Court Opinion

ID: 9838564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-06 20:05:54.29553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:52.712380
License: Public Domain

Filed 9/6/23 In re Y.H. CA1/4
             NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified
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publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

      IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                                 FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                             DIVISION FOUR

 In re Y.H. et al., Persons Coming
 Under the Juvenile Court Law.
 ________________________________
 MARIN COUNTY DEPARTMENT
 OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
 SERVICES,                                                            A165280, A167034

           Plaintiff and Respondent,
                                                                      (Marin County Super. Ct.
 v.
                                                                      Nos. JV27199A, JV27200A)
 S.B.,
           Defendant and Appellant;
 Y.H.,
           Defendant and Respondent.

          In these consolidated dependency appeals, S.B. (Mother) appeals
from the juvenile court’s jurisdiction and disposition orders and from its
findings and orders after the subsequent six-month review hearing.
Mother’s sole argument is that the juvenile court and the Marin County
Health and Human Services Department (Department) failed to comply
with their obligations under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978
(25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.; ICWA) and related California statutes to
inquire whether the children may be Indian.1 The Department
responded with a short letter brief admitting the errors complained of
and committing to rectify them while proceedings are still ongoing in
the juvenile court. Relying on In re S.H. (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 166,
which addresses conceded errors in the adequacy of ICWA inquiries in
that context, the Department asks us to dismiss the appeals. Mother
responds that we should instead set aside the juvenile court’s finding
that ICWA does not apply and require it to make a new finding after
inquiry.2 We will affirm the juvenile court’s orders made following the
jurisdiction/disposition and six-month review hearings but vacate its
finding that ICWA does not apply.
                            BACKGROUND
      As the parties are familiar with the background of the case and
the disputed issue on appeal is narrow, we summarize only the facts
relevant to Mother’s argument regarding ICWA compliance.
      On January 26, 2022, the Department filed a petition pursuant to
Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (b)(1), to declare
then four-year-old Y.H. and two-year-old C.H. dependent children of
the juvenile court. The Initial Petition Report, prepared for a
February 1, 2022 detention hearing, stated that on January 25, 2022,

      1 “[B]ecause ICWA uses the term ‘Indian,’ we do the same for

consistency, even though we recognize that other terms, such as ‘Native
American’ or ‘indigenous,’ are preferred by many.” (In re Benjamin M.
(2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 735, 739, fn. 1.)
      2 The letters were filed in A165280 (the jurisdiction/disposition

appeal), but after Mother filed an opening brief in A167034 (the six-
month review hearing appeal) and requested that we consolidate the
two appeals for decision, the parties accepted our invitation to have us
treat the two letters as if they had also been filed in the latter appeal.

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Mother denied Indian ancestry and also denied that the father is a
registered member of an Indian tribe. The report added that the
Department was unable to interview the father but during a previous
investigation on July 12, 2021, he stated that he has Apache heritage
but was not a registered member of a tribe. An Indian Child Inquiry
Attachment to the petition stated, seemingly inconsistently, that the
social worker interviewed both parents on January 25, 2022, and that
they gave her no reason to believe the children were or may be Indian
children. The report concluded that “at this time” the Department did
not have reason to believe ICWA applied, but that it would continue to
investigate possible Indian ancestry for the children.
      Both the mother and father were present by Zoom at the hearing
on February 1, 2022, but the court did not ask them about Indian
heritage. At a continued hearing two days later, the court stated that
the Department had asked the parents if they are aware of any
information indicating that the children were members of a tribe or
eligible for membership, and the parents had responded that there was
no such information. Asked to confirm, Mother said “that’s correct,”
but the court noted that the father had himself on mute and therefore
said it would take Mother’s “word for it.” The court found that there
was no reason at the present time to believe that the children were
Indian children or that ICWA applies.
      The report the Department prepared for the March 15, 2022
detention hearing reiterated the same information, and added
somewhat ambiguously that the Department made several attempts to
reach the father “during the current investigation to further inquire
about his possible Native American ancestry, but he did not provide

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additional information regarding his Native American ancestry.” At
the hearing, the court again found there was no reason to believe the
children had any Indian heritage, but made no inquiry of the father,
who again appeared remotely.
      The jurisdiction/disposition report filed on April 1, 2022, stated
more clearly that the Department was unable to speak with the father
in any of its additional attempts to reach him to inquire about his
Indian ancestry. It added that the Department did not believe there is
reason to know the children are Indian children.
      Following a contested jurisdiction/disposition hearing on May 3,
2022, on May 10, 2022, the court found the allegations of the now third
amended petition true by a preponderance of the evidence. Proceeding
immediately to disposition, the court adjudged the children dependents
of the juvenile court, found by clear and convincing evidence that
removal was required from both parents and that reasonable efforts
had been made to prevent the need for removal, and ordered the
children placed in out-of-home placement with reunification services for
both parents.
      The Department prepared a report for the six-month status
review hearing that did not indicate it had made any further ICWA
inquiries, again noting only the court’s prior finding at the initial
detention hearing that ICWA did not apply. In its orders issued after
the hearing, the court did not make any findings regarding ICWA.
      Mother timely appealed the findings and orders from the
jurisdiction/disposition hearing and from the six-month review hearing.

