Court Opinion

ID: 9371760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-16 19:02:33.034113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:29.983869
License: Public Domain

Filed 2/16/23 In re K.S. CA4/2

                      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 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 This opinion has not been certified for publication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

                                   FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                 DIVISION TWO

 In re K.S., a Person Coming Under the
 Juvenile Court Law.

 RIVERSIDE COUNTY DEPARTMENT
 OF PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES,                                              E080191

          Plaintiff and Respondent,                                      (Super.Ct.Nos. RIJ112626)

 v.                                                                      OPINION

 A.H.,

          Defendant and Appellant.

         APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Dorothy McLaughlin,

Judge. Conditionally reversed.

         Christine E. Johnson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant

and Appellant.

         Minh C. Tran, County Counsel, and Melinda H. Frey, Deputy County Counsel, for

Plaintiff and Respondent.

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       A.H. (mother) appeals from orders terminating parental rights over her minor child

K.S. She argues the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services

(department) did not conduct a sufficient inquiry into K.S.’s possible Indian ancestry

under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The department concedes the error, and we

agree that the concession was proper. Accordingly, we conditionally reverse the

termination of parental rights as to K.S., but otherwise affirm the juvenile court’s orders.1

                                     BACKGROUND

       In April 2021 mother gave birth to K.S. Mother tested positive for

methamphetamine at the time of the birth, leading to the department’s involvement.

Mother told the department she lived with maternal great-grandmother, though maternal

grandmother said mother lived with her. The department spoke to father, who was in

custody following arrest for an unrelated offense, in May. He told the department he and

mother were homeless, and both used methamphetamine. The department sought and

received a protective custody warrant and filed a section 300 petition later that month.

       At the detention hearing, the court continued K.S.’s detention away from his

parents and found ICWA did not apply.

       The court and department also initiated an inquiry into whether K.S. was an

Indian child. In an attachment to the section 300 petition, the department reported that

       1  Undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code. “In
addition, because 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
(Benjamin M.).)

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mother gave no reason to believe K.S. was an Indian child. Father filed a Judicial

Council Form ICWA-020 in which he claimed no Indian ancestry. Our record does not

contain an ICWA-020 from mother.

       In addition to K.S.’s parents, the department also spoke to maternal grandmother

and maternal aunt in May 2021. However, it did not ask either about K.S.’s possible

Indian heritage. The department spoke to maternal aunt two more times—in June 2021

and November 2021—but never asked her about whether K.S. had any Indian heritage.

The department also interviewed a maternal great aunt but did not ask her whether K.S.

had any Indian heritage.

       The court held a contested jurisdiction and disposition hearing in August 2021. It

found the department conducted a sufficient ICWA inquiry. However, it made

contradictory findings about whether ICWA applied⸺finding both that ICWA may apply

and that it did not apply⸺ultimately concluding that K.S. was not an Indian child. The

court held a section 366.26 hearing in October 2022, where mother appeared before the

court for the first time. At that hearing, the court terminated both parents’ parental rights.

                                        ANALYSIS

       Mother contends, and the department correctly concedes, that the department

prejudicially failed to comply with its duty of initial inquiry regarding mother and her

relatives.

       Under California law, the juvenile court and county child welfare department have

“an affirmative and continuing duty to inquire” whether a child subject to a section 300

                                              3
petition may be an Indian child. (§ 224.2, subd. (a); see In re D.F. (2020) 55 Cal.App.5th

558, 566 (D.F.).) “This continuing duty can be divided into three phases: the initial duty

to inquire, the duty of further inquiry, and the duty to provide formal ICWA notice.”

(D.F., at p. 566.)

       The department always has an initial duty to inquire into whether a child is an

Indian child. (In re J.S. (2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 678, 686 (J.S.); see § 224.2, subd. (b).)

“ ‘The child welfare department’s initial duty of inquiry includes “asking the child,

parents, legal guardian, Indian custodian, extended family members, others who have an

interest in the child, and the party reporting child abuse or neglect, whether the child is,

or may be, an Indian child and where the child, the parents, or Indian custodian is

domiciled.” ’ ” (J.S., at p. 686; see § 224.2, subd. (b).) Extended family members

include adults who are the child’s stepparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers,

sisters, nieces, nephews, and first or second cousins. (25 U.S.C. § 1903(2); § 224.1,

subd. (c).) “If the initial inquiry gives the juvenile court or the agency ‘reason to believe’

that an Indian child is involved, then the juvenile court and the agency have a duty to

conduct ‘further inquiry’ [citation], and if the court or the agency has ‘reason to know’ an

Indian child is involved, ICWA notices must be sent to the relevant tribes.” (Benjamin

M., supra, 70 Cal.App.5th at p. 742.)

       In addition, both federal regulations under ICWA and California law require that

the court ask each “participant” whether he or she knows or has reason to know the child

is an Indian child. (25 C.F.R. § 23.107(a); § 224.2, subd. (c).) State law mandates the

                                              4
inquiry at the “first appearance in court of each party” (§ 224.2, subd. (c)), whereas

federal law states that the inquiry must be “made at the commencement of the proceeding

and all responses should be on the record.” (25 C.F.R. § 23.107(a).)

       Here, both the department as well as the juvenile court failed to conduct a

sufficient initial inquiry. Not only did the juvenile court not ask mother at the

section 366.26 hearing (i.e., when she first appeared before the court) whether she knew

or had reason to know K.S. was an Indian child, the department did not ask mother’s

family members with whom it was in contact (such as the maternal grandmother and the

maternal aunt) about K.S.’s potential Indian heritage.

       Moreover, the error was prejudicial. Setting aside the issue of whether the trial

court’s failure to inquire, without more, merits reversal, “in ICWA cases, a court must

reverse where the record demonstrates that the agency has not only failed in its duty of

initial inquiry, but where the record indicates that there was readily obtainable

information that was likely to bear meaningfully upon whether the child is an Indian

child.” (Benjamin M., supra, 70 Cal.App.5th at p. 744.) We agree with the parties that

information from any of the several family members with whom the department was in

contact “would likely have shed meaningful light on whether there is reason to believe”

K.S. is an Indian child. (Ibid.) Those family members include the maternal aunt,

maternal grandmother, maternal great-aunt, and the maternal great-grandmother. In fact,

here the family members with meaningful information include mother herself, as the

                                              5
record does not show she ever submitted an ICWA-020 form. We therefore find that

additional inquiry is necessary.

                                       DISPOSITION

       The order terminating mother’s and father’s parental rights to K.S. is conditionally

reversed. The matter is remanded to the juvenile court with directions to comply with the

inquiry provisions of ICWA and of sections 224.2 and 224.3 consistent with this opinion,

including by requiring mother to complete and submit an ICWA-020 form. If, after

completing the initial inquiry, neither the department nor the court has reason to believe

that K.S. is an Indian child, the order terminating parental rights as to K.S. shall be

reinstated. If the department has reason to believe that K.S. is an Indian child, the court

and the department shall proceed accordingly. In all other respects, the judgment is

affirmed.

       NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

                                                                 RAPHAEL
                                                                                              J.
We concur:

RAMIREZ
                        P. J.

SLOUGH
                           J.

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