Court Opinion

ID: 9955116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-27 18:02:32.308384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:17.073013
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/27/24 In re Jenevieve D. 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                      DIVISION SEVEN

 In re JENEVIEVE D. et al., Persons                                  B331452
 Coming Under the Juvenile Court
 Law.                                                                (Los Angeles County
                                                                     Super. Ct. No. 23CCJP01695B-C)

 LOS ANGELES COUNTY
 DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
 AND FAMILY SERVICES,                                             ORDER MODIFYING OPINION;
                                                                  NO CHANGE IN APPELLATE
           Plaintiff and Respondent,                              JUDGMENT

           v.

 JESSE D.,

           Defendant and Appellant.
THE COURT:

      The opinion filed on March 19, 2024 and not certified for
publication is modified as follows:
      In the caption page, the case number listed as
22CCJP01695B-C is corrected to 23CCJP01695B-C.
      This order does not change the appellate judgment.

SEGAL, Acting P. J.           FEUER, J.           MARTINEZ, J.

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Filed 3/19/24 In re Jenevieve D. CA2/7 (unmodified opinion)
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                      DIVISION SEVEN

 In re JENEVIEVE D. et al., Persons                                  B331452
 Coming Under the Juvenile Court
 Law.                                                                (Los Angeles County
                                                                     Super. Ct. No. 22CCJP01695B-C)

 LOS ANGELES COUNTY
 DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
 AND FAMILY SERVICES,

           Plaintiff and Respondent,

           v.

 JESSE D.,

           Defendant and Appellant.

            APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Mark A. Davis, Judge. Dismissed.
     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, Deputy
County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                    _______________________

                        INTRODUCTION

      The juvenile court sustained counts in a petition by the
Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services
under Welfare & Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (b)(1),
and declared Jenevieve D. and Isaiah D., who were six and five
years old at the time, dependent children of the court. The
juvenile court found the children’s parents, Jesse D. and
Cindy N., created a detrimental and dangerous home
environment by keeping unsecured, loaded firearms and
magazines with ammunition in rooms that were accessible to the
children. The court also found Jesse and Cindy had a history of
domestic violence in the presence of the children. The court
found Jesse’s possession of firearms in the home (and his
convictions on gun charges) and violent conduct (including
coming to the door with a gun when an FBI SWAT team arrived),
Cindy’s failure to protect the children by allowing Jesse to live in
the home, and the couple’s history of domestic violence placed the
children at risk of serious physical harm. On July 12, 2023 the
court removed Jenevieve and Isaiah from Jesse (who by then was
incarcerated) and Cindy and ordered the parents to complete
various programs and services. Jesse timely appealed; Cindy did
not.
      Jesse appeals from the juvenile court’s disposition order
(but not the jurisdiction findings), arguing the juvenile court

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erred in removing Jenevieve and Isaiah from Cindy; he does not
argue the court erred in removing the children from him. Jesse
argues substantial evidence did not support the juvenile court’s
finding by clear and convincing evidence the children “would be
in substantial danger remaining in their mother’s care.” Jesse
points out that Cindy, unlike Jesse, “was not arrested and had no
criminal convictions,” was complying with the court’s order
prohibiting having firearms in the family house (at least while
Jesse remains incarcerated), and was complying with her case
plan.
       On January 24, 2024 the juvenile court found that Cindy
had made substantial progress toward alleviating or mitigating
the causes that required the court to remove Jenevieve and
Isaiah and that returning the children to her would not create a
substantial risk to their safety, protection, or emotional or
physical well-being. The court returned both children to Cindy
under the continued jurisdiction of the court.
       On February 27, 2024 the Department filed a motion to
dismiss Jesse’s appeal. The Department argues the appeal is
moot because, now that the juvenile court has returned the
children to Cindy, this court cannot provide Jesse any effective
relief. In opposition to the motion, Jesse argues that, although
the juvenile court has returned the children to their mother, the
court “did not vacate (or otherwise undo) the dispositional
removal order” and that in any future dependency proceedings
the Department will have a lower burden of proving risk to the
children in Cindy’s care because the court previously found the
children “were in substantial danger in her care.” The
Department also filed a motion for judicial notice of three
documents: a January 10, 2024 status conference review report

