Court Opinion

ID: 9723438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:15:14.869812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:48.824902
License: Public Domain

DIBIASO, J., Concurring.
I agree this matter must return to the juvenile court for evidentiary resolution of the question of adoptability. I write separately to express a concern about the retroactive application of Welfare and Institutions Code1 section 366.25, subdivision (j). Simply put, the conclusion that subdivision (j) is retroactive is not compelled and is pregnant with the potential for injustice to parties not involved in this case.
The arguments in favor of retroactive application are: (1) the Legislature presumably knew the terms of subdivision (i) and passed subdivision (j) with that knowledge; and (2) the state Supreme Court has endorsed retroactive application of subdivision (j) by denying a petition for review in In re T.M. (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 314 [253 Cal.Rptr. 535] (hereafter T.M.) on *386February 16, 1989, and, a week later, dismissing as improvidently granted petitions for review in several cases raising appealability issues.2
1. Legislative Intent
Section 366.25, subdivision (j) was one of the products of Senate Bill No. I860, 1987-1988 Regular Session (SB 1860). State Senator Presley, the author of SB 1860, viewed the bill in relevant part as clarifying that “permanent plans are not appealable orders.” In its original version, SB 1860 did not amend section 366.25 to add subdivision (j). In its first amended version, SB 1860 (as amended Apr. 4, 1988), included the language: “(j) Orders determining a permanent plan are not appealable orders but may be the subject of review by extraordinary writ.”
A legislative committee analysis observed during this period: “The phrase ‘orders determining a permanent plan’ is not clear as to which orders at the permanency planning hearing are not appealable, [fl] In an order at a permanency planning hearing, the court may order long-term foster care for the minor child, order or deny visitation to the parents or guardian, or impose a guardianship and issue letters of guardianship. These are final orders from which an appeal is appropriate. Should not the court orders which are not to be appealable be limited to those orders which require the filing of a petition to terminate parental rights or to establish a guardianship?” (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 1860 (1987-1988 Reg. Sess.) as amended June 16, 1988.)
The bill as it pertained to section 366.25, subdivision (j) was subsequently amended in the Assembly, on June 29th, to provide: “(j) An order by the court that authorizes the termination of parental rights pursuant to Section 232 or that authorizes the initiation of guardianship proceedings is not an appealable order but may be the subject of review by extraordinary writ.” and on August 26th, to provide: “(j) An order by the court that authorizes the filing of a petition to terminate parental rights pursuant to Section 232 or that authorizes the initiation of guardianship proceedings is not an appeal-able order but may be the subject of review by extraordinary writ.”
It is this version of the bill which became law. (Stats. 1988, ch. 1075, § 6, No. 4 Deering’s Adv. Legis. Service, p. 3877; No. 10 West’s Cal. Legis. Service, p. 2585.)
*387The policy of the law is firmly against retroactive deprivation of the right of appeal. The legislative will to do so in any particular instance must be “clear.” (Martin v. Municipal Court (1983) 148 Cal.App.3d 693, 696 [196 Cal.Rptr. 218].) That case, cited by TIM,3 actually enforced the policy which disfavors retroactivity. As the court in Martin realized, cutting off the right of appeal by retrospective application of a statute “obviously works great hardship and apparent injustice upon those who may have waived other remedies allowed by law for the correction of possible errors. Third, therefore, unless the act itself clearly indicates an intention that it shall have a retroactive or retrospective effect, the rule of statutory construction that such statutes are not to be construed as intended to apply retroactively so as to affect pending appeals is fully recognized and well established by the decisions of this state. Fourth, it is well settled that in order that such changes in the law as the termination of appellate jurisdiction may affect pending appeals the amending law must either expressly so declare or an implication that such was the intention of the lawmaking power must be definite and clear. ” (Jones v. Summers (1930) 105 Cal.App. 51, 54-55 [286 P. 1093], italics added.)
Applying the principles summarized in Jones, subdivision (j) and its legislative history neither expressly nor by implication declare the Legislature’s intent to affect pending appeals. Although the Legislature ultimately came down on the side of nonappealability, the history of the statute does not reflect an attitude that subdivision (j) simply confirmed existing law which some appellate courts had misinterpreted. Rather, as the legislative materials acknowledge: “Existing statutory law does not specify whether or not such orders are appealable and the various courts of appeal have been inconsistent in determining appealability of permanent plan orders which recommend that parental rights be terminated and require the county to file a complaint seeking termination of parental rights under Civil Code Section 232.” (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 1860 (1987-1988 Reg. Sess.) as amended June 16, 1988.)
