Court Opinion

ID: 9841221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-21 17:04:02.687268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:42:37.263058
License: Public Domain

Filed 9/21/23 In re Ka.C. CA2/8
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                      DIVISION EIGHT

 In re Ka.C. et al., Persons Coming                                B326943
 Under the Juvenile Court Law.
 LOS ANGELES COUNTY                                                Los Angeles County
 DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN                                            Super. Ct. No. 22CCJP02479A-D
 AND FAMILY SERVICES,
           Plaintiff and Respondent,
           v.
 KARLA G.,
           Defendant and Appellant.

      APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County. Lisa A. Brackelmanns, Juvenile Court Referee.
Affirmed.

     William D. Caldwell, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

      Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, and William D. Thetford, Principal
Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                       ____________________
       Appellant Karla G. (mother) is mother to minor children
Ka.C. (born 2011), A.C. (born 2012), Ke.C. (born 2013) and J.C.
(born 2017). The children’s father (father) is not a party to this
appeal.
       Mother challenges the juvenile court’s jurisdictional
findings in support of the four Welfare and Institutions Code1
section 300, subdivision (b) counts sustained against her. She
further challenges the juvenile court’s dispositional orders
removing the children from her care. We affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
       The family was the subject of juvenile court proceedings
that began in 2014 following an act of domestic violence
perpetrated by father against mother. The juvenile court
terminated jurisdiction in 2015, granting mother sole legal and
physical custody of her children, Ka.C., A.C., and Ke.C., who are
three of the four dependents in the current proceedings, as well
as E.C., who is now an adult. Mother had completed parenting,
domestic violence, and other counseling programs; father had not
participated in any court-ordered programs. Mother and father
had another child, J.C., in 2017.
       The current proceedings began in April 2022. By this time,
mother and father’s relationship had ended, and mother was
living with a new partner, Carlos A. An anonymous caller
reported concerns about mother’s mental health, her relationship
with Carlos, and mother’s willingness to care for her children.
According to the caller, mother said she told her children she
wanted to give them up, had called the Los Angeles County
Department of Children and Family Services (Department), and

1     Undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code.

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would not be picking the children up from school. The
Department began an investigation. Mother confirmed many of
the concerns that the caller reported, including that she was
overwhelmed by her children and had attempted to overdose on
prescription pills. Mother lamented her lack of control over her
children and stated that her younger children looked to then
11-year-old Ka.C., rather than mother, as their parent. Mother
had been prescribed a number of psychotropic medications
starting in November 2021 to address mental health issues.
According to her therapist, mother was awaiting admission to a
comprehensive care program for adults with mental health
issues. The therapist suspected mother was off her medications
at the time of the referral. Mother later admitted she did not
take her medications consistently.
      In the course of the Department’s investigation, mother
twice tested positive for amphetamine and methamphetamine.
Despite the positive tests, mother continuously denied being a
current user of those drugs.
      Following mother’s second positive drug test, the
Department obtained an order detaining the children. The
children were placed with their adult sister, E.C. The day of
their detention, mother was reported as threatening to commit
suicide and behaving erratically. Later that evening, mother
attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a balcony.
Fortunately, she was not seriously injured.
      The Department filed a petition in late June 2022, a few
days after mother jumped off the balcony. The petition alleged
mother had mental and emotional problems and was a current
abuser of methamphetamine, amphetamine, marijuana, and
prescription medication. Mother’s condition and drug abuse, the

