Filed 11/18/22 In re Anthony E. 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

In re ANTHONY E., a Person

Coming Under the Juvenile 

Court Law.

 B315305

 (Los Angeles County Super. 

 Ct. No. 21CCJP03352B)

 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF 

CHILDREN AND FAMILY 

SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

RENE E.,

Defendant and Appellant.
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APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County. Robin R. Kesler, Judge Pro Tempore. Affirmed.

Paul Couenhoven, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Dawyn R. Harrison, Acting County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, 

Assistant County Counsel, and William B. Thetford, Deputy 

County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent. 

* * * * * *

Rene E. (father) appeals from the juvenile court’s 

jurisdictional and dispositional orders in dependency proceedings 

for his six-year-old son. He argues that (1) there is insufficient 

evidence to support the juvenile court’s finding that he failed to 

protect his son from the mother’s substance abuse and mental 

health problems; and (2) the juvenile court erred when it refused 

to give him custody of his son. Substantial evidence supported 

the jurisdictional findings, and subsequent proceedings in the 

juvenile court have rendered father’s second issue moot. 

Accordingly, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

A. Family

Father and Amanda G. (mother) met in 2014. Their son, 

Anthony, was born in October 2015.1 Father and mother never 

married, but were in a relationship and lived together for 

approximately five years. During this time, father and mother 

1 Mother has one other child—Arianna (born 2007)—by 

another father. Father has two other children by other mothers.

These other children are not at issue in this appeal. 
3

regularly engaged in “arguments and fights with stuff being 

broken.” Father and mother eventually split up: Father moved 

to San Bernardino; mother, to Los Angeles with Anthony.

B. Mother’s drug use

Mother used crystal meth. She would go into the bathroom 

“for long periods of time” and emerge either “angry and arguing 

and talking to the ceiling” or “look[ing] like she was sleep 

walking.” Mother would “stay awake for long periods of time” 

and “never sle[pt].” Father complained to mother’s brother, 

Alfonso, that mother’s methamphetamine use was a problem in 

their relationship. 

C. Mother’s mental health issues

Beginning sometime in 2017, mother began “hearing voices 

and talking to herself,” and started to blame “everything bad that 

ha[d] happened” on entities she identified only as “they” and 

“them.” Mother called father “back-to-back” whenever she was 

having one of these mental health breakdowns, as father was 

“the only person able to settle her down” because he was “the only 

one who understands her.” At times, mother’s episodes got so 

bad that she would use a baseball bat to smash glass objects in 

the house and to make holes in the interior walls. 

D. Events underlying dependency jurisdiction

One day in June 2021, mother told Anthony and Arianna 

“to pack a bag because they were leaving and never coming back.” 

Mother drove with the children to a motel in Palmdale. On the 

way there she drove erratically—at high rates of speed and 

through red lights—and, while hallucinating, threatened to drive 

the car off a cliff. Mother trashed the motel room, complained the 

motel did not have cameras, and then drove back to Los Angeles.

After mother returned, Alfonso, the maternal aunt Jessica, 
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and the maternal grandmother went to her home. Mother told 

them that she “had been doing meth” and had in fact been using 

methamphetamines since she was 15 years old, but she was going 

to stop. She left the room and returned with a glass pipe.

Mother smashed the pipe on the table before handing it to 

Alfonso. Father had been working out of town during this 

incident, and upon his return, picked up mother and drove her to 

the beach because he thought “she needed some air” and they 

could “talk and walk for a while to calm her down.”

In early July, mother was prescribed psychotropic 

medication at a psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment 

center. Mother admitted to drinking alcohol while taking the 

medication, and she stopped taking the medication completely 

after two days.

II. Procedural Background

In late July 2021, the Los Angeles Department of Children 

and Family Services (the Department) filed a petition asking the 

juvenile court to exert dependency jurisdiction over Anthony. 

