Court Opinion

ID: 9895566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-07 19:03:37.972976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:31.945339
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/7/23 In re Harmony J. CA2/7
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                      DIVISION SEVEN

In re HARMONY J., a Person                                        B318432
Coming Under the Juvenile Court
Law.                                                              (Los Angeles County
________________________________                                  Super. Ct. No.
                                                                  21CCJP04311A)
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
AND FAMILY SERVICES,

         Plaintiff and Respondent,

         v.

DURRELL J.,

         Defendant and Appellant.

     APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Jean M. Nelson, Judge. Dismissed.
     Robert McLaughlin, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Durrell J.
      Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, and Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

                 _____________________________

      Durrell J., father of Harmony J., appeals from the juvenile
court’s January 27, 2022 disposition order declaring Harmony a
dependent child of the court and removing her from his custody.
Durrell’s only argument is that the Los Angeles County
Department of Children and Family Services failed to comply
with the inquiry requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act
(ICWA) (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) and related California law.
Durrell argues that the Department and the juvenile court failed
to conduct “any ICWA inquiry whatsoever with respect to father”
and that the Department “failed to inquire about Harmony’s
possible Indian ancestry” with “two readily available paternal
family members”: a paternal grandmother and a paternal aunt.
Durrell asks that we conditionally affirm the jurisdiction findings
and disposition order and remand the matter “to achieve ICWA
compliance.”
      On October 6, 2023 the juvenile court ordered the
Department, among other things, to continue investigating
Harmony’s possible Indian ancestry and to “contact/attempt to
contact all known and available paternal relatives,” including
Durrell, the paternal grandmother, and the paternal aunt, “about
whether [Harmony] is or may be an Indian child through her
paternal lineage.” The court further ordered the Department to
submit a report on its interviews of the paternal family members
and stated that the court, after reviewing the report, “shall make
a finding regarding ICWA’s applicability.”

                                 2
       That is exactly what Durrell seeks in this appeal. We
cannot provide him any effective relief because he has already
obtained it. Therefore, the appeal is moot. (See In re D.P. (2023)
14 Cal.5th 266, 275 [“A case becomes moot when events
‘“render[ ] it impossible for [a] court, if it should decide the case in
favor of plaintiff, to grant him any effect[ive] relief.”’”]; In re
Rashad D. (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 156, 163 [the “‘critical factor in
considering whether a dependency appeal is moot is whether the
appellate court can provide any effective relief if it finds
reversible error’”]; In re E.T. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 426, 436
[an “appeal may become moot where subsequent events,
including orders by the juvenile court, render it impossible for the
reviewing court to grant effective relief”].) Conditionally
affirming the disposition order and directing the juvenile court to
do what it is already doing will not accomplish anything or assist
Durrell in any way. As the court explained in In re Baby Girl M.
(2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 635, “all we could order in resolving this
appeal is that the Department and juvenile court fulfill their
inquiry and notice obligations under ICWA and related California
law. Because that is what the Department is already doing, and
because we are not in a position to micromanage that process in
this appeal (detailing, for instance, all those who must be
interviewed, what they must be asked, and what must be
included in any notice to tribes that is required), there is no
effective relief we can now provide. The juvenile court must
direct that process, at least in the first instance.” (Id. at pp. 638-
639.)1

1    Durrell does not ask us to exercise our discretion to hear
his moot appeal under In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th 266.

                                   3
      Durrell argues “the October 6, 2023, minute order does not
remedy the ongoing inquiry failure. The minute order merely
directed the Department to comply with the initial inquiry duty it
previously failed to meet.” The juvenile court’s order, however,
addresses the only issue in this appeal: the Department’s failure
to comply with its duty to inquire under ICWA and related
California law whether Harmony may be an Indian child. And
the court’s order requires the remedy to be “ongoing” by requiring
the Department to “‘continue to investigate’” Harmony’s possible
Indian ancestry and to contact all paternal relatives, including
Durrell and the two relatives he has identified. If the court
reviews the Department’s report and makes a finding ICWA does
not apply, and if Durrell disagrees with that finding, he can
challenge it in an appeal from an appropriate order.
      The appeal is dismissed as moot.

                                    SEGAL, Acting P. J.

      We concur:

            FEUER, J.

            MARTINEZ, J.

                                4