Filed 1/13/22 In re Chase M. 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

In re Chase M., a Person 

Coming Under the Juvenile 

Court Law.

 B311800

 (Los Angeles County Super. 

 Ct. No. 20CCJP06324A)

 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF 

CHILDREN AND FAMILY 

SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

Dwayne M.,

Defendant and Appellant.
2

APPEAL from an order the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County, Stephen C. Marpet, Judge Pro Tempore. Affirmed.

Paul A. Swiller, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, 

for Defendant and Appellant.

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

Assistant County Counsel, and Jessica S. Mitchell, Deputy 

County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent. 

* * * * * * 

Dwayne M. (father) appeals the juvenile court’s denial of 

his request to place his five-year-old son with him. Although it is 

a close question, we conclude that substantial evidence supports 

the court’s ruling and affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

A. Family circumstances

Stacey A. (mother) has three children—Hayleigh A. (born

December 2013), Chase M. (born January 2016), and Dallas A. 

(born March 2020). Each child has a different father. 

Chase is father’s son. Father was arrested and placed in 

custody on a robbery charge in 2016, when Chase was three or 

four months old. Father was released from custody in 2020. 

Father has never made any effort to contact Chase, either while 

he was in custody or after his release. Father has also never 

contributed any child support. Father lives in Connecticut, 

where he has two daughters by other women; father does not 

have custody of either daughter, but visits them regularly.
3

Mother moved from Connecticut to California in 2018. The 

maternal grandmother (MGM) has helped mother with the 

children. Since May 2019, MGM has had a legal guardianship 

and full custody of Hayleigh. From October 2018 to October 

2020, and at mother’s request, MGM also had full custody of 

Chase as well as Hayleigh. Both Chase and Hayleigh expressed 

how much they love each other and love living with each other.

During this period, Chase had some behavioral problems: 

He would sometimes be “aggressive” toward others by “bang[ing] 

on things,” “[kicking] objects,” “talk[ing] back,” and 

“inappropriately touch[ing] MGM.” On one occasion, Chase 

entered the bathroom at school to look at another student’s

“private area,” and then, upon returning to his classroom, “pulled

his pants down and showed his private area to [his] class.” MGM 

is aware of Chase’s behavioral issues and willing to participate in 

behavioral support services to address them.

In October 2020, Chase resumed living with mother.

B. The Thanksgiving 2020 Incident

Early in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving 2020, 

mother and another woman—both of whom were intoxicated—got 

into a fight. Mother ended up with a bloody nose. She then got 

into her car and drove around for 45 minutes before ultimately 

passing out in her car at a gas station. When police aroused 

mother, her breath test indicated a blood alcohol level at nearly 

three times the legal limit. 

Chase watched the fist fight, and was in the back of 

mother’s car as she drove. He was still strapped in his car seat 

when the police found mother unconscious and slumped over the 

steering wheel.
4

Mother has had a longstanding alcohol problem since her 

teen years, and admits to drinking one-half pint of vodka every 

night. Mother also has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and 

depression; for a time, she attended therapy and was on 

prescription medications, but stopped both when she became 

pregnant in 2020. 

II. Procedural Background

A. Assertion of jurisdiction over Chase on the basis 

of mother’s conduct

On December 1, 2020, the Los Angeles Department of 

Children and Family Services (the Department) filed a petition 

asking the juvenile court to assert dependency jurisdiction over 

Chase1 on the basis of (1) mother’s “history of violent and 

assaultive behavior,” as illustrated by her fist fight with the other 

woman, (2) mother’s “current abuse[] of alcohol” that “renders” 

her “incapable of providing regular care and supervision” for 

Chase, as illustrated by the intoxication on the night of the fist 

fight, (3) mother’s decision to place Chase “in a detrimental and 

endangering situation” by driving while intoxicated and with 

Chase in the back seat, and (4) mother’s “history of mental and 

emotional problems” that “renders [her] incapable of providing 

regular care and supervision” for Chase, and which mother has 

declined to treat. The Department alleged that mother’s abovestated conduct “endangers [Chase’s] physical health and safety 

and places [him] at risk of serious physical harm, damage, and 

danger,” thereby warranting the exercise of dependency 

1 The petition also sought to assert jurisdiction over Dallas. 

Because this appeal is by father and because Dallas is not 

father’s child, Dallas is not at issue in this appeal.
5

jurisdiction under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, 

subdivision (b)(1),

2 as to all four bases and subdivision (a) as a 

second basis for the violent and assaultive behavior basis.

