Court Opinion

ID: 9955115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-27 18:02:31.945075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:16.289287
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/27/24 In re N.G. CA4/1
                   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
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                  COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                       DIVISION ONE

                                              STATE OF CALIFORNIA

In re N.G., a Person Coming Under
the Juvenile Court Law.
                                                                       D082975
SAN DIEGO COUNTY HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES
AGENCY,
                                                                       (Super. Ct. No. EJ004759)
          Plaintiff and Respondent,

          v.

J.G.,

           Defendant and Appellant,

J.T.,

           Defendant and Respondent.

          APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County,
Alexander M. Calero, Judge. Affirmed.
          William D. Caldwell, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Appellant, J.G.
      Marisa L. D. Conroy, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Respondent, J.T.
      Claudia G. Silva, County Counsel, Lisa M. Maldonado, Chief Deputy
County Counsel, and Natasha C. Edwards, Deputy County Counsel, for
Plaintiff and Respondent.
                         MEMORANDUM OPINION
      J.G. (Father) appeals from the juvenile court’s September 29, 2023
custody order concerning his child, N.G. His sole contention is that the court
abused its discretion by reducing the frequency of his supervised visits. We
find no abuse of discretion and affirm the order.
      As we previously detailed the factual background of this case in
affirming a prior ruling (In re N.G., (Jan. 20, 2023, D080966) [nonpub. opn.])
and because we resolve this appeal by memorandum opinion, we do not
elaborate on the factual or procedural background beyond that required for
our analysis. (See People v. Garcia (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 847, 851–854.)
                                       I.
      The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency (the
Agency) filed a juvenile dependency petition in April 2022, because (1) N.G.
“was exposed to a violent confrontation” between Father and N.G.’s mother,
J.T. (Mother), (2) “[t]he parents ha[d] failed to cooperate with multiple safety
plans,” (3) Father had “a prior history of verbal, physical[,] and emotional
abuse toward” Mother, and (4) “both parents ha[d] a history of substance
abuse which m[ight] impact their functioning, relationship[,] and care” of
N.G. The juvenile court detained N.G. and assumed jurisdiction over him.
      Eventually N.G. was returned to Mother with family maintenance
services. She obtained a restraining order against Father. Five social

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workers also obtained restraining orders against Father due to his frequent
threats and inappropriate messages.
      During this time, the court granted Father liberal supervised visitation
two times per week. The Agency monitored a two-hour weekday visit and a
paternal aunt, A.F., supervised six-hour Saturday visits when she was
available. Initially, A.F. oversaw visits every Saturday, but because she had
to drive over an hour each way and needed more weekend time to herself, she
reduced the visits to one Saturday per month. All parties agreed Father had
positive visits with N.G., consistently arrived prepared, and engaged with
him appropriately.
      On September 29, 2023, the juvenile court convened a contested family
maintenance review hearing. A social worker testified via a stipulation read
into the record that, among other things, Father is empathetic to N.G. and
interacts positively with him, and N.G. is happy to see Father and seems to
enjoy their time together. A.F. then testified that she would continue to
supervise one Saturday visit per month and could increase the duration to
eight hours. Another paternal aunt, A.G., agreed to start supervising one
additional eight-hour visit per month. Finally, Father took the stand and
described his visits with N.G. as “[m]agical, amazing.” He said he would like
to see his son every day.
      The Agency requested the court place N.G. with Mother, terminate
jurisdiction, and order supervised visits with Father. Father’s attorney
requested daily unsupervised visits or, alternatively, eight-hour supervised
visits every other Saturday.
      In making its ruling, the court began by acknowledging that Father
had positive visits with N.G. and clearly loved his son. But given Father’s
lack of progress in services and difficulty in obtaining services due to his own

