Filed 11/18/ 21 In re Sarai P. CA2/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 TWO

In re SARAI P. et al

. , P erson s Coming Under the Juvenile
Court Law. B 3 10977 (Super. Ct. No.
19CCJP03500C

- F ) Los Angeles County

LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF
CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

DAMARY P

.,

Defendant and Appellant.2 APPEAL from orders o f the Superior Court of Los Angeles County

, Tamara Hall

, Judge . Affirmed

.

Janette Freeman Cochran , under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rodrigo A. Castro

- Silva , County Counsel, Kim Nemoy

, Assistant County Counsel, and William D. Thetford

, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

* * * * * * Damary P. (mother) allowed her husband , Joel P. (father),
to have unrestricted access to mother’s four children on
numerous occasions in violation of court o rders restricting
father’s contact with the children . The juvenile court sustained allegations in various petitions as to all four children because mother, by violating the court’s order s , “created a detrimental and endangering home environment” for the c hildren and thereby placed them “at risk of serious physical harm, damage, danger, and failure to protect.” Mother appealed. Although mother’s entire appeal could properly be dismissed as moot , we exercise our discretion to consider the merits, and concl ude that substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s findings. Accordingly, we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Facts
A. The family Father and mother married in May 2017. They have two children together

— Sarai P. (born April 2018) and J ared P. (born January 2020). Mother also has two older children by another3

father

— Bryan M. (born December 2006) and Jaime M. (born August 2011).
B. Father’s acts of domestic violence One night in April 2019, father straddled mother’s body
while on the ir bed, strangled her until she lost consciousness, and then slapped her 10 times on the cheeks. Sarai was awake and on the bed the whole time. When police arrived, they noticed
redness on mother’s face. Mother told police that this was not the
first ti me father had been physical with her. Bryan confirmed
that this was not the first such incident.
II. Procedural Background
A

. Father’s contact with the children is restricted

1. As to Sarai, Bryan, and Jaime
On June 3
, 2019, the Los Angeles County D epartment of Children and Family Services (the Department) filed a petition asking the juvenile court to exercise dependency jurisdiction over Sarai, Bryan, and Jaime. 1 The petition alleged the facts underlying the April 2019 incident, and invoked jurisdi ction on two grounds

— namely, that mother and father’s “history of engaging in violent verbal and physical altercations in the presence of the children” created (1) “substantial risk that [they] will suffer[] serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally upon the child [ ren] by the child [ ren ] ’ s parent or guardian” (thereby rendering jurisdiction appropriate under Welfare and
Institutions Code section 3 00, subdivision (a)), 2 and (2) “substantial risk that the child[ren] will suffer[] serious physical

1 Jared was not yet born at this time

.

2 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.4

harm . . . as a result of the failure . . . of . . . [their] parent or legal guardian to supervise or protect [them]” (thereby rendering jurisdiction appropriate under section 300, subdivision (b) ). In an August 13, 2019 order, the juvenile court sustained
the allegations as to mother and father

. The children were
removed from both parents ; Sarai was placed in a foster home ; and Bryan and Jaime were placed with their father

. The court ordered father to have only monitored visits with Sarai, and
mother was not to be present during those visits. The court also
ordered father to have n o contact with Bryan. Father’s case plan
included a 52

- week domestic violence c lass and individual counseling; mother also had to participate in a domestic violence support group and counseling. Father appealed the juvenile court’s jurisdictional findings, and we affirmed in an unpublished opinion. ( In re Sarai P. (Apr

. 30, 2020, B300024).) Mother did not appeal

.

