Filed 1/31/22 In re M.G. 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for 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 M.G. et al., Persons Coming 

Under the Juvenile Court Law.

B312427

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

C.H.,

Defendant and Appellant.

(Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No.

21CCJP00627A-B)

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County, Tamara Hall, Judge. Dismissed.

Emery El Habiby, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rodrigo A. Castro-Silva, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, 

Assistant County Counsel, Veronica Randazzo, Deputy County 

Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
2

C.H. (Mother) and Y.G. (Father) are the parents of two 

children: M.G. (born in 2018) and J.G. (born in 2020). The 

juvenile court assumed dependency jurisdiction over the children 

based on domestic violence between Father and Mother, Father’s 

mental health and substance abuse issues, and Mother’s failure 

to protect the children from these dangers. We consider whether 

Mother’s challenge to the jurisdiction findings the juvenile court 

made against her is justiciable in light of unchallenged 

jurisdiction findings against Father. We also consider whether 

Mother’s challenge to a disposition order removing the children 

from her custody is moot now that the children have been 

returned to her care.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Investigation

In January 2021, Father called 911 and said he wanted to 

kill Mother. When law enforcement officers arrived, Father was 

disoriented and crying and said he needed to be taken away 

before he hurt Mother. Father was placed on a psychiatric hold 

under Welfare and Institutions Code1section 5150, and the 

incident was reported to the Los Angeles County Department of 

Children and Family Services (the Department).

Mother told a Department social worker that, before 

Father’s 911 call, they had been arguing about their relationship 

and Father “seemed to be triggered” by J.G.’s crying. Father then 

repeatedly hit himself in the head with canned food before 

stepping outside to call 911. A couple days earlier, Father told 

Mother his life was worthless and tried to unsuccessfully hang 

1 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the 

Welfare and Institutions Code.
3

himself with a ribbon. Mother said she did not seek help at that 

time because she feared potential immigration consequences for 

Father.

Mother disclosed this was not the first instance of Father 

mentioning, or acting on, impulses to harm himself. He told 

Mother he wanted to die on three or four prior occasions. He hit 

his head against walls in the home on several other occasions. 

The children were present in the home for all of these events.

Mother also told the social worker that Father has 

difficulty controlling his anger. According to Mother, Father 

punched or kicked several holes in the bathroom and closet doors

when he was upset. She reported she and Father had “constant” 

verbal arguments in the two years since M.G. was born, which 

sometimes escalated to Father pushing Mother and Mother 

pushing him back. Mother said the children were usually asleep 

when she and Father argued, but on two or three occasions M.G. 

placed herself between Mother and Father as they argued and 

hugged Father’s leg.

The children’s maternal aunt and maternal grandmother 

both reported having seen suspicious bruises on Mother. The 

Department previously investigated the family roughly eight 

months before Father’s 911 call upon receiving a report that

Father pushed Mother to the ground and she suffered a cut to her 

head (Mother was pregnant with J.G. at the time).

2

 Mother said 

she attempted to separate from Father many times—including by 

leaving the home with the children “once or twice per month”—

but she always resumed the relationship because she pitied

Father.

2 The investigation was closed when Father was taken into 

custody on an immigration matter.
4

Father told a Department social worker that he drank 

several times a week and had been using methamphetamine for 

the past few months. He did not discuss his drug use with 

Mother, but he believed she “might have suspected that he was 

using.” Father spent about 20 days in jail following an arrest for 

possession of methamphetamine in December 2020.

Father believed he and Mother had a good relationship

before he lost his job at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 

but they now argued “daily.” He admitted pushing Mother in the 

last few months. He called 911 in January 2021 “because he did 

not want to do something he would later regret.” He denied 

trying to harm himself with the ribbon days earlier, stating “it 

was only a ribbon.”

When interviewed not long after his 911 call, Father 

assured the social worker he would stay away from Mother and 

the children. About two weeks later, however, Mother arrived 

home from work to find Father inside her home. Mother felt bad 

for Father and told him he could stay for a few days while she 

and the children stayed with a maternal aunt. A social worker 

previously encouraged Mother to change the locks, seek a 

restraining order against Father, and call law enforcement if he 

returned to the home, but Mother did none of these things.

As of February 2021—a few weeks before the jurisdiction

hearing—Mother had requested a restraining order protecting 

her and the children from Father, changed the locks, and enrolled 

in parenting and domestic violence classes. Around the same 

time, Mother told a Department social worker she drove to a Los 

Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station and called for help 

after seeing Father outside her home. The Sheriff’s Department, 
5

however, had no record of any call from Mother on the relevant 

date.

B. Juvenile Court Proceedings

The Department filed a petition asking the juvenile court to 

take dependency jurisdiction over the children based on the

parents’ history of domestic violence, Father’s mental health and 

substance abuse issues, and Mother’s failure to protect the 

children from these dangers. The juvenile court held a combined 

jurisdiction and disposition hearing in March 2021, found the 

dependency petition’s allegations to be true, and asserted

jurisdiction over both children. The juvenile court ordered the 

children removed from Mother and Father’s custody and ordered 

family reunification services for Mother, including individual 

counseling, domestic violence classes, a program offered by the 

National Alliance of Mental Illness, and overnight visits with the 

children.