Mother pled no contest to all of the allegations except one—

namely, that her violent and assaultive behavior transgressed 

subdivision (b)(1) of section 300, which was dismissed.

On March 8, 2021, and on the basis of mother’s plea, the 

juvenile court asserted dependency jurisdiction over Chase. The 

court ordered Chase removed from mother and placed with MGM. 

The court also ordered the Department to provide mother 

reunification services that included a drug and alcohol program 

of at least six months in duration, random drug testing, 

parenting classes, mental health counseling, individual 

counseling, and a mandate that mother take all prescribed 

medications. 

B. Father’s efforts to gain custody of Chase

In its initial Detention Report filed with the juvenile court, 

the Department reported that father sought custody of Chase, 

relayed its preliminary opinion that father “appeared to be an 

appropriate and non-offending parent,” but urged the court to 

“further investigate father” with an eye toward releasing Chase 

to him. 

Father first appeared in this case at the initial December 4, 

2020 hearing. He again requested custody of Chase, and the 

juvenile court granted father the right to have unmonitored 

virtual visits with Chase.

A few days later, the juvenile court found that father was 

Chase’s “presumed father.”

2 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and 

Institutions Code.
6

In the ensuing months, father did not avail himself of his 

right to have unmonitored visits with Chase. He contacted MGM 

once, but only to ask for information to provide his lawyer. 

At the dispositional hearing on March 8, 2021, father 

requested custody of Chase as a nonoffending parent under 

section 361.2. The Department, mother, and the attorney for 

Chase opposed father’s request.

The juvenile court denied father’s request. While 

acknowledging that father was nonoffending, the court found that 

placing Chase with father would be detrimental to Chase’s 

“emotional well-being.” Specifically, the court reasoned that 

father has no relationship with Chase despite having had “ample 

opportunity” to develop such a relationship (even during the 

pendency of the case); that Chase accordingly “doesn’t know 

[father] at all”; and that moving Chase from MGM’s home where 

he has lived for all but one month of the last two and one-half 

years to live 3,000 miles away with a parent who is a stranger to 

him would be detrimental to Chase’s emotional well-being. The 

court nevertheless acknowledged that it would “reassess 

placement” if father “start[ed] a dialogue” with Chase. 

The juvenile court ordered the Department to provide 

father with conjoint counseling. 

After the juvenile court denied father’s motion for 

rehearing on this issue, father filed this timely appeal. 

DISCUSSION

Father argues that the trial court erred in refusing to place 

Chase with him because section 361.2 dictates a contrary result.

Where, as here, the juvenile court removes a child from the 

custody of one parent, section 361.2 requires the court to place 

the child with the other, noncustodial parent if (1) that parent so 
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requests, and (2) “placement with th[e noncustodial] parent” 

would not be “detrimental to the safety, protection, or physical or 

emotional well-being of the child.” (§ 361.2, subd. (a).) Because 

section 361.2 both “evinces [a] legislative preference for 

placement with the noncustodial parent when safe for the child” 

(In re Patrick S. (2013) 218 Cal.App.4th 1254, 1262 (Patrick S.)) 

and implements the “constitutionally protected interest” that “[a] 

nonoffending parent has . . . in assuming physical custody” of his 

child (In re A.A. (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 597, 605), the 

Department bears the burden of proving, by clear and convincing 

evidence, that placement with the noncustodial parent would be 

detrimental to the child (In re C.M. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 1394, 

1401-1402 (C.M.)). We review a juvenile court’s finding that 

placing a child with the noncustodial parent will be detrimental 

under section 361.2 for substantial evidence, and do so by asking 

whether the record viewed in the light most favorable to the 

finding is sufficient for a reasonable trier of fact to find detriment 

by clear and convincing evidence. (In re A.C. (2020) 54 

Cal.App.5th 38, 42-43 (A.C.); In re John M. (2006) 141 

Cal.App.4th 1564, 1569-1570 (John M.); In re V.L. (2020) 54 

Cal.App.5th 147, 154-155.)