2. As to Jared On March 16, 2020, the Department filed a pe tition asking the juvenile court to exercise dependency jurisdiction over then

two

- month

- old Jared. The petition made the same allegations regarding the April 2019 incident, invoked juri sdiction on the same grounds as those asserted in the sibling s’ petit ion (that is,
under section 300, subdivisions (a) and (b)) , and added an additional ground

— namely, that Jared’s siblings have been “neglected” and “there is a substantial risk that [Jared] will be . . . neglected” (thereby ren dering jurisdiction appropriat e under

s e ction 300, subdivision (j))

. Father contested parentage over Jared, and on March 20, 2020, the juvenile court ordered father not to have any contact5

with Jared pending paternity results. Jared remained in
mother’s care. Father was not gran ted monitored visits with Jared until October 29, 2020, when his paternity was confirmed.
B. The children are returned to mother’s care Sarai, Bryan, and Jaime were returned to mother’s care in February 2020. The juvenile court terminated dependency j urisdiction over Bryan and Jaime in September 2020.
C

. Father ’s dangerous conduct continues Throughout the proceedings, father denied the April 2019 incident, made light of his domestic violence classes, and continued to engage in violent c onduct.
Father denied ever touching mother and claimed that the
“whole case” was a “ conspiracy against him set up by ” mother. During individual counseling sessions, father referred to himself
as the victim of domestic violence rather than the aggressor.
Fath er complained that his domestic violence classes were “a waste of time” and “ money ” because, according to father, he is an “alpha male” who “will n ot become submissive to anyone ” and
the classes “take the man away from you. ” Father also claimed
that heari ng about other participants’ experiences during the
classes made him “ mo re violent.” Indeed, i n Apri l 2020, father was arrested for brandishing a firearm when he became “irate” during an argument with
another man who blocked father’s path while he was d riving. During his interactions with the Department ’s social workers

, father behaved in a “controlling, argumentative, and defensive”

manner.6 D. Mother allows father unrestricted contact with
the children
M other ignored the court order s expressly re stricting
father ’s contact with the children. The Department reported in January 2020 that Bryan and Jaime “continue to be extremely fearful” of father and had seen pictures of father with Sarai on mother’s phone

. The Department expressed concern in March 2020 that mother and father were “minimizing the no contact order” because mother was allowing
father to sleep in the family home

. Around that time

, a person named “Joe” called the police from mother’s address reporting that he was punched by an other man ; father attempted to explain that someone must have falsely used h is name, but the police call log identifie d father’s phone number as the caller

. In summer 2020, mother, father, and the children went on a trip to
a river.
On S eptember 24 , 20 20, father posted photos to his Facebook profile of Sarai and father posing on a motorcycle in mother’s backyard. When the Department questioned the parents about this unsupervised contact between father and
S arai, they provided inconsistent explanations. Father stated that he sees the children “every day” and that mother’s neighbor
is his monitor. Mother denied ever giving father access to the
children. She explained that her neighbor watches the children
on the w eekends while she works and that

, becau se the neighbor
and f ather are friends , th e neighbor must have allowed father to

see Sarai. Mother also stated that when she confronted father about the photographs, he told her that he went to visit the neighbor to show him the motorcycle father just bou ght and the neighbor happened to be watching the children at mother’s7

house. The neighbor provided yet another version of the story

— he stated that he watches Sarai and Jared on the weekends but
that the children receive no visits and he does not monitor a ny visits in mother’s home. Despite telling the Department that she had no plans to reconcile with father, m other confirmed in January 2021 that she was pregnant with another child by father ; that child was born in April 2021

. E

. The D epartment’s further petitions
On October 29 and December 9 , 2020
, the Department filed
three separate petitions as to mother’s four children. Each petition was based on the same allegation: Mother violated court
orders on “ multiple prior occasions” by allowing fath er to have “unmonitored contact and unlimited access to the children,” which “endangers the child[ren]’s physical health and safety and places the child[ren] at risk of serious physical harm, damage

, and failure to protect .” However, because each child wa s differently situated, the petitions were procedurally distinct : (1) as to Sarai, the Department filed a supplemental petition under
section 387 asking the juvenile court to change the prior disposition and remove Sarai from mother’s care; (2) as to Brya n and Jaime, the Department filed an original petition asking the juvenile court to exert dependency jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b); and (3) as to Jared, the Department filed a fi rst amended petition adding another basis for dependency jur isdiction under section 300, subdivision (b)

. B. The juvenile court’s orders On February 24, 2 021, the juvenile court held a combined adjudication and disposition hearing on the various petitions.8 The court made several findings on the petitions: ( 1) as to Sarai, the court sustained the supplemental allegation under
section 387 that mother’s violation of the court orders restricting father’s access to the children endangered Sarai and placed her “at risk of serious physical harm, damage and danger” ; (2) as to Bryan and Jaime, the court sustained the allegation under section 300, subdivision (b)