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petition alleged, rendered her incapable of providing regular care
of her minor children.
       The day after the Department filed the petition, the
juvenile court ordered the children removed and ordered the
Department to provide mother with referrals for counseling and
drug testing. The children remained placed with E.C.
       In early August 2022, the juvenile court arraigned father,
who had recently been released from prison (why he was there
the record does not disclose) to a residential reentry program. A
week later, the Department filed an amended petition adding
that father had a history of substance abuse and criminal
activities, mother and father engaged in domestic violence, and
that mother and father failed to provide the children with the
basic necessities of life.
       A second amended petition thereafter added allegations
that Carlos had been convicted of statutory rape, was a current
abuser of methamphetamine, and mother endangered the
children by allowing him to live in their home and have unlimited
access to them.
       The juvenile court sustained the second amended petition
in part, including counts b-1 and b-3. In sustaining the b-1 count,
the court found that mother’s unresolved and “very serious
mental health issues[] plac[ed] the children at risk.” In
sustaining count b-3, the court found that mother’s mental health
and substance abuse issues impaired her ability to provide the
children with the basic necessities, and father had also failed to
provide the children with the basic necessities, even when not
incarcerated.
       The juvenile court declared the children dependents of the
court, noted that father had submitted to removal, and ordered
the children suitably placed. The court ordered mother’s

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reunification case plan to include a full drug and alcohol program
with after care, random and on-demand weekly drug testing, a
12-step program with court card and sponsor, a domestic violence
group program for victims, individual counseling, and monitored
visits in a neutral setting.
       Mother timely appealed.
                           DISCUSSION
       The Department argues mother forfeited this appeal by
failing to challenge the juvenile court’s findings in support of
count b-3. We agree.
1.     Jurisdiction
       A juvenile court has jurisdiction over a child under any of
the circumstances described in section 300, subdivisions (a)
through (j). These include parents’ physical abuse, neglect, or
sexual abuse of their children, among others. (Ibid.)
       Jurisdiction under section 300 may be established based on
the conduct of only one parent. (In re M.C. (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th
137, 150-151.) And, only one valid ground for jurisdiction is
necessary to affirm a juvenile court’s exercise of jurisdiction.
(In re D.P. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 898, 902.) Thus, to defeat
juvenile court jurisdiction by appeal, an appellant must
successfully challenge every jurisdictional count regardless of
which parent’s conduct supplied the basis for the count.
       Here, mother failed in her opening brief to challenge the
juvenile court’s exercise of jurisdiction pursuant to count b-3, and
she failed to challenge the allegations concerning father. She
offers two reasons for her failure to challenge count b-3. She
asserts that count b-3 only applied to father, and the findings
against father “arguably” do not support jurisdiction. Mother’s
failure to show error in the court’s count b-3 findings forfeits her
challenge to jurisdiction.

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       First, we disagree with mother that count b-3 applied only
to father’s conduct. The record is clear that the parties
understood the allegations applied to both parents. Mother’s
counsel argued against the b-3 count before the juvenile court.
The allegations supporting count b-3 expressly extend to mother’s
conduct. In relevant part, the petition states that “[o]n prior
occasions, . . . mother . . . has failed to provide the children . . .
the basic necessities of life including the necessities of food,
shelter and sufficient clothing.” Mother is correct that the
allegations against father are more extensive, including that his
failure to provide for the children and mother “endangers the
children’s physical and emotional health, safety and well being
and places the children at risk of physical and emotional harm
and damage.” But it is implicit in the specific allegations against
father that mother’s deficiencies also endangered the children. If
the children were safe and secure with mother, then neglect by
father, who had long been absent from their lives, would not put
them in danger.
       Second, mother has forfeited her challenge to the count b-3
findings by failing to demonstrate error by the juvenile court in
asserting dependency jurisdiction based on father’s conduct.
Asserting only that the findings against father “arguably” do not
support jurisdiction is not a cognizable ground for reversal. The
appellant must actually make the argument she perceives as
possible in order for us to consider it. (In re J.F. (2019)
39 Cal.App.5th 70, 79-80 [points not supported by reasoned
argument deemed waived].)
       We decline mother’s request that we consider her other
challenges to the juvenile court’s exercise of jurisdiction. The
unchallenged findings against mother in count b-3 are sufficient