In assessing whether placing a child with his noncustodial 

parent would be “detrimental to [his] safety, protection[,] or 

physical or emotional well-being,” the juvenile court must 

“examin[e] the circumstances of the parent and the child.” (In re 

Nickolas T. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 1492, 1503, 1506.) Those 

circumstances include (1) the child’s relationship with the 

noncustodial parent, (2) the child’s needs and the competency of 

the noncustodial parent to provide for those needs, (3) how 

placing the child with the noncustodial parent will affect the 
8

child’s bonds with his siblings, and (4) the child’s wishes. (C.M.,

supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at p. 1402). Because the juvenile court is 

to “weigh all relevant factors to determine if the child will suffer 

net harm” (In re Luke M. (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1412, 1425 

(Luke M.), italics added), no one circumstance is dispositive (e.g., 

A.C., supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at p. 43).

Although the question is a close one, substantial evidence 

supports the juvenile court’s finding, by clear and convincing 

evidence, that Chase would have suffered emotional detriment if 

placed with father in Connecticut. Chase is just five years old, 

and does not know his father at all because his father was 

incarcerated when Chase was only a few months old, father made 

no attempt to contact Chase while father was incarcerated, and 

father made no attempt to contact Chase after his release or 

during the pendency of this case. Indeed, MGM was the one who 

tried to keep father up to date by sending photos of Chase to the 

paternal grandmother. Although father claims to have sent 

“money” and “things” for the “necessities of life” to Chase, mother 

and MGM contradicted this assertion and we cannot second guess 

the juvenile court’s resolution of this conflict. Although father 

has two daughters in Connecticut, they live with their mothers. 

Thus, father has no experience caring for young children, 

especially a child, like Chase, who is of tender years and who has 

behavioral problems that need attention. Chase has developed 

such a close bond with his sister (Hayleigh) and with MGM that 

he wishes to remain with them. From this evidence, the juvenile 

court could reasonably infer, by clear and convincing evidence, 

that Chase is likely to suffer an emotional detriment by being 

uprooted from the safe world he knows with sister and MGM 

(when MGM is aware of and willing to participate in behavioral 
9

support services to address Chase’s needs) to be placed 3,000 

miles away to live alone with his father, a man he has never 

known, who has made no effort to get to know Chase, and who is 

unfamiliar with his behavioral needs. The damage to Chase’s 

emotional well-being is even more likely where, as here, his

behavioral needs already demonstrate some emotional fragility. 

(Accord, A.C., supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at p. 46 [“A court properly 

may decline placement with a safe and nonoffending parent if 

that placement would be detrimental to the child’s emotional 

well-being.”].)

Father makes two categories of arguments in response.

First, father disputes the juvenile court’s evaluation of the 

evidence. Specifically, father asserts that (1) he is capable of 

caring for Chase because he has two daughters, because he has a 

job and is in compliance with his probation, and because the 

Department preliminarily noted that he “appeared to be an 

appropriate and non-offending parent,” (2) placing Chase with 

father would allow Chase to develop a sibling bond with his two 

half sisters in Connecticut and would not affect Chase’s sibling 

bond with Dallas because no such bond really existed in the first 

place and because Chase could call Dallas on the phone, (3) the 

juvenile court was wrong to cite Chase’s desire to remain with 

MGM and Hayleigh or the absence of any relationship between 

father and Chase because those considerations are not enough, by 

themselves, to find detriment (C.M., supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at p. 