, that mother “created a detrimental and endangering home environment for the children” by violating
the court orders restricting father’s access to the childr en, which placed Bryan and Jaime “at risk of serious physical harm, damage, danger, and failure to protect” ; and (3) as to Jared, the court sustained the allegation under section 300, subdivision (j), regarding the April 2019 domestic violence incident and the allegation under section 300, subdivision (b), regarding mother’s
violation of the court orders restricting father’s access to the children; the court did not exert jurisdiction over Jared based on subdivisions (a) and (b) of sect ion 300 regarding the April 2019
incident

. The court explained that mother’s “blatant disregard” for the orders restricting father’s visits was “willful.” The court emphasized that the order s were “put in place for the very serious allegations” regarding father “in flicting domestic violence upon the mother,” yet mother “ has consistently . . . minimized”
that “violent conduct” and father “ has indicated that he’s not going to follow any court orders” because “[h]e is alpha.” The

court went on to find that mother’s cl aim that she had no desire
to reconcile with father was not “credible” because she made the same representation before J ared was born and was making it again despite being pregnant with her third child by father.9 The juvenile c ourt removed all four chil dren from mother, placed Sarai and Jared in foster care, placed Bryan and Jaime
with their father , and granted mother monitored visits

. C. Mother appeals Mother filed this timely appeal.
D. Postappeal events On May 25, 2021, the Department filed a subsequent petition under section 342 requesting that the juvenile court exert dependency jurisdiction over Bryan and Jaime based on
new facts or circumstances

— namely, that they were physically abused by their father. The juvenile court sustained the
all egations, but found that mother was a nonoffending parent
and placed Bryan and Jaime with mother.
On June 24, 2021, the juvenile court returned Sarai and
Jared to mother’s care.
DISCUSSION
M o ther challenges the juvenile court’s February 24, 2021 juri sdictional findings and dispositional orders. Because the
children have been returned to mother’s care , we previously
dismissed as moot that portion of mother’s appeal challenging the dispositional orders. 3 While the remainder of mother’s appeal is fraug ht with defects of nonjusticiability, forfeiture , and mootness,
we elect to exercise our discretion to c onsider the merits of mother’s challenges to the juvenile court’s jurisdictional findings
and conclude that substantial evidence supports those findings

.

3 Father also appealed, but we dismissed the entirety of father’s a ppeal as moot in that same order

.10

I. Defects in Mother’s Appeal In dependency proceedings, the basic pleading device to assert a child falls within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction is a petition. “‘It may be [(1)] an original petition (§ 332), [(2)] a subsequent petiti on for children who are already dependents when there are “new facts” or circumstances that bring them within a category of section 300 “other than those under which the original petition was sustained” (§ 342), or [(3)] a supplemental petition when there are facts which indicate that a previous disposition is not appropriate (§ 387).’” ( In re A.B. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 1358, 1364 ( A.B. ).) Each of these three types of petitions is at issue in this

case, a nd their unique function s establish that mother’s appeal is not justici able, is forfeited, or is moot. 4
A. Mother’s appeal as to Jared First, mother’s challenge to the juvenile court’s exertion of jurisdiction over Jared is not justic iable.
The c ourt exerted jurisdiction over J ared under
subdivision s (b) and (j) of section 300

, based on mother allowing
father unrestricted access to the children and based on the April 2019 domestic violence incident, respectively. On appeal, mother challenges only the first basis

. A single basis for jurisdiction is enough to support the exertion of jurisdiction over a child. ( In re
A.F. (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 283, 289; In re M.W. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 1444, 1452.) Thus , mother’s challenge to the jurisdictional finding und er section 300, subdivision (b), as to

4 While the Department vaguely alluded to such defects in its conclusory, eight

- page motion to dismiss, the first time the Department clearly articulated its arguments on these threshold issues was in its respon dent’ s brief.11

