Court Opinion

ID: 9353398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-11 20:02:22.680548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:07:54.748191
License: Public Domain

Filed 1/11/23 In re T.G. CA1/5
                NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been
certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

                                 FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                            DIVISION FIVE

  In re T.G, a Person Coming Under
  the Juvenile Court Law.
                                                               A164680
  MARIN COUNTY HEALTH &
  HUMAN SERVICES AGENCY,                                       (Marin County Superior Ct.
            Plaintiff and Respondent,                          No. JV27156A)
  v.
  L.G.,
            Defendant and Appellant.

        Appellant L.G. appeals from a juvenile court order placing his son,
T.G., in a short-term residential group home instead of appellant’s own care.
Under Welfare and Institutions Code1 section 361.2, subdivision (a),
appellant argues that no substantial evidence supports the court’s
determination that placing T.G. with appellant would be detrimental to the
child’s well-being. We disagree and affirm.
                                          I. BACKGROUND
        Respondent Marin County Health and Human Services filed a juvenile
dependency petition for T.G. on October 28, 2021. At the time, the

        All subsequent references to statute are to the Welfare and
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Institutions Code, unless otherwise noted.

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10-year-old lived with mother N.S. and for about nine months had been in
weekly contact with his father, appellant. In the course of the investigation
underlying the petition, police and social workers discovered extensive
evidence that T.G. had suffered from his mother’s neglect. He had not been
enrolled in school, had recently run away from home and slept outside
overnight, and had set fires in the apartment complex where he then resided.
        When police responded to mother’s home to investigate the fires, they
found the apartment “filthy.” The refrigerator held moldy and expired food,
and dirt or rodent droppings were visible on the floor. Respondent also
learned that T.G. had not been taken to a doctor in years and had never seen
a dentist. As a result of the latter, T.G. had
“ ‘a very large black cavity in a rear upper tooth, with part of that tooth
broken off.’ ” As well, “ ‘two other teeth [had] cavities in them,’ ” something
which could “be easily seen by just looking in his mouth.” According to
mother, appellant had purchased glasses for T.G. to correct his blurred
vision, but those had gone missing more than a year earlier and were never
replaced. The dependency petition noted appellant’s admission that “he was
concerned about [T.G.’s] well[-]being in [mother’s] care but [had] failed to
seek legal custody or take other actions to ensure [T.G.’s] basic needs were
met.”
        T.G. was placed in a confidential Marin County licensed resource home.
Although he was “visibly comfortable in the home and with the resource
parent,” T.G.’s stay at the resource home was not without incident. On one
occasion, when the resource parent set limits on T.G.’s behavior, T.G. “got
upset and appeared to have a tantrum by yelling, throwing [a] video game
controller at the resource parent, stomping on the floor, running to his room
and slamming the door.” The resource parent reported that T.G.

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“inappropriately hits or punches others”—including classmates and the
resource parent—“even when asked not to” do so. Finally, T.G. would not
“bathe properly, . . . brush his teeth, . . . flush the toilet,” or refrain from
urinating on the floor. In short, he “require[d] 100% attention . . . at home
and . . . at school.”
      Consequently, T.G. was placed in a short-term residential therapeutic
program (STRTP) at St. Vincent’s School for Boys. There, T.G. would be in
the care of professionals charged with addressing his childhood development
trauma, undergo psychological evaluation, and have his educational needs
assessed. In a virtual visit with his mother, T.G. “appeared ‘happy and
excited,’ showing [her] where [the school’s] horses were and saying that he
liked St. Vincent’s.” However, T.G. also experienced further behavioral
problems, including incidents where he “[b]anged his head” on his bedroom
wall and had to be “escorted to the sensory room.”
      After a contested disposition hearing featuring testimony from
appellant and the social worker assigned to T.G., the juvenile court
determined that removing T.G. from St. Vincent’s and placing him with
appellant would be detrimental to T.G. under section 361.2, subdivision (a).
That determination was based on several factors: appellant’s “failure to
protect” T.G. from his mother’s neglect; T.G.’s “profound needs” and
appellant’s apparent failure to acknowledge those; appellant’s “extensive
history involving substance abuse,” including “at least five DUIs”; his refusal
to take a drug test when asked to do so by the social worker; his similar
refusal to take parenting classes; and a generally evasive, uncooperative

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posture adopted by appellant with respect to the social worker and the
juvenile court.2
      Arguing that the juvenile court’s order was unsupported by substantial
evidence, appellant filed this appeal.
                                II. DISCUSSION
      Where a child has been removed from a parent’s custody under section
361 and another, non-custodial parent requests custody, section 361.2,
subdivision (a), requires the juvenile court to place the child with the latter
parent, unless the juvenile court finds that such a placement “would be
detrimental to the safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of
the child.” In determining whether such a detriment would result, the
juvenile court must “weigh all relevant factors to determine if the child will
suffer net harm.” (In re Luke M. (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1412, 1425 (Luke
M.).) “Only clear and convincing evidence can establish the necessary
detriment.” (In re A.C. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 38, 43.)
      “Our role is limited because our review of the juvenile court’s detriment
finding is deferential.” (In re A.C., supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at p. 43.) “We
review the record in the light most favorable to the court’s order to determine
whether there is substantial evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact

      2 An illustrative example of this posture concerns appellant’s residence.
Initially, he told the social worker that he had “an ‘apartment’ that he
lease[d].” Later, when he provided his address to the juvenile court, the court
noted that the address was to a yacht harbor and appellant confirmed that he
lived on a boat. Appellant subsequently testified that he has an
“arrangement” with a friend who owns the boat: Appellant pays the dock fee
and maintains the boat and in turn, can stay there “as long as necessary.”
That arrangement appears to be an informal one; when the social worker
asked appellant to show her a rental agreement or permit her to speak to the
harbormaster, appellant refused.