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                             DISCUSSION
      Mother argues that the juvenile court failed to satisfy its duties
of inquiry because during the February 3, 2022 hearing, it never
obtained a response from father when he was on mute and instead
stated that it would take Mother’s word for it. Moreover, although the
court has a continuing duty to inquire in every dependency proceeding
whether ICWA applies, it made no inquiry of the father when he
appeared remotely on March 15, 2022.
      With respect to the Department, Mother argues that its inquiries
were similarly inadequate, noting that it never made any inquiry of
extended family members, never succeeded in interviewing the father
again, and did not contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs, State
Department of Social Services, or the Apache tribes. As a result of
these failures, Mother contends that the juvenile court lacked sufficient
evidence to conclude that ICWA did not apply, and in her opening brief
in her appeal from the jurisdictional and dispositional orders, she
argued that those orders should be conditionally reversed pending
adequate inquiry.
      The Department concedes “that it and the juvenile court failed to
satisfy their initial and ongoing inquiry duties” and represents that it
“intends to remedy these omissions,” although it does not indicate that
it has yet made any further inquiries. In light of its acknowledgment,
the Department argues that the appropriate remedy is simply to
dismiss the appeals, citing a decision by our colleagues in Division One,
In re S.H. (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 166.
      In In re S.H., the mother appealed from the dispositional order,
arguing inadequate ICWA inquiry, and the agency conceded the error.

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(In re S.H., supra, 82 Cal.App.5th at pp. 170–171.) The court held that
“when a social services agency accepts its obligation to satisfy its
inquiry obligations under ICWA, a reversal of an early dependency
order is not warranted simply because a parent has shown that these
ongoing obligations had not yet been satisfied as of the time the parent
appealed.” (Id. at p. 171.) Instead, if “the social service agency
acknowledges error and we thus have reason to believe that its duty of
inquiry will be satisfied[,] . . . we see no reason to set aside the
jurisdiction/disposition order—even conditionally” because “the duty to
inquire is a continuing one [citing Welf. & Instit. Code § 224.2,
subd. (a)]” and a conditional reversal “may lead to unnecessary
additional hearings, delay, and the micromanagement of further ICWA
inquiry.” (Id. at pp. 176–177.) The court affirmed with the
understanding that “[t]he Agency must comply with its broad duty to
comp[l]ete all appropriate inquiries and apprise the court, and the
court has a continuing duty to ensure that the Agency provides the
missing information.” (Id. at p. 179.)
      Acknowledging In re S.H. in her reply brief, Mother no longer
contends that the jurisdictional and dispositional orders should be
conditionally reversed. She argues, however, that setting aside the
juvenile court’s March 15, 2022 ICWA finding and remanding “would
ensure immediate compliance with the inquiry statutes” and thereby
better protect the rights of the children, parents, and the tribe (which
would have a right to intervene or participate if the children are found
to be Indian children).
      As posed in In re S.H., the question was whether the
jurisdiction/disposition order should be conditionally reversed, rather

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than whether the ICWA finding should be vacated. Other cases have
disagreed about whether to vacate an ICWA finding made without
adequate inquiry. For example, in In re Dominick D. (2022)
82 Cal.App.5th 560, the court vacated the finding that ICWA did not
apply and otherwise affirmed the court’s jurisdictional and
dispositional orders, “direct[ing] the juvenile court on remand to order
CFS to comply with its inquiry and (if applicable) notice obligations
under ICWA and related California law.” (Id. at pp. 567–568.) By
contrast, in In re Baby Girl M. (2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 635, the court
found that the county department’s concession of error rendered the
appeal moot, and concluded that there was “no need to order any ICWA
findings vacated because ICWA-related obligations are continuing
duties; that means earlier ICWA-related findings are subject to change
and no order vacating an earlier finding is necessary here.” (Id. at
p. 639 & fn. 2.)
         Because the juvenile court and the Department have an
affirmative and continuing duty to inquire into the children’s Indian
status, and the juvenile court retains the power to reverse a prior
finding that ICWA does not apply, it may make little or no practical
difference whether we vacate the court’s ICWA finding. Nonetheless,
at least on this record, we find it appropriate to do so. To affirm the
orders unequivocally leaves intact an implicit judicial finding of ICWA
compliance that the parties agree is not supported by substantial
evidence. While the Department will continue its investigation and the
juvenile court may make a different finding in the future, here the
previous inquiries by the court and the Department separately fell
short.

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      With respect to the juvenile court, the Department’s reports,
although ambiguous, at least noted that the father had previously
stated that he has Apache heritage. At the hearing on February 3,
2022, however, the court did not instruct the father to unmute himself
so he could respond to its question about any information he may have
given the Department, and on March 15, 2022, the court repeated its
previous ICWA finding without any further inquiry. By contrast, in
In re S.H., the record showed that the court had questioned counsel
both for the parents and for the county about Indian heritage, and
expressly made its ICWA finding without prejudice to conducting
further research. (In re S.H., supra, 82 Cal.App.5th at pp. 171, 173.)
      Nonetheless, we hasten to acknowledge that the court was not
particularly well served by the Department’s reports. Initially they
gave inconsistent or unclear information about whether the
Department had spoken to the father about his Indian heritage.
Moreover, even though the Department’s report before the
jurisdiction/disposition hearing noted that it had not been able to speak
with him about the issue, its report for the six-month review hearing
did not indicate any further efforts. As indicated by its
acknowledgement on appeal, the Department should have known that
it had not done enough. Under the circumstances, we conclude there is
no reason to let the court’s ICWA finding stand.
                            DISPOSITION
      The juvenile court’s orders following the jurisdiction/disposition
and six-month review hearings are affirmed. The juvenile court’s
March 15, 2022 finding that ICWA does not apply is vacated. On
remand, the Department shall comply with its duties to inquire

                                    8
whether the children are or may be Indian children and shall document
its efforts to the juvenile court. The juvenile court shall make a finding
regarding ICWA’s applicability and proceed in accordance therewith.

                                           GOLDMAN, J.

WE CONCUR:

STREETER, Acting P. J.
HIRAMOTO, J. *

* Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Contra Costa,

assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the
California Constitution.

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