Court Opinion

ID: 9409096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-14 21:04:24.795349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:48.654210
License: Public Domain

Filed 7/14/23 In re D.P. CA2/5
Opinion on remand from Supreme Court
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 D.P., a Person Coming                                  B301135
Under the Juvenile Court Law.                                (Los Angeles County
                                                             Super. Ct. No.
                                                             19CCJP00973B)

LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF
CHILDREN AND FAMILY
SERVICES,

    Plaintiff and Respondent,

         v.

T.P. et al.,

     Defendants and Appellants.

     APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Craig Barnes, Judge. Reversed.

                                                    1
      Megan Turkat-Schirn, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant T.P.
      Landon Villavaso, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Y.G.
      Mary C. Wickham, County Counsel, and William D.
Thetford, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and
Respondent.

           _________________________________________

                     I.     INTRODUCTION

      T.P. (Father) and Y.G. (Mother) appealed from the juvenile
court’s order finding jurisdiction over their now four-year-old son
D.P. (the child) under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300,
subdivision (b)(1)1 and order of a period of informal supervision
by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family
Services (Department). On February 10, 2021, the panel
majority dismissed the appeal as moot because the juvenile court
terminated jurisdiction over the child during the pendency of the
parents’ appeals.2 On May 26, 2021, the California Supreme
Court granted Father’s petition for review. On January 19, 2023,
the Supreme Court agreed Father’s appeal is moot but remanded
for us to reconsider Father’s argument for discretionary review of
the moot issue in light of the principles and factors set forth in its

1    All statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions
Code unless otherwise stated.

2     Presiding Justice Rubin dissented from the mootness
holding.

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opinion. Having considered the matter in light of the Supreme
Court’s opinion, we exercise our discretion to review Father’s
appeal and hold that insufficient evidence supports the juvenile
court’s jurisdiction order.3

                      II.      BACKGROUND

       The following background is from the Supreme Court’s
opinion in this case, In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266:
       “In 2019, Father and Mother brought two-month-old D.P. to
the hospital because he had been crying more than usual and
seemed to have difficulty breathing. A chest X-ray revealed that
D.P. had pneumonia as well as a single healing rib fracture that
the parents, surprised by the latter finding, could not explain. A
nurse practitioner who treated D.P. and performed a skeletal
survey found no evidence of any other trauma or injuries to his
body. The Department received a report alleging that D.P. was a
victim of physical abuse and stating that his five-year-old sister
B.P. might also be at risk. Following treatment for the rib
fracture and for unrelated pneumonia and flu, D.P. was released
to his parents. At that time, he was gaining weight and seemed
happy.
       “Father and Mother are immigrants from Vietnam and
China, respectively. Their household includes D.P. and B.P., as
well as the children’s maternal grandparents. The family has no
prior child welfare history or criminal history. A social worker
who interviewed B.P. found that she appeared healthy and well
groomed, and B.P. stated that she felt happy and safe at home.

3     In light of that holding, we must also, necessarily, reverse
the juvenile court’s informal supervision order.

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The parents were cooperative with social workers and
participated in various pre-disposition services including
parenting classes and individual counseling. Nonetheless,
because the timing of D.P.’s rib fracture meant that it must have
occurred sometime after his birth while he was in the care of his
parents, and because his parents could not offer a satisfactory
explanation for the injury, the Department filed a petition
alleging that D.P. was subject to ‘deliberate, unreasonable, and
neglectful acts’ at the hands of his parents, which placed him and
his sister ‘at risk of serious physical harm, damage, danger, and
physical abuse.’ The Department claimed the children were at
risk of neglect and sought to have them removed from their
parents’ care.
       “In the juvenile court, the Department presented testimony
from Dr. Karen Imagawa, an expert in forensics and suspected
child abuse. Dr. Imagawa explained that the type of rib fracture
D.P. suffered is uncommon in healthy infants and has a ‘high
degree of specificity for non-accidental/inflicted trauma.’ Because
a healthy infant’s ribcage is pliable, sustaining this type of injury
would require significant compression or blunt force trauma. The
parents introduced expert testimony from Dr. Thomas Grogan, a
pediatric orthopedic surgeon and expert in child abuse forensics.
Dr. Grogan explained that rib fractures like the one D.P. suffered
are typically caused by compressive force. If a fist or object had
been used to strike D.P., causing blunt force trauma, Dr. Grogan
stated he would have expected to see multiple broken ribs and
potentially some external marks or bruising. Because D.P. only
had a fracture to one rib, Dr. Grogan believed the injury could be
the result of someone, even D.P.’s five-year-old sister, picking him
up incorrectly and applying too much pressure to his chest.