The Department alleged that (1) mother had a “history of 

substance abuse” and her “current abuse[] of amphetamine and 

methamphetamine” rendered her “incapable of providing regular 

care and supervision” of Anthony, and that father had “failed to 

protect” Anthony because he knew of mother’s substance abuse

but allowed her to reside in the home and have unlimited access 

to Anthony; (2) mother had a “history of mental and emotional 

problems including auditory and visual hallucinations, suicidal 

ideation, homicidal ideation, [and] paranoia” which rendered her 

“incapable of providing [Anthony] with regular care and 

supervision,” and that father had “failed to protect” Anthony 

because he knew of mother’s mental and emotional problems but
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allowed her to reside in the home and have unlimited access to 

Anthony; and (3) mother’s erratic driving at high rates of speed 

and running through red lights while Anthony was a passenger 

in the vehicle, as well as shattering glass and causing holes in the 

walls of the home, created a “detrimental and endangering 

situation[] and home environment” for Anthony. The 

Department further alleged that this conduct placed Anthony at 

substantial risk of serious physical harm, thereby rendering 

dependency jurisdiction appropriate under Welfare and 

Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (b)(1).2

In follow-up interviews by the Department, mother denied 

current use of drugs or alcohol and she denied having any history 

of drugs or alcohol. Father denied having any knowledge of 

mother’s drug use or mental history during their seven-year 

relationship and claimed he only became aware of mother’s issues 

in late June 2021. 

In September 2021, the juvenile court held a jurisdictional 

and dispositional hearing. The court struck the reference to 

mother’s “history” of substance abuse and otherwise sustained all 

of the allegations in the petition, expressly finding that father 

“tr[ied] to assist [mother] a few times, but after seeing her 

behavior, knowing that she was on drugs, he still left [Anthony] . 

. . a five year old” with mother “instead of just taking [Anthony] 

out of mother’s home and protecting [him].” The court found that

“pursuant to . . . section 361 [subdivision] (c) and by clear and 

convincing evidence[,] there’s still a substantial danger if 

[Anthony] was returned to the physical custody of the parents.”

The court found no reasonable means to protect Anthony short of

2 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and 

Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
6

removal, declared him a dependent of the court, removed 

Anthony from both parents, and ordered the Department to 

provide reunification services consisting of drug, alcohol, and 

psychiatric treatment for mother, and individual counseling for 

father. 

Father filed this timely appeal. Mother did not appeal.

III. Postappeal events3

On September 20, 2022, while this appeal was pending, the 

juvenile court held a review hearing pursuant to section 366.21, 

subdivision (f). At that hearing, the court vacated its prior 

removal order and placed Anthony with mother. 

DISCUSSION

I. Father’s Challenge to Dependency Jurisdiction

Father challenges a portion of the juvenile court’s first two 

jurisdictional findings. Specifically, he does not challenge the

court’s findings that mother was abusing drugs and had a history 

of mental and emotional problems, or that those conditions 

placed Anthony at substantial risk of serious bodily injury; all he 

challenges is the court’s further finding that father “failed to 

protect” Anthony. Father asserts that there was insufficient 

evidence that he knew of mother’s drug abuse or mental health 

issues, such that he could not be found liable for failing to protect 

Anthony from circumstances of which he was ignorant. We 

review father’s challenges to these specific factual findings for 

substantial evidence, asking only whether the record, when 

3 We grant the Department’s request for judicial notice and, 

on our own, take judicial notice of the juvenile court’s September 

20, 2022 minute order. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 453, 459, 

subd. (a).) 
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viewed in the light most favorable to the juvenile court’s findings, 

contains evidence that is reasonable, credible, and of solid value 

for a reasonable jurist to make those findings. (In re I.J. (2013) 

56 Cal.4th 766, 773.)

As a threshold matter, we must decide whether father may 

assert this challenge at all. Dependency jurisdiction attaches to a 

child, not his parent. (In re D.M. (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 634, 

638.) As a result, mother’s failure to appeal the jurisdictional 

findings means that the court’s jurisdiction over Anthony 

remains intact based on her conduct alone, and hence regardless 

of the outcome of father’s appeal. (In re M.W. (2015) 238 

Cal.App.4th 1444, 1452.) Of course, we still have the discretion 

to reach the merits of father’s challenge to the portions of juvenile 

court’s jurisdictional findings if those findings (1) serve as the 

basis for dispositional orders that are also challenged on appeal; 

(2) could be prejudicial to the appellant or could potentially 

impact the current or future dependency proceedings; or (3) could 

have other consequences for the appellant, beyond jurisdiction. 