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conduct, the court ordered that visitation remain supervised. The court then
awarded sole legal custody to Mother, ordered “a minimum of one visit per
month” of six hours in length “at a minimum” for Father, and terminated
jurisdiction.
                                       II.
      On appeal, Father argues the juvenile court abused its discretion by
reducing his supervised visitation to a minimum of one six-hour visit per
month. We disagree.
      When the juvenile court terminates dependency jurisdiction, it may
issue a custody and visitation order, often called an “exit order.” (Welf. &
Inst. Code, § 362.4, subd. (a); In re T.S. (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 503, 513.) The
court has broad discretion when fashioning a custody and visitation order
and focuses on the best interests of the child. (See id. at p. 514.) This is
because “[t]he juvenile court has a special responsibility to the child as parens
patriae and must look to the totality of the child’s circumstances when
making decisions regarding the child.” (In re Chantal S. (1996) 13 Cal.4th
196, 201 (Chantal S.).)
      We review custody and visitation orders under “the deferential abuse of
discretion test.” (In re Marriage of Burgess (1996) 13 Cal.4th 25, 32.) That
test requires us to determine “whether the trial court could have reasonably
concluded that the order in question advanced the ‘best interest’ of the child.”
(Ibid.) We will “uphold the ruling if it is correct on any basis, regardless of
whether such basis was actually invoked.” (Ibid.) We will not find an abuse
of discretion unless we conclude that no reasonable judge would have made
the same decision under the circumstances, viewing the evidence most
favorably in support of the decision. (Estate of Sapp (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th
86, 104.)

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      In this case, Father contends it is in N.G.’s best interest to maintain, at
a minimum, the existing frequency and duration of their visits. As an initial
matter, Father requests more supervised visitation on appeal than he
requested below. At the hearing, Father only asked for eight-hour visits
every other Saturday if they had to remain supervised. On appeal, he first
requests to maintain the existing frequency and duration of visits, which he
claims was twice per week. Then, in the conclusion of his opening brief, he
asks that we remand with directions for the family court to authorize either
unlimited visits or a minimum of one weekly eight-hour visit. Generally, a
party is precluded from presenting an issue on appeal that it did not
adequately raise below. (Holden v. City of San Diego (2019) 43 Cal.App.5th
404, 419.) Because Father did not afford the trial court an opportunity to
address these requests for greatly expanded supervised visitation, we will not
consider them for the first time here as we deem them forfeited. (In re N.R.
(2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 590, 598.)
      Furthermore, the record does not support Father’s claim that at the
time of trial, he was visiting N.G. twice weekly. The court must evaluate
recent evidence regarding visitation in determining whether substantial
evidence exists to support an order reducing visitation when jurisdiction is
terminated. (See In re Elizabeth M. (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1551, 1558.)
Most recently, the Agency was monitoring one two-hour weekday visit per
week while A.F. had reduced her supervision to one six-hour Saturday visit
per month. Although it is undisputed that the Agency could no longer
supervise weekly visits upon termination of jurisdiction, there was no
evidence of any alternative means to facilitate two-hour weekday visits.
      Father also provides no legal authority on appeal suggesting a juvenile
court abuses its discretion by considering the feasibility of visitation in

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crafting a visitation order in the best interests of the child. The court
acknowledged Father’s positive relationship with his son and found it in
N.G.’s best interest to continue to see him. But the law does not require the
visitation order to be made in a vacuum. Rather, when making decisions
regarding the best interests of the child, the court “must look to the totality of
[the] child’s circumstances” (Chantal S., supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 201, italics
added) and should consider evidence of the family’s circumstances that is
relevant to the terms of the visitation order (see In re T.H. (2010)
190 Cal.App.4th 1119, 1124). Here, N.G. lived in a confidential location
because Father’s unwillingness to address the domestic violence that brought
N.G. under the court’s jurisdiction, and his failure to appear for his mental
health assessment, resulted in Mother maintaining an active restraining
order against him. This meant Mother could not supervise visits and Father
could not pick N.G. up from Mother’s home.
      Because of these challenges, the court considered other options to
promote N.G.’s best interests. For example, the Agency supported Father
utilizing a professional visitation monitor even though Father did not express
an inclination or financial ability to rely on these services. However, as the
court noted, Father’s ongoing threats to social workers made it difficult for
him to obtain services and it is reasonable to infer that this conduct might
also make it challenging for him to secure professional visitation monitors
willing to work with him. Although Father’s sisters expressed willingness to
help, they only offered to supervise, at most, one visit per month each of up to
eight hours per visit. Father did not propose an alternative means of
facilitating the visits should one of them be unavailable. Thus, there was
nothing arbitrary (see In re Stephanie M. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 295, 318) about the
juvenile court’s practical order setting the minimum required visitation at

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the level of family monitored visitation time Father currently was receiving,
with the expectation that A.G. would begin providing an additional day and
A.F. would try to increase her time.
         Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion in the court’s visitation
order.
                                         III.
         We affirm the September 29, 2023 order.

                                                                    CASTILLO, J.

WE CONCUR:

IRION, Acting P. J.

KELETY, J.

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