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However, Dr. Grogan could not rule out the possibility that the
injury was the result of an intentional act. Both experts agreed
that in the absence of any bruising, a caregiver would have no
way of knowing that a child had a broken rib.
       “At the jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court dismissed
the portions of the petition relating to D.P.’s sister because they
were not supported by sufficient evidence. With respect to D.P.,
the juvenile court sustained a modified version of the former
section 300, subdivision (b)(1) (former section 300(b)(1)) count,
which had alleged that ‘deliberate, unreasonable, and neglectful
acts on the part of [D.P.’s] mother and father endanger the child’s
physical health, safety and well-being, create a detrimental home
environment and place the child . . . at risk of serious physical
harm, damage, danger and physical abuse.’
       “By its terms, current section 300, subdivision (b)(1)(A)
applies where ‘[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 . . . [¶] . . . [t]he failure or inability of the child’s parent
or guardian to adequately supervise or protect the child.’ A
related provision, section 355.1, subdivision (a), provides: ‘Where
the court finds, based upon competent professional evidence, that
an injury . . . sustained by a minor is of a nature as would
ordinarily not be sustained except as the result of the
unreasonable or neglectful acts or omissions of either parent, . . .
that finding shall be prima facie evidence that the minor is a
person described by subdivision . . . (b) . . . of Section 300.’
       “In light of the expert testimony and the force required to
cause D.P.’s injury, the juvenile court concluded the injury was of
a sort that would generally not be sustained barring some neglect
or harm to the child, and it thus found a prima facie case under

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section 355.1. This finding ‘“shift[ed] to the parents the
obligation of raising an issue as to the actual cause of the injury”’
(In re D.P. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 898, 903 . . . , italics omitted;
see Evid. Code, § 604.)
       “The juvenile court explained: ‘What I have is an
unanswered explanation as to how this fracture occur[red] . . . ,
but I don’t lay [it] at the parents’ feet because I don’t think they
affirmatively through a deliberate act or some act on their part or
omission on their part caused the injury. And it may, in fact, be
that while the child is in the care of the maternal grandmother or
some other event occurred that was outside of their view that this
compression force was applied.’ Further, the court said that ‘I
think this is—at its most—a possible neglectful act in the way
this compression fracture occurred.’ But in light of the section
355.1 presumption, the juvenile court sustained the former
section 300(b)(1) count, though it struck the words ‘deliberate’
and ‘unreasonable’ because those words are ‘beyond what the
evidence shows.’ With the count so modified, the court found that
D.P.’s injury ‘would ordinarily not occur [except] as the result[] of
neglectful acts by the child’s mother and father . . . [and s]uch . . .
neglectful acts on the part of the child’s mother and father
endanger the child’s physical health, safety and well-being, create
a detrimental home environment and place the child . . . at risk of
serious physical harm, damage, danger and physical abuse.’
       “The court ordered D.P. to remain released to the parents
under the Department’s informal supervision under former
section 360, subdivision (b) for a period of six months. The court
noted that the parents had already completed family
preservation services; they each completed over five months of
weekly individual counseling, and according to their therapists,

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both parents demonstrated a good ability to parent their children.
Both parents also attended parenting education programming.
       “D.P.’s parents promptly appealed the juvenile court’s
jurisdictional ruling. . . . While the appeal was pending, the
parents fully complied with their case plan. The Department did
not bring the case back before the juvenile court, and the juvenile
court terminated its jurisdiction before the completion of the
appeal.” (In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal. 5th 266, 273–275.) The panel
majority of this court held the parents’ appeals were moot in light
of the court’s termination of jurisdiction and declined to exercise
discretionary review. (Id. at pp. 272, 276.)

