 

ordered family reunification services for Father and family 

enhancement services for Mother. 

II. DISCUSSION

“‘When a dependency petition alleges multiple grounds for 

its assertion that a minor comes within the dependency court’s 

jurisdiction, a reviewing court can affirm the juvenile court’s 

finding of jurisdiction over the minor if any one of the statutory 

bases for jurisdiction that are enumerated in the petition is 

supported by substantial evidence. In such a case, the reviewing 

court need not consider whether any or all of the other alleged 

statutory grounds for jurisdiction are supported by the evidence.’”

(In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766, 773 (I.J.), quoting In re Alexis E.

(2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 438, 451 (Alexis E.); see also In re I.A. 

(2011) 201 Cal.App.4th 1484, 1491 [dependency law’s primary 

concern is the protection of children] (I.A.).) The juvenile court 

found Minor was at substantial risk of suffering serious physical 

harm from Mother’s methamphetamine abuse and Father 

(appropriately) does not challenge that finding—which alone 

justifies dependency jurisdiction over Minor. We therefore need 

not consider the sufficiency of the evidence to support the 

juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding that is specifically adverse 

to Father. (I.A., supra, at 1492 [“For jurisdictional purposes, it is 
7

irrelevant which parent created [the] circumstances” triggering 

jurisdiction]; see also In re Briana V. (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 297, 

308; In re Alysha S. (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 393, 397 [“[A] 

jurisdictional finding good against one parent is good against

both. More accurately, the minor is a dependent if the actions of 

either parent bring [the minor] within one of the statutory 

definitions of a dependent”].)

Although we affirm the juvenile court’s jurisdiction finding 

for this reason, we nevertheless opt to briefly describe, for 

Father’s benefit, why the sustained dependency allegation as 

against him was supported by substantial evidence. (Alexis E., 

supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at 451 [affirming finding of jurisdiction 

over the minor because of an uncontested basis for jurisdiction 

but “not[ing]” the court’s view on the challenged finding “for [the] 

Father’s benefit”]; see also I.J., supra, 56 Cal.4th at 773.)

“Section 300, subdivision (b)(1), authorizes a juvenile court 

to exercise dependency jurisdiction over a child if the ‘child has 

suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, 

serious physical harm or illness, as a result of the failure or 

inability of his or her parent . . . to adequately supervise or 

protect the child, or . . . by the inability of the parent . . . to 

provide regular care for the child due to the 

parent’s . . . substance abuse.’ (§ 300, subd. (b)(1).)” (In re L.W. 

(2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 840, 848.) There is no dispute that Mother 

suffered from an unresolved substance abuse problem—one of 

which Father was well aware. Notwithstanding Mother’s 

ongoing struggle with methamphetamine, which posed an 

obvious risk to Minor’s safety, Father did not report Mother’s 

initial relapse to the Department, allowed her to return to the 

family home in contravention of the conditions of Minor’s initial 
8

removal from Mother’s care, and minimized the need for a 

rehabilitation program at the same time Mother was missing 

drug tests and suffering further relapses. This is ample evidence 

of a failure to protect justifying the adverse section 300 

jurisdiction finding against Father.

DISPOSITION

The juvenile court’s jurisdiction finding is affirmed. 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

BAKER, J.

We concur:

RUBIN, P. J.

MOOR, J.