After Mother filed this appeal from the jurisdiction findings 

and removal order, the Department requested that we take 

judicial notice of minute orders memorializing the juvenile court’s 

decision to release the children into Mother’s custody at the sixmonth review hearing in September 2021. (§ 366.21, subd. (e).) 

We grant the request. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459, subd. 

(a).) The Department separately moved to dismiss Mother’s 

challenge to the March 2021 disposition order as moot and 

Mother did not oppose the motion.

II. DISCUSSION

Mother’s challenge to the juvenile court’s removal order is 

rendered moot by the September 2021 order returning the 
6

children to her custody. Mother’s challenge to the jurisdiction 

findings adverse to her is not justiciable in light of the 

uncontested findings against Father, and the only reasons she 

gives for why we should exercise our discretion to review the 

findings against her are the purported need to assess the 

propriety of the removal order that has been rendered moot and a 

speculative, non-specific assertion of potential future prejudice. 

We shall therefore dismiss the appeal, albeit with a short

discussion of the merits just for Mother’s benefit.

A. Jurisdiction

“‘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.’ 

[Citation.]” (In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766, 773.) Indeed, “it is 

necessary only for the court to find that one parent’s conduct has 

created circumstances triggering section 300 for the court to 

assert jurisdiction over the child.” (In re I.A. (2011) 201 

Cal.App.4th 1484, 1491.) Because the juvenile court’s jurisdiction 

findings against Father are uncontested, we need not consider 

the sufficiency of the evidence to support the juvenile court’s 

findings that are specifically adverse to Mother. (Id. at 1492 

[“For jurisdictional purposes, it is irrelevant which parent created 

[the] circumstances” triggering jurisdiction]; accord In re Briana 
7

V. (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 297, 308 [“‘[A] jurisdictional finding 

good against one parent is good against both’”].)

Although Mother’s challenge to the juvenile court’s

jurisdiction findings is accordingly nonjusticiable, we 

nevertheless opt to briefly describe, for Mother’s benefit, why at 

least one of the dependency allegations made against her was 

supported by substantial evidence. (See, e.g., In re Alexis E.

(2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 438, 451 [affirming finding of jurisdiction 

over minor because the father did not challenge all bases for 

jurisdiction, but “not[ing]” the court’s view on the challenged 

finding “[f]or [the] Father’s benefit”].)

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

assume dependency jurisdiction over a child when “[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 the child’s parent or guardian to adequately supervise 

or protect the child . . . .” Here, among the various facts 

supporting jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b)(1), the 

Department alleged Mother failed to protect the children from 

Father’s violent conduct, including pushing Mother and punching 

and kicking holes in the bathroom door. In disclosing these facts 

to the Department, Mother acknowledged M.G., a toddler, had 

placed herself between Mother and Father and hugged Father’s 

leg during arguments on two or three separate occasions. It is 

well established that such recurring exposure to domestic 

violence supports dependency jurisdiction under section 300, 

subdivision (b)(1) regardless of whether the child has actually 

suffered physical harm. (In re T.V. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 126, 

134-135.)
8

Mother argues she protected the children from domestic 

violence because she regularly took the children to stay with 

relatives until conflicts between her and Father subsided. But 

substantial evidence demonstrates these conflicts never truly 

subsided: Mother and Father told the Department they argued 

“constant[ly]” and “daily,” and Mother disclosed that she and the 

children left the home once or twice per month. In any case, 

Mother admitted that in multiple instances she and the children 

did not leave until verbal arguments escalated to physical 

violence.

Mother also contends circumstances had changed by the 

time of the adjudication hearing: she changed the locks, 

requested a restraining order, enrolled in a domestic violence 

class, and resolved not to resume her relationship with Father. 

Although these were positive initial steps, at the time of 

adjudication, changed locks and a restraining order were of

questionable value in light of Mother’s demonstrated reluctance 

to seek help from law enforcement in dealing with Father. 

Moreover, Mother’s feelings of pity for Father compelled her to 

allow him to return to the family home on multiple occasions, 

including after he injured her during her pregnancy with J.G. in 

May 2020 and, more recently, after he was hospitalized for 

voicing an impulse to kill her.

B. Disposition

“At the dispositional hearing, a dependent child may not be 

taken from the physical custody of the parent under section 361 

unless the court finds there is clear and convincing evidence 

there is or would be a substantial danger to the child’s physical 

health, safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being if 
9

returned home, and that there are no reasonable means to 

protect the child’s physical health without removing the child.”

(In re D.B. (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 320, 328.) Mother contends 

removal was inappropriate in this case because reasonable 

alternatives existed, including preservation services and 

unannounced home visits by the Department to confirm Mother 

was keeping Father away from the children.

According to the minute orders issued in connection with

the juvenile court’s September 2021 six-month review hearing, 

the juvenile court found Mother had made substantial progress 

on her case plan and returned the children to her custody. 

Because that is the sole relief sought in this appeal as to the 

challenge to the juvenile court’s disposition order, there is no 

effective relief we can provide and the challenge is moot. (See In 

re N.S. (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 53, 60 [“[T]he critical factor in 

considering whether a dependency appeal is moot is whether the 

appellate court can provide any effective relief if it finds 

reversible error”].)
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DISPOSITION

The appeal is dismissed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

BAKER, Acting P. J.

We concur:

MOOR, J.

KIM, J.