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could find clear and convincing evidence that the children would suffer such
detriment.” (Luke M., supra, 107 Cal.App.4th at p. 1426.)
      Here, the trial court’s determination that it would be detrimental to
place T.G. in appellant’s custody is supported by the following evidence.
First, as appellant’s counsel conceded, appellant “failed to protect [T.G.] from
[T.G.’s] mother” in the years when T.G. suffered from her neglect. Second,
appellant has a history of substance abuse, including five convictions for
driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Third, appellant was to a
great degree uncooperative with the social workers assigned to
T.G.—refusing to be tested for drug use, to attend parenting classes,3 and to
produce a rental agreement or grant permission for the social worker to
discuss appellant’s living situation with the harbormaster where appellant
lives on a friend’s houseboat.4
      Fourth, T.G. has several serious behavioral problems that might pose a
significant challenge to any father. When staying with a resource parent,
T.G. threw tantrums—throwing a video game controller at the resource
parent, stomping on the floor, running to his room, and slamming the door.
He refused to wash or brush his hair, brush his teeth, or flush the toilet, and
he would urinate on the floor. Similar behavior continued after T.G. was
placed at St. Vincent’s. When a social worker asked appellant how he might
deal with such challenges, appellant seemed to minimize them, saying that

      3Appellant testified that in 2010 at the Salvation Army, he underwent
a six-month drug treatment program which included parenting classes. We
note that he suffered yet another DUI conviction in 2018, and that the
parenting classes did not prevent appellant’s failures with respect to T.G.,
who was born in 2010.
      4 We reject appellant’s framing of this evidence, which suggests that his
“[p]overty” was found to be “a sufficient basis to deny” him custody. The
salient fact here is not appellant’s living situation, but his lack of candor.

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T.G. “would never do that with me.” The record, however, indicates
otherwise. For example, while T.G. was living with his mother in 2021, he
avoided spending a planned weekend with his father by running away and
sleeping in the rain behind his mother’s apartment building.
      In sum, appellant failed to intervene when T.G. endured mistreatment
in his mother’s custody, he abused controlled substances, and he refused to
attend the parenting classes or undergo the drug testing reasonably called for
by that history. He has also been uncooperative in other ways with social
services personnel attending to the welfare of his child. Crucially, appellant
seemed to minimize the scale and gravity of T.G.’s ongoing problems. Taken
together, these facts constitute substantial evidence showing that to place
T.G. with appellant “would be detrimental to the safety, protection, or
physical or emotional well-being of the child.” (§ 361.2, subd. (a).)
      In arguing against that conclusion, appellant relies on several cases, all
of which are distinguishable. In re Patrick S. (2013) 218 Cal.App.4th 1254,
1263 (Patrick S.), for example, dealt with a father who had “no criminal
history, no referrals to child welfare services and no indication of substance
abuse or mental illness”—something that cannot be said of appellant.5 The
evidence of detriment in In re John M. (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 1564, 1570,
was not substantial because it was limited to the child’s “need for services,
his lack of a relationship with [the father], and the paucity of information

      5 In Patrick S., the Fourth District concluded that “there [was] not
substantial evidence to show that Patrick could not meet [his son’s]
therapeutic needs” immediately after it discussed father’s paternal
qualifications, including the ones we have highlighted here. (Patrick S.,
supra, 218 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1263–1264.) Thus, when appellant suggests
that the record here displays a comparable lack of “substantial evidence that
the child’s short[-]term needs could not be addressed,” he ignores the very
different factual context upon which the holding in Patrick S. was based. In
short, Patrick S. is distinguishable.

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about” the father; here, on the other hand, there is an abundance of
information about appellant and his apparent unwillingness to cooperate
with his son’s social workers. Similarly, the evidence of a father’s drug
problem in In re C.M. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 1394, 1403–1404, was an
unsubstantiated allegation made by a mother whose “mental health issues
made her a questionable reporter on the issue.” Here, such evidence appears
in DUI convictions as recent as 2018—well after appellant’s 2010
participation in a Salvation Army drug treatment program—along with
appellant’s resistance to drug testing.
      Nor are we persuaded by appellant’s other arguments. For example,
there is evidence that T.G. wishes to live with appellant, but although
relevant, such “wishes are not dispositive.” (In re A.C. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th
38, 43.) Appellant further argues that “the record reflects” his attempt “to do
what he could within the limitations imposed on him given mother’s
resistance and his lack of presumed father status.” At most, this argument
presents a rival interpretation of the evidence, of little help to us in our
endeavor to “consider the record most favorably to the juvenile court’s order,
and affirm the order if supported by substantial evidence even if other
evidence supports a contrary conclusion.” (In re Liam L. (2015) 240
Cal.App.4th 1068, 1087.)
      Finally, we emphasize that our conclusion does not rest on any single
line of evidence set forth above, but instead, on the whole of that evidence.
As the juvenile court observed, “[m]any of the cases” dealing with section
361.2 “say, well, you can’t [find detriment] for this reason or . . . for that
reason. I’m not doing it for any one of those reasons . . . . I am doing it based
on the totality.” In reviewing that totality, we find that it meets the
“substantial evidence” standard operative here.

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             III. DISPOSITION
We affirm.

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                                            _________________________
                                            Wiseman, J. *

We concur:

_________________________
Jackson, P.J.

_________________________
Simons, J.

In re T.G. / A164680

*     Retired Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate
District, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the
California Constitution.

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