                      III.   DISCUSSION

A.    Discretionary Review

       We have “inherent discretion to decide certain challenges to
juvenile court jurisdictional findings, notwithstanding mootness.”
(In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal. 5th at p. 285.) Considering various
principles and factors relevant to an appellate court’s exercise of
discretionary review in dependency appeals, the Supreme Court
observed, “[W]here, as here, the case becomes moot due to prompt
compliance by parents with their case plan, discretionary review
may be especially appropriate. After all, if D.P.’s parents had not
completed their supervision requirements in a timely fashion, the
juvenile court’s jurisdiction might have continued during the
pendency of Father’s appeal, and no mootness concern would
have arisen. It would perversely incentivize noncompliance if
mootness doctrine resulted in the availability of appeals from
jurisdictional findings only for parents who are less compliant or

                                7
for whom the court has issued additional orders. [Citations.]
Principles of fairness may thus favor discretionary review of
cases rendered moot by the prompt compliance or otherwise
laudable behavior of the parent challenging the jurisdictional
finding on appeal.” (Id. at p. 286.)
       In light of the parents’ diligent and laudable completion of
their case plan, we exercise our discretion to consider the merits
of Father’s appeal.

B.    Sufficiency of the Evidence Supporting the Juvenile Court’s
      Jurisdiction Order

       In light of the juvenile court’s factual findings, there is
insufficient evidence to support the court’s jurisdiction order. As
the Supreme Court set forth in its opinion, “The juvenile court
explained: ‘What I have is an unanswered explanation as to how
this fracture occur[red] . . . , but I don’t lay [it] at the parents’ feet
because I don’t think they affirmatively through a deliberate act
or some act on their part or omission on their part caused the
injury. And it may, in fact, be that while the child is in the care
of the maternal grandmother or some other event occurred that
was outside of their view that this compression force was
applied.’ Further, the court said that ‘I think this is—at its
most—a possible neglectful act in the way this compression
fracture occurred.’” (In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 275.)
       “Possible” evidence is not substantial evidence. “[A] mere
possibility is nothing more than speculation” and speculation
does not amount to substantial evidence.” (People v. Ramon
(2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 843, 851).) A finding of “a possible
neglectful act” is antithetical to substantial evidence of that act.

                                    8
“‘To be sufficient, evidence must of course be substantial. It is
such only if it “‘reasonably inspires confidence and is of “solid
value.”’” (People v. Perez (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1117, 1133.)
“[S]ubstantial evidence is not synonymous with any evidence. A
decision supported by a mere scintilla of evidence need not be
affirmed on appeal. Furthermore, ‘[w]hile substantial evidence
may consist of inferences, such inferences must be “a product of
logic and reason” and “must rest on the evidence”; inferences that
are the result of mere speculation or conjecture cannot support a
finding. The ultimate test is whether it is reasonable for a trier
of fact to make the ruling in question in light of the whole
record.’” (In re Savannah M. (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1387, 1393–
1394 [citations omitted].)
       The juvenile court’s factual findings are insufficient to
support the court’s assertion of jurisdiction over D.P.
Accordingly, we reverse the juvenile court’s jurisdiction order.

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                     V.     DISPOSITION

      The jurisdiction and informal supervision orders are
reversed.

     NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

                                         KIM, J.

We concur:

             RUBIN, P. J.

             BAKER, J.

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