Court Opinion

ID: 9840679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-19 19:05:16.946751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:59:58.660866
License: Public Domain

Filed 9/19/23 In re Ruby S. 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 TWO

In re RUBY S., a Person Coming                                 B320976
Under the Juvenile Court Law.                                  (Los Angeles County
                                                               Super. Ct. No.
                                                               20CCJP06769A)

LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
AND FAMILY SERVICES,

         Plaintiff and Respondent,

         v.

VICTOR S.,

         Defendant and Appellant.

     APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County. Robin R. Kesler, Judge Pro Tempore.
Dismissed.
      Liana Serobian, under appointment by the Court of Appeal,
for Defendant and Appellant.

      Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, and Avedis Koutoujian, Deputy
County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

                      _________________________

       Appellant Victor S. (father) appeals from the juvenile
court’s order terminating reunification services for him and his
daughter, Ruby S. (born Oct. 2019). Over nine months after
father filed this appeal, the juvenile court terminated his
parental rights over Ruby; father did not appeal from that order.
Accordingly, we dismiss father’s appeal as moot.
       FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
       In November 2020, the Los Angeles County Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS) received a referral alleging
that Ruby was being neglected and emotionally abused by father
and her mother (mother).1
       In December 2020, DCFS filed a petition under section 300
of the Welfare and Institutions Code alleging, among other
things, that the parents “ha[d] a history of engaging in violent
altercations in [Ruby’s] presence[,]” and that father failed to
protect Ruby from mother.2 In January 2021, after father tested

1     Mother is not a party to this appeal.

2     All further statutory references are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.

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positive for marijuana, DCFS amended the section 300 petition to
allege that father’s drug use “render[ed] [him] incapable of
providing care for” Ruby.
       In October 2021, the juvenile court sustained the amended
petition, removed Ruby from parental custody, and ordered
reunification services and monitored visitation for father. Ruby
was placed with her maternal great-grandparents.
       At the six-month review hearing, the juvenile court found
that father had not substantially complied with his case plan.
Father failed to show at every drug test DCFS scheduled for him;
he did not enroll in required services; he expressed unwillingness
to take psychotropic medication; and he avoided regular contact
with social workers. Maternal great-grandparents reported that
father only visited Ruby once between July 2021 and March
2022. Over father’s objections, the juvenile court terminated his
reunification services.
       Father timely appealed.
       In February 2023, the juvenile court terminated father’s
parental rights over Ruby.3
                           DISCUSSION
       DCFS asks us to dismiss father’s appeal as moot. After
considering both parties’ briefs, we grant the motion to dismiss.
       “As a general rule, appellate courts decide only actual
controversies. Thus, ‘it has been said that an action which
originally was based upon a justiciable controversy cannot be
maintained on appeal if the questions raised therein have become
moot by subsequent acts or events.’ [Citation.]” (In re
Christina A. (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1153, 1158.)

3    We grant DCFS’s request to take judicial notice of the order
terminating father’s parental rights.

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       By statute, “[a]ny order of the court permanently
terminating parental rights under this section shall be conclusive
and binding upon the child[] [and] upon the parent . . . . After
making the order, the juvenile court shall have no power to set
aside, change, or modify it.” (§ 366.26, subd. (i)(1).) Accordingly,
when a parent does not appeal an order terminating parental
rights, prior juvenile court errors are rendered moot. (See In re
Jessica K. (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 1313, 1315–1317 [a mother’s
appeal from the denial of a hearing on her section 388 petition
was moot because she did not appeal the subsequent order
terminating her parental rights, ensuring that reversal of prior
orders would be futile].)
       Applying these principles, we must conclude that this
appeal does not present a justiciable controversy. Father did not
challenge the order terminating his parental rights, and that
order has long since become final. Any reversal of prior orders,
including the order terminating reunification services, would be a
futile act; therefore, this appeal is moot.
       Father resists this conclusion, arguing that the appeal is
not moot because a “controversy remains and the errors infected
all later proceedings.” Father’s argument relies heavily on In re
D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, but that case is inapposite. (Id. at
p. 283 [holding that “when a parent has demonstrated a specific
legal or practical consequence that will be averted upon reversal,
the case is not moot, and merits review is required. When a
parent has not made such a showing, the case is moot, but the
court has discretion to decide the merits nevertheless”].)
       We note that, in In re D.P., our Supreme Court reiterated
that “[a] case becomes moot when events ‘“render[] it impossible
for [a] court, if it should decide the case in favor of plaintiff, to

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grant him any effect[ive] relief.”’ [Citation.]” (In re D.P., supra,
14 Cal.5th at p. 276.) “For relief to be ‘effective,’ two
requirements must be met. First, the plaintiff must complain of
an ongoing harm. Second, the harm must be redressable or
capable of being rectified by the outcome the plaintiff seeks.”
(Ibid.) In arguing that his appeal is not moot, father completely
ignores the second element of this test. He does not suggest how
we can provide any redress for the errors he identifies,
considering that he failed to appeal from the subsequent order
terminating parental rights. That failure ultimately forecloses
father’s appeal from the juvenile court’s prior order terminating
reunification services.
       Father also cites to In re Samuel A. (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th
67, in which our colleagues in Division One vacated an order
terminating parental rights to resolve a mother’s appeal of a
prior order appointing her a guardian ad litem. That case is
readily distinguishable from father’s appeal. The Samuel A.
court noted that the challenged appointment of a guardian
ad litem resulted in mother being “prohibited from
communicating directly with counsel purportedly representing
her” at the permanency planning hearing (id. at p. 81, fn. 8); this
could have affected not just her “right to actively participate” in
the hearing (id. at p. 82), but also her ability to timely appeal
from the exit orders issued at that hearing. Father, who was
represented by counsel throughout these proceedings, does not
argue that any comparable impediment prevented him from
appealing the order terminating his parental rights.

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                       DISPOSITION
     The appeal is dismissed.
     NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

                               _____________________, J.
                               ASHMANN-GERST

We concur:

________________________, P. J.
LUI

________________________, J.
HOFFSTADT

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