Jared is not justiciable because, no matter what we decide on this appeal regarding that basis, the juvenile court’s jurisdiction will remain valid by virtue of the finding under section 300, subdivision (j) that m other does not challenge . ( In re Drake M. (2012 ) 211 Cal.App.4th 754, 762 ( Drake M .) ; In re I.A. (2011) 201 Cal.App.4th 1484, 1492.) Mother belatedly tries to attack the subdivision (j) finding in her reply brief, but that comes too late to be cognizable on appeal. ( In re Luke H. (2013) 221 Cal.App.4 th 1082, 1090. )
B. Mother’s appeal as to Sarai Second, mother raises no cognizable challenge to the juvenile court’s order sustaining the section 387 supplemental petition as to Sarai because , among other reasons, mother failed to appeal from the court ’s original exertion of jurisdiction over Sarai from which the section 387 petition arises. When the Department seeks to change the placement of a dependent child to a more restrictive placement

, such as foster care, it must file a section 387 supplementa l petition. ( In re F.S. (2016) 243 Cal.App.4th 799, 808 .) Th e petition must allege facts establishing that a previous disposition order was ineffective, but
it does not need to allege any new jurisdictional facts or urge additional grounds for dependency . ( Ibid. ) That is because the juvenile court already has jurisdiction over the child based on jurisdictional findings on the original petition; the section 387 supplemental petition to m odify placement does not affect the underlying jurisdiction of the c ourt. ( Ibid. ; In re Joshua G. (2005) 129 Cal.App.4th 189, 203; Kimberly R. v. Superior Court (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 1067, 1077; In re A.O. (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 103, 110 [“‘The law does not require that a fact necessary to establish jurisdiction under sec tion 300 be established to warrant12

a change in placement’”].) Here, even if we ignore that mother did not offer any reasoned argument as to why the section 387 supplemental petition was invalid as to Sarai, mother has not

— and, indeed, cannot

— attack the un derlying basis for jurisdiction over Sarai based on the April 2019 domestic violence incident, a basis she did not previously appeal.
C. Mother’s appeal as to Bryan and Jaime Third, the Department argues that mother’s challenge to the juvenile court’s ex ertion of jurisdiction over Bryan and Jaime is moot because after mother appealed, the court sustained a subsequent petition under section 342 alleging new facts of physical abuse of Bryan and Jaime by their father. To be sure, juvenile dependency jurisdi ction attaches to the child, not to the parent. ( In re I.A. (2011) 201 Cal.App.4th 1484, 1491 ( I.A. ) .) As a result, an appeal becomes moot where subsequent events, such as
the juvenile court’s exercise of jurisdiction based on an independent basis (see § 342 [“new facts or circumstances . . . sufficient to state that the [child] is a [dependent]”]), render it impossible for the reviewing court to grant effective relief ( In re
Travis C. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 1219, 1224

- 1225; In re E.T. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4 th 426, 436 ( E.T. ); A.B.

, supra , 225 Cal.App.4th at p. 1364 [“so long as the jurisdictional finding under the subsequent petition is supported by substantial evidence, reversal of the jurisdictional finding under the original petition would be futile”])

. Appellate courts nevertheless review whether a dependency appeal is moot on a “‘case

- by

- case basis ’” ( In re J.P. (2017) 14 Cal.App.5th 616, 623) and retain the “discretion” to hear the merits of a challenge to a jurisdictional finding, even if overturning that finding will have no immediate13

effect on the juvenile court’s assertion o f jurisdiction ( I.A. , 201 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1494

- 1495)

. Here , mother was found to be a nonoffending parent in the
section 342 petition alleging new facts of physical abuse of Bryan and Jaime by their father. Because mother is not implicated in that subsequent petition, and because the jurisdictional findings at issue in this appeal specifically relate to mother’s conduct and could affect the outcome of subsequent proceedings involving
mother , we exercise our discretion to consider mother’s challenge to the juvenile court’s exertion of jurisdiction over Bryan and
Jaime under section 300, subdivision (b). ( E.T.

, supra , 217 Cal.App.4th at p. 436; Drake M.