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to support the juvenile court’s dispositional orders, for the
reasons set forth below.
2.    Removal
      The juvenile court’s unchallenged findings with respect to
count b-3 also support its removal orders.
      Removal is appropriate where “[t]here is or would be a
substantial danger to the physical health, safety, protection, or
physical or emotional well-being of [a] minor if the minor were
returned home, and there are no reasonable means by which the
minor’s physical health can be protected without removing the
minor from the minor’s parent’s . . . .” (§ 361, subd. (c)(1).) Thus,
there are two requirements for removal: a risk of harm to the
child and the absence of alternatives short of removal to protect
the child from harm.
      “In determining whether a child may be safely maintained
in the parent’s physical custody, the juvenile court may consider
the parent’s past conduct and current circumstances, and the
parent’s response to the conditions that gave rise to juvenile court
intervention.” (In re D.B. (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 320, 332.) “The
parent need not be dangerous and the minor need not have been
actually harmed before removal is appropriate. The focus of the
statute is on averting harm to the child.” (In re T.V. (2013)
217 Cal.App.4th 126, 135-136.)
      We review a dispositional order removing a child from a
parent for substantial evidence, “ ‘keeping in mind that the trial
court was required to make its order based on the higher
standard of clear and convincing evidence.’ ” (In re I.R. (2021)
61 Cal.App.5th 510, 520.)
      a.     Risk of harm
      Mother argues if the jurisdictional findings are reversed,
then there is no basis for the dispositional orders. However, as

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set forth above, mother forfeited her challenge to jurisdiction
under count b-3. Because her appeal of the removal order relies
on defeating all grounds for exercising jurisdiction, the forfeit of
her challenge of jurisdiction under count b-3 forfeits her
challenge to the risk of harm underlying the removal order as
well.
       Even if mother had not forfeited it, substantial evidence
supports the juvenile court’s order removing the children from
mother’s care. Mother’s stated lack of desire to parent her
children and self-destructive stress responses combine to create
an unsafe environment for her children, even if no child has yet
been harmed. The children look to their 11-year-old sister,
instead of mother, as a parent. Ka.C. confirmed mother left her
alone and she had to look out for herself. A.C. said mother was
not a mother and she did not support him. When overwhelmed
by her children’s behavior, mother told them she wanted to give
them up to the Department. After she learned father was
released from prison, she took methamphetamine. After she got
in an argument with Carlos, she tried to swallow an entire bottle
of pills. After her children were removed and placed with E.C.,
she threatened to commit suicide and tried to carry through with
that threat by jumping off a balcony.
       Though “speculative” harm cannot support removal (In re
David M. (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 822, 830), the juvenile court
need not await actual harm to order removal (see In re T.V.,
supra, 217 Cal.App.4th at pp. 135-136). It is not speculative to
recognize the risk posed by leaving four children aged five to 11
with a mother who is admittedly overwhelmed by her children
and whose unresolved mental health condition causes her to
respond to stress by taking actions capable of incapacitating her
and traumatizing her children.

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       b.    Reasonable means to prevent removal
       Mother argues that a family maintenance safety plan
would have been a reasonable means of protecting the children
short of removing them. In support of this argument, mother
claims her reunification plan requires her “to participate in
services—individual therapy and substance abuse treatment—
she has already undertaken” and that the children could be
protected in her care “given her progress so far.”
       However, mother refers to no evidence of that progress.
Nowhere in her opening brief does mother show she has become
consistent in taking her medications or otherwise progressed in
resolving the mental health issues that brought her family to the
Department’s attention. At best, mother asserts she “continues
to be treated by a psychiatrist and managers her mental health
with medication; she continues with psychotherapy; she is being
treated for using controlled substances, and her urinalyses are
negative for such substances.” We are not persuaded the juvenile
court erred by finding family maintenance was not a reasonable
alternative to removal.
                          DISPOSITION
       The juvenile court’s jurisdictional and dispositional orders
are affirmed.

                              GRIMES, J.

      WE CONCUR:

                        STRATTON, P. J.              WILEY, J.

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