1403), (4) the absence of a report on the safety of father’s home 

cannot be a basis for a finding of detriment (Patrick S., supra, 

218 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1274-1275), and (5) father did not act in a 

manner incompatible with parenthood because he is 

nonoffending. 
10

We are unpersuaded. As a threshold matter, father 

appears at various points to ask us to reweigh the evidence in a 

light more favorable to him, but we must decline that invitation 

because it is outside the purview of substantial evidence review. 

(In re Alexzander C. (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 438, 450.) Father’s 

specific challenges also lack merit. Father may have visited his 

daughters regularly, but he was never their primary caregiver

and was incarcerated for most of their lives as well (between 2016 

and 2020); father’s employment and compliance with probation is 

important to keeping him out of custody, but does not speak to 

his parenting skills; and the Department’s preliminary view 

about father’s fitness was meant to be preliminary, not binding 

and dispositive. Father’s focus on whether Chase had a sibling 

bond with his infant half brother Dallas ignores the more 

pertinent and more established bond he has with his older half

sister Hayleigh; Chase’s ability to form, over time, new sibling 

bonds with his half sisters in Connecticut does not lessen the 

emotional trauma Chase is likely to experience when he is torn 

away from Hayleigh now. Although Chase’s wishes and the lack 

of any relationship between Chase and father are not dispositive 

by themselves, those circumstances in conjunction with the other 

circumstances articulated above collectively constitute

substantial evidence to support the juvenile court’s finding of 

detriment. The absence of any home safety report is irrelevant 

because neither the juvenile court nor this court has relied on 

that fact. And father’s status as a nonoffending parent is the

starting point of the inquiry under section 361.2, not its endpoint.

Second, father urges that precedent dictates a ruling in his 

favor. It does not. To begin with, drawing parallels between 

evidence sufficient to constitute a detriment under section 361.2 
11

in different cases is somewhat perilous because the inquiry into 

detriment looks to the totality of the circumstances and, for that 

reasons, is necessarily case specific. That being said, none of the 

cases father cites is directly analogous to the facts in this case. 

C.M. held that substantial evidence did not support a finding of 

detriment in requiring a 14-year-old child to be placed with her 

father and separated from her half sibling, when she had not 

seen him in 11 years, when he lived in a different but nearby

state, and when she preferred not to be in his custody because he 

would leave her with a stepmother. (C.M., supra, 232 

Cal.App.4th at pp. 1399-1404.) Patrick S. held that substantial 

evidence did not support a finding of detriment in requiring an 

11-year-old to be placed with his father when the child was 

ambivalent about living with the father, when the father lived 

out of state, when the child had no relationship with the father 

because the mother prevented it, and when the father made 

every effort to be in contact with the child after dependency 

proceedings began. (Patrick S., supra, 218 Cal.App.4th at pp. 

1262-1264.) John M. held that substantial evidence did not 

support a finding of detriment in requiring a 14-year-old to be 

placed with his father when the child did not desire that 

placement, when the father lived in a different state, and when 

the child’s sole sibling bond was with an infant half sibling, but 

the father resumed his relationship with the child a year before 

the dependency petition was filed. (John M., supra, 141 

Cal.App.4th at pp. 1568-1571.) In re Abram L. (2013) 219 

Cal.App.4th 452 held that substantial evidence did not support a 

finding of detriment in requiring a 15-year-old and 13-year-old to 

be placed with their father when they did not desire that 

placement, but when they had been in regular contact with their 
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father for years. (Id. at pp. 455, 464.)3 None of these cases 

involved a child of tender years with a close bond to his older half

sibling being required to move across the country to live with a 

father he never knew and who had voluntarily chosen to stay 

away from the child; the damage to the child’s emotional wellbeing in this case, by virtue of the child’s younger age and 

concomitantly deeper attachment to his half sibling and 

caregiver, is greater and hence supported the court’s finding of 

detriment.

DISPOSITION

The order is affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

______________________, J.

HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, Acting P. J.

ASHMANN-GERST

_________________________, J.

CHAVEZ

3 Father also cites In re Marquis D. (1995) 38 Cal.App.4th 

1813, but that case was reversed because the juvenile court failed 

to apply section 361.2 at all; here, the question is whether the 

juvenile court did so properly.