(In re D.M., at p. 646; In re Drake M. (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 754, 

762-763.) Because the juvenile court’s findings that father failed 

to protect Anthony may be used against father in future 

dependency proceedings, we elect to reach the merits of father’s 

jurisdictional challenge.

“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 . . . mental 
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illness . . . or substance abuse.’ (§ 300, subd. (b)(1).)” (In re 

L.W. (2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 840, 848.)

Substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s finding 

that father was aware of mother’s drug use and mental health 

problems, and that those problems placed Anthony at risk. 

Father’s statement to Alfonso that mother’s meth use was an 

issue in their relationship is substantial evidence that father was 

aware of mother’s drug problems, yet father still allowed Anthony 

to remain in mother’s care. Mother’s calls to father when she was 

having her “episodes” is substantial evidence that father was also 

aware of mother’s mental health issues, yet father still allowed 

Anthony to remain in her care. Indeed, father acknowledges he 

took mother for a walk on the beach to calm her down after 

mother’s mental breakdown in late June 2021. Yet, despite his 

awareness of mother’s mental instability, he allowed her to care 

for Anthony until the Department intervened in mid-July. This 

is ample evidence of a failure to protect justifying the adverse 

section 300 jurisdiction finding against father.

Father urges that the record shows that he was, at most, 

aware of mother’s drug use and mental health problems, but not 

that those problems posed a risk to Anthony. Father’s contention 

is belied by the record. A meth addiction severe enough to 

disrupt an adult relationship is, when construed in the light most 

favorable to the juvenile court’s finding, also severe enough to 

pose a risk to the care of a young child. Father asserts that his 

awareness of mother’s “episodes” is insufficient to show risk 

because the record does not indicate what happened during those 

“episodes,” but this not only impermissibly construes the term in 

the light least favorable to the juvenile court’s finding, but also 

ignores the evidence that father had to calm mother down after 
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one of those episodes, a task that would be unnecessary if they 

were of no consequence. Father lastly emphasizes that he has 

not lived with mother for a few years, but the record shows that 

he was aware of mother’s problems despite this living 

arrangement; the arrangement does not somehow preclude such 

awareness. 

II. Father’s Challenge to the Juvenile Court’s Refusal to 

Place Anthony in His Custody is Moot

“An appellate court will not review questions which are 

moot and only of academic importance, nor will it determine 

abstract questions of law at the request of a party who shows no 

substantial rights can be affected by the decision either way. 

[Citation.] An appeal becomes moot when, through no fault of 

the respondent, the occurrence of an event renders it impossible 

for the appellate court to grant the appellant effective relief. 

[Citations.] On a case-by-case basis, the reviewing court decides 

whether subsequent events in a dependency case have rendered 

the appeal moot and whether its decision would affect the 

outcome of the case in a subsequent proceeding.” (In re 

Esperanza C. (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1042, 1054-1055.)

Father’s challenge to the trial court’s dispositional order is 

moot because we can no longer render effectual relief as to that 

issue. Father urged on appeal that the juvenile court violated the 

mandate of section 361.2, subdivision (a), to place Anthony with 

him—as the noncustodial parent—upon removing Anthony from 

his custodial parent. Once the juvenile court placed Anthony 

back with mother as the custodial parent, however, any violation 

of section 361.2 ceased. (See, e.g., R.S. v. Superior Court (2007) 

154 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1270 [‘“section 361.2 deals specifically with 
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the removal of the child from a custodial parent when there also 

exists a noncustodial parent’”].) 

DISPOSITION

The orders are affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

______________________, J.

HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, P. J.

LUI

_________________________, J.

CHAVEZ