, supra , 211 Cal .App.4th at pp.
762

- 763.)
D. The allegation is common to all four children Ultimately, because th at challenged jurisdictional finding

— namely, that by allowing father unrestricted acce s s to the children, mother placed the children at substantial risk of
harm

— is a fact common to all four children, we exercise our discretion, particularly in service of judicial efficiency, to consider
the merits of mother’ s appeal despite the defects of justiciability, forfeiture, and mootness discussed above.
II. The Merits
Th e juvenile court’s jurisdictional findings are supported by
substantial evidence. We evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding by asking
whether there is enough evidence in the record that is reasonable, credible, and of solid value that a reasonable trier of fact could reach the same conclusion as the juvenile court. ( In re
K.B. (2015) 239 Cal.App.4th 972, 979

- 980 ; see also In re D.D.14

(2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 985, 990 [substantial evidence review of an
ord er sustaining a section 387 supplemental petition] .) As pertinent here, a juvenile court is empowered to assert dependency jurisdiction over a child if “[t]he 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.” (§ 300, subd. (b).) Risk of harm means just that: The juvenile
court “need not wait until a child is seriously abused or i njured to assume jurisdiction.” ( In re Kadence P. (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 1376, 1383 (

Kadence P. ) ; In re Yolanda L. (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 987, 993 ( Yolanda L. ) [same] .) When it comes to assessing that
ris k , the juvenile court may look to a parent’s pas t be havior as a “good predictor” of whether the child is currently at risk. ( In re
T.V. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 126, 133; Kadence P

. , at pp. 1383

- 1384 .) Substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s find ings
that all four children were at substantial risk of harm as a result
of mother allowing father unre stricted access to the children in
violation of court orders. Father’s reported act of domestic violence on mother was severe, and he physically attacked
mother with Sarai an arm’ s length away. T his was also not the
first incident

. Father never took responsibility for his a busiv e conduct

— instead, he admittedly became “more violent” and he took pride in exerting his perceived dominance over others

. The juvenile court restricted father’s visits with mothe r’s children to protect them f

rom this uncontrolled behavior. Yet, mother
flouted the court’s orders. She allowed father to stay in her home

even though Bryan and Jaime expressed they were fearful of father; she took the children on a trip with father ev en after he15

was arrested for brandishing a firearm in a fit of road rage ; and
she conceived another child with father even though she expressed that she had no intention of reconciling with him. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the court’s findings ( In re D.L. (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 1142, 1146)

, mother’s permissive conduct a llowing father to have full access to the children despite father’s refusal to reform, let alone acknowledge, his violent behavior certainly evinces a risk of harm.
Mo ther raises what boils down to two arguments in

response. S he argues that the children were not at substantial risk of
harm at the time of February 2021 adjudicat ion hearing because the April 2019 domestic violence in c ident did not pose a current
risk to the children given no similar incidents occurred in the intervening two years

. Mother minimizes the substantiated reasons the juvenile court found the children at risk

— besides the April 2019 incident itself, mother and father both denied the
incident occurred (see In re Giovanni F. (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 594, 598

- 599 [ parent’s denial of domestic violence increases risk])

, father continued to engage in aggressive behavior with others, father trivialized the insight he should have gained from
his domesti c violence classes, and mother included father as a member of the family despite these clear indicia of risk. The
court did not need to wait until father’ s violent tendencies caused harm to any of the children. ( Kadence P.

, supra , 241 Cal.App.4th
at p. 1 383; Yolanda L.

, supra , 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 993 ; see also § 300.2 [ purpose of dependency statutes is to ensure “safety” and “protection” of children “who are at risk of harm”].)
Mother also argues that she is not to blame for the “isolated
incident” when father showed Sarai his motorcycle at mother’s16

home in defiance of the court orde r restricting his visitation.
Mother mi sconstrues the record. Mother facilitated father’s continuous, unrestricted access to the children

— the Department merely obtained pho tographic evidence of one interaction that
conf irmed its months ’

- long concerns. We must reject mother’s invitation to ignore the abundance of evidence indicating this was
not an “isolated incident.” (See In re Noe F. (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 358, 366 [appe llate court does not reweigh the evidence].)
DISPOSITION
The orders are affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

.

______________________, J.
HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, P. J.
LUI

_________________________, J.
CHAVEZ