Had the Legislature considered this to be an area of judicial misinterpretation of clear legislative intent, arguably it would have rectified the situation by expressly applying the new law to every pending case. However, missing from the legislative history is any indication that the Legislature found such judicial error. Likewise missing from the legislative history is any indication the Legislature even thought about retroactivity in enacting subdivision (j).
On the other hand, the Legislature had a specific, easily ascertainable purpose in mind when it added subdivision (i) as part of a major overhaul of *388California’s laws pertaining to, among other things, juvenile court dependency proceedings. A Senate Select Committee had convened a task force to examine existing statutes and practices and recommend changes necessary to protect children at risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The results of the task force’s work were contained in Senate Bill No. 243 (SB 243) (Stats. 1987, ch. 1485). (Sen. Select Com. on Children & Youth/SB 1195 Task Force, at p. i.)
Included in the legislative package was the promulgation of a new section 366.26, effective January 1, 1989: “SB 243 substantially modifies the procedure for permanently severing parental rights in cases where the child is a dependent of the court. The new procedure will apply to minors adjudicated dependents of the court on or after January 1, 1989. Unlike current practice, which requires the filing and prosecution of a separate civil court action pursuant to Civil Code Section 232, all termination proceedings for children who are dependents will be heard in the juvenile court, as part of the regular review process. The task force reasoned that by eliminating the need to file the separate Civil Code Section 232 action, minors who are adoptable will no longer have to wait months and often years for the opportunity to be placed with an appropriate family on a permanent basis.
“Under the new provisions, a juvenile court must hold a ‘permanency’ hearing within 120 days of the time it decides that no further reunification services shall be provided to the parents. The procedures are specified in . . . Section 366.26. . . .” (Sen. Select Com. on Children & Youth/SB 1195 Task Force, at p. 10.)
Section 366.26 combined into one the hearings on permanency planning and parental rights termination. Subdivision (a) of section 366.26 provides, in pertinent part: “This section applies to minors who are adjudged dependent children of the juvenile court pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 360 on or after January 1, 1989.” Thus, the contemporaneous addition of subdivision (i) to section 366.25 clarified that the old procedure still applied to minors adjudged dependents before January 1, 1989. In effect, subdivision (i) was an antiretroactivity provision.
It is abundantly clear from the legislative materials that subdivision (i) was part of a larger legislative scheme aimed at speeding up and elucidating certain aspects of dependency proceedings. Because the Legislature at the same time enacted a new procedure destined to become effective January 1, 1989 (§ 366.26), it is not surprising the lawmakers underscored, by way of subdivision (i), that the old statutory scheme, applicable before January 1, 1989, was distinct from the new procedures. Two years later, subdivision (j) *389came along in response to a dispute among the Courts of Appeal about the unrelated topic of appealability.
T.M. took the position that subdivision (j) manifests a legislative intent in favor of retroactivity by virtue of the legislators’ assumed knowledge, when subdivision (j) was enacted, of the existence of subdivision (i). No doubt it is a legal presumption that the Legislature has in mind existing laws when it passes a statute (Estate of McDill (1975) 14 Cal.3d 831, 837 [122 Cal.Rptr. 754, 537 P.2d 874]; Estate of Simpson (1954) 43 Cal.2d 594, 600 [275 P.2d 467, 47 A.L.R.2d 991]; People v. Weidert (1985) 39 Cal.3d 836, 844 [218 Cal.Rptr. 57, 705 P.2d 380]). However, in view of the known antiretroactive purpose of subdivision (i), to say no appeals will lie after January 1, 1989, in cases where permanency hearings were held before that date, is not also to say with certainty and clarity that the Legislature desired all perfected appeals pending on January 1, 1989, to be peremptorily dismissed. Had the Legislature inserted subdivision (j) before subdivision (i) and then re-alphabetized the two provisions, the rationale adopted by T.M. might have somewhat more force.
The “amending law,” subdivision (j), does not “expressly declare” an intention “that it shall have a retroactive or retrospective effect.” (Jones v. Summers, supra, 105 Cal.App. at pp. 54-55.) Instead, it is altogether silent on the topic. Moreover, neither the statute nor its legislative history “clearly indicates an intention” to moot out pending appeals. Instead, again, silence prevails. On the other hand, the legislative history of subdivision (i), the provision relied upon to accord retroactive effect to subdivision (j), unmistakably discloses it to be a statute with an antiretrospective purpose wholly unrelated to any issue about appealability. Jones would therefore seem to demand that subdivision (j) not be held to be retroactive. Were that the case, subdivision (j) would nonetheless have meaning in those cases where a permanency planning hearing for a child declared a dependent before January 1, 1989, is conducted after January 1, 1989.
2. State Supreme Court Action
