Court Opinion

ID: 9943593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-23 21:02:59.35113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:47:25.016141
License: Public Domain

Filed 2/23/24 In re M.R. CA2/8
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 EIGHT

In re M.R. et al., Persons Coming                               B329615
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
______________________________                                  Los Angeles County
LOS ANGELES COUNTY                                              Super. Ct. No. 19CCJP07255B-H
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
AND FAMILY SERVICES,

         Plaintiff and Respondent,

         v.

M.M. et al.,

         Defendants and Appellants.

      APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Brett Bianco, Judge. Affirmed.
      Joseph T. Tavano, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant M.M.
      Jack A. Love, under appointment by the Court of Appeal,
for Defendant and Appellant H.R.
       Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, and Jacklyn K. Louie, Principal
Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                       ____________________
       A mother and father appeal on the basis of improper
inquiry under the Indian Child Welfare Act and related state law.
(25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.; Welf & Inst. Code, § 224 et seq., the
Act.) We affirm because any error was harmless.
       Undesignated statutory citations are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code.
       Seven of the mother’s children are involved in this case.
The five younger children have the same father. He and the
mother are appellants. The two eldest children have a different
father, who is deceased.
       The juvenile court denied a petition for modification under
section 388. The court later terminated parental rights over the
five younger children. The parents appealed the section 388
orders and the orders terminating parental rights. At the
mother’s request, we consolidated the appeals.
       We dismiss this appeal as to the two eldest children—J.A.
and Mad.A.—because it is moot. The Department moved to
dismiss and the mother did not file an opposition. J.A. turned 18
and the juvenile court returned Mad.A. to the mother’s custody.
The juvenile court terminated jurisdiction over them. We grant
the Department’s December 28, 2023 request for judicial notice of
the relevant juvenile court orders. The mother’s sole contention
on appeal is about inquiry under the Act. Because J.A. is a legal
adult and Mad.A. is in the mother’s custody, there is no actual
controversy to decide. (See In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276.)

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The case is moot as to the two eldest children and there is no
reason to exercise our discretion to review orders as to them.
       We use “the children” to refer to the five younger children
for the remainder of the opinion.
       We recount basic facts of the case and of inquiry under the
Act. Then we explain why any inquiry error was harmless.
       At first, the children remained with the mother. The court
later removed them, returned them to the mother’s custody, and
removed them a second time. The removals were under section
340, subdivision (b). After the second removal, the children were
placed with a paternal aunt, who is their prospective adoptive
parent.
       When the case began, the mother said she and the father
lacked Indian ancestry. The mother consistently denied ancestry
throughout the case.
       In December 2020, the father denied Indian ancestry on a
parental notification of Indian status form. In September 2021,
his counsel submitted a form that did not say the father had
ancestry, but said the youngest child “is or may be” a member of,
or eligible for membership in, a tribe. The form did not list a
tribe. The father did not sign the form. The signature line says,
“completed with counsel by telephone.”
       At the next hearing, the court acknowledged the alleged
ancestry and said, “Counsel said there’s no Indian heritage.” The
father’s counsel did not dispute this. The father was present on
speaker phone and did not speak on this issue.
       The maternal grandmother and paternal grandmother
attended the hearing for termination of parental rights. The
court asked them whether their family had Indian ancestry. The
maternal grandmother said “No” and the paternal grandmother

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said “No, no.” The court found the Act did not apply and it
terminated parental rights.
      We review findings under the Act for substantial evidence.
(In re Josiah T. (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 388, 401.)
      When a county welfare department takes a child into
temporary custody, section 224.2, subdivision (b) requires it to
ask the child’s extended family members about whether the child
is, or may be, an Indian child.
      Unless otherwise defined by an Indian child’s tribe, an
extended family member is an adult who is “the Indian child’s
grandparent, aunt or uncle, brother or sister, brother-in-law or
sister-in-law, niece or nephew, first or second cousin, or
stepparent.” (25 U.S.C. § 1903(2); Welf. & Inst. Code, § 224.1,
subd. (c) [adopting federal definition].)
      Beyond “extended family members,” the California statute
requires inquiry of others who have an “interest” in the child and
the party who reported abuse or neglect. (§ 224.2, subd. (b).)
       The mother identifies several extended family members the
Department “had contact with or knew about,” but did not ask
about Indian ancestry. These are: a maternal great-
grandmother, two maternal aunts, two maternal uncles, one
paternal uncle, and two paternal aunts. The father makes the
same argument and adds there is no evidence the Department
inquired of the person who originally reported abuse.
       Starting with the great-grandmother, extended family
inquiry does not apply to her. (25 U.S.C. § 1903(2) [great-
grandparents not included in definition of extended family].) The
parents do not argue other bases for inquiry of her. For example,
they do not argue she was a person with an interest in the
children. Nor do the parents identify evidence of any contact or

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attempted contact between the great-grandmother and the
children to demonstrate she had an interest in them. The
Department never had contact with the great-grandmother
during this case. The record only references her as someone who
helped raise the mother. The statute did not require the
Department to find and inquire of the great-grandmother.
       Turning to the remaining relatives, any error was harmless
based on inquiry of the parents and of the maternal and paternal
grandmothers. Inquiry of parents and of extended family
members on both sides of a family can sometimes be sufficient.
(In re E.W. (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 314, 323–324, 319 [agency
satisfied initial inquiry by inquiring of parents, maternal aunt,
and paternal grandmother but not other relatives, including
cousin, aunt, uncle, and two grandfathers].) Here, all of the
aunts and uncles are younger relatives of the grandmothers.
Elders are usually the ones to educate younger family members
about family ancestry. As the people closest to the past, elders
generally know more family history than younger people.
Certainly there can be exceptions, but the exceptions prove the
rule. Absent further information, which is missing here, we will
not presume junior family members know more about family
ancestry than their elders. Any error in not inquiring of the
aunts and uncles was harmless.
       So too was any error in inquiry of the reporting party. This
case began in 2019 when the mother called police because the
father had slapped and bit her. The detention report includes the
text of a police report, which ends by saying, “DC[FS] was
notified at 0102 hours. [¶] DCFS worker Mel Hawkins provided
reference number [19-digit number].” The reporting party was
the police. There is no reason to think the police had information

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about the family’s ancestry the parents and the grandmothers
lacked. This was harmless.
                         DISPOSITION
      We dismiss the appeal as to the two eldest children, J.A.
and Mad.A. The orders are otherwise affirmed.

                                          WILEY, J.

We concur:

             STRATTON, P. J.

             GRIMES, J.

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