It has been argued the state Supreme Court endorsed retroactive application of subdivision (j) by denying review in T.M. and shortly thereafter dismissing, as improvidently granted, petitions for review in several cases raising appealability issues. The Third District was recently persuaded by this argument in In re Eli F. (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 228 at pages 234-235 [260 Cal.Rptr. 453]: “While the denial of review by the Supreme Court does not normally add weight to the opinion of the District Court of Appeal ‘it does not follow that such denial is without significance . . . .’ (DiGenova v. State Board of Education (1962) 57 Cal.2d 167, 178 [18 Cal.Rptr. 369, 367 *390P.2d 865]; see 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure [(3d ed. 1985)] Appeal, §§ 775-776, pp. 743-747.) Given the wholesale disposition of these cases in the face of an appellate interpretation of the new statute, we believe the Supreme Court has made its unspoken views clear. Section 366.25, subdivision (j) resolves the split of authority among the District Courts of Appeal and terminates existing appeals from the orders described in the statute. (In re T.M., supra, [(1988)] 206 Cal.App.3d [314] at p.316 [253 Cal.Rptr. 535].)”
The analysis in Eli F. is nothing more than speculation in the absence of some explanation by the Supreme Court for its dismissal of the petitions. It is just as likely the court exercised its prerogative under California Rules of Court, rule 29.4(c), because it realized, with the passage of section 366.26, a decision on appealability would not have any long-lasting effect. Moreover, given the crushing case load faced by the high court, it may well have concluded its work would have been pointless; by the time it issued an opinion on the matter, section 366.25 permanency planning hearings would for all practical purposes be a thing of the past.
As Jones recognized, retroactive elimination of an appeal “works great hardship and apparent injustice upon those who may have waived other remedies allowed by law for the correction of possible errors.” (Jones v. Summers, supra, 105 Cal.App. at pp. 54-55.) The potential for hardship and injustice is present here, for this court’s decision in Joshua S., supra, 186 Cal.App.3d 147, permitting appeals such as this, has undoubtedly been relied upon by lawyers and parties in our appellate district. Having held subdivision (j) to be retroactive, this court may now dismiss4 all like appeals—including this case—presently pending, even though the appellants, in undoubted reliance on In re Joshua S., elected to proceed by way of the appeal we approved and not by way of writ.5 En masse dismissal, however, raises practical problems to the extent issues other than those disposed of by subdivision (j) are included among the appellate questions. As an alternative, this court may separately dismiss each subdivision (j) appeal as it comes up on our panel calendars. In either instance, the “bounced-out” appellants will have been denied all review of their claims, a result which I am confident the Legislature, whatever else it may have had in mind, did not desire.
The remaining option is the path this panel has chosen to take, that is, the assessment of each case, as it appears on the regular appeals calendar of a panel of this court, in order to decide whether it may be treated as a petition *391for a writ. If each panel to which the issue is hereafter presented adopts our approach, perhaps all the appellants in the pending appeals will ultimately secure the review they seek. Yet this panel does not control the actions or decisions of subsequent panels of this court and, for a variety of reasons, some, perhaps many, cases will not secure alternate consideration as a writ petition. The appellants in those instances will be denied review despite their previous, wholly justified, reliance upon In re Joshua S., supra, 186 Cal.App.3d 147, Even if it turns out that a small number, or only one, of the pending appeals is refused writ treatment and therefore turned away, a patent injustice—from which I trust I have distanced myself by this concurrence—will have been done.
The worry I express here may well be, as I expect my brethren believe, “much ado about nothing.” Admittedly, if the rationale of this opinion is uniformly applied to all subdivision (j) cases pending before this court as of December 31, 1988, that is, the record is considered to be a “writ” but the substantive issues are brought up and processed and resolved on their merits in the same manner as an appeal, my fretting will have been unnecessary. After all, “a rose by any other name . . . .”

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

 The Supreme Court dismissed review of the following cases pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 29.4(c), by a single order dated February 23, 1989: In re Julia C.* (Cal.App. H001254); In re Erik R. (Dec. 4, 1987) E004159 [nonpub. opn.]; In re Keith W. (Mar. 21, 1988) E003835 [nonpub. opn.]; In re Sharon W. * (Cal.App. G005219); In re Alexis C. (May 24, 1988) D006038 [nonpub. opn.]; In re Christopher C.* (Cal.App. A036356); In re Jenny C. (May 26, 1988) B029475 [nonpub. opn.].

 Reporter’s Note: Opinions deleted upon direction of Supreme Court.

 Notably, the T.M panel also issued Martin.

 The court must of its own motion dismiss an appeal from a nonappealable order. (Efron v. Kalmanovitz (1960) 185 Cal.App.2d 149, 152 [8 Cal.Rptr. 107].)

 Writ review was likely not then available because of the existence of the adequate remedy of appeal.