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prepared by the Department (Exhibit A) and two January 25,
2024 orders by the juvenile court, one for Jenevieve and one for
Isaiah (Exhibits B and C).
       “A court is tasked with the duty ‘“to decide actual
controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and
not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions,
or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the
matter in issue in the case before it.”’ [Citation.] 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.”’ [Citation.] For relief to be ‘effective,’ two
requirements must be met. First, the plaintiff must complain of
an ongoing harm. Second, the harm must be redressable or
capable of being rectified by the outcome the plaintiff seeks.”
(In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276.)
       “‘While appellate courts rarely consider postjudgment
evidence or evidence developed after the ruling challenged on
appeal, such evidence is admissible for the limited purpose of
determining whether the subsequent development has rendered
an appeal partially or entirely moot.’” (In re Damian L. (2023)
90 Cal.App.5th 357, 369.) “‘“On a case-by[-]case basis, the
reviewing court decides whether subsequent events in a
dependency case have rendered the appeal moot and whether its
decision would affect the outcome of the case in a subsequent
proceeding.”’” (In re L.B. (2023) 98 Cal.App.5th 827, 837.)
       Jesse’s only argument is that the juvenile court should not
have removed Jenevieve and Isaiah from Cindy at disposition.
The court, however, has now returned both children to her. The
juvenile court has done the very thing Jesse asks us to do;
reversing the order removing the children from Cindy will have

                                 4
no “‘practical, tangible impact on the parties’ conduct or legal
status.’” (In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 277.) Therefore, we
cannot grant Jesse any effective relief, and the appeal is moot.
(See In re J.P. (2017) 14 Cal.App.5th 616, 623 [dependency
“‘“appeal becomes moot when, through no fault of the respondent,
the occurrence of an event renders it impossible for the appellate
court to grant the appellant effective relief”’”]; 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.”].)
      Jesse argues “a subsequent removal order may issue based
in part on the challenged dispositional findings and order—with
such subsequent order adversely affecting [his] parental rights.”
But any subsequent petition for removal will be based on the
conditions at the time of such a request. (See In re Anthony T.
(2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 1019, 1034 [juvenile court decides
whether to remove a child based on the family’s current
circumstances]; In re Levi H. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 1279, 1291
[“‘While evidence of past conduct may be probative of current
conditions, the question under section 300 is whether
circumstances at the time of the hearing subject the minor to the
defined risk of harm.’”], disapproved on another ground in
Conservatorship of O.B. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 989, 1010, fn. 7; In re
Isayah C. (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 684, 701 [juvenile court decides
whether to remove a child based on “the current state of affairs in
[the child’s] family”].) In addition, even if we reversed the
removal order, the court could still consider in future proceedings
the historical facts and circumstances, which are largely
undisputed, that led to that order. (See In re N.S. (2016)
245 Cal.App.4th 53, 63 [facts that supported the original exercise

                                 5
of dependency jurisdiction and removal of a child from her
parents “would almost certainly be available in any future
dependency proceedings”]; see also In re Madison S. (2017)
15 Cal.App.5th 308, 330 [parent’s challenge to jurisdiction finding
was nonjusticiable because the “allegation would almost certainly
be available in any future dependency or family court proceeding,
regardless of any determination on our part as to whether it
formed an independent basis for juvenile court jurisdiction”];
In re J.C. (2014) 233 Cal.App.4th 1, 4 [“[e]ven if the current
jurisdictional finding were erased, father is still left with an
established history with [the child protective agency] based on
incidents involving previous children from his relationship with
mother”].) And, of course, Jesse could argue in future removal or
other proceedings that the juvenile court, in returning Jenevieve
and Isaiah to Cindy, found that returning the children to their
mother did not create a substantial risk to their safety,
protection, or emotional or physical well-being.
       It is true, as Jesse suggests in passing, a reviewing court
has “inherent discretion” to reach the merits of a moot appeal.
(In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 282.) Jesse, however, does not
submit any argument why we should exercise our discretion to
hear his moot appeal, other than to say “the appeal should be
decided on its merits to prevent insulating erroneous challenged
findings from review.” As discussed, however, the issue is not
whether we should liberate findings from insulation, but whether
we can provide any effective relief. And here we cannot.
       Moreover, a reviewing court generally may exercise
discretion to hear a moot appeal only where the case presents an
issue of broad public interest that is likely to recur, where there
may be a recurring controversy between the parties, or where a

                                6
material question remains for the court’s determination. (In re
D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 282.) There is none of that here;
Jesse does not even suggest there is. Nor do any of the factors
the Supreme Court identified for considering whether to hear a
moot appeal apply.1
       The Department’s request for judicial notice is granted as
to Exhibits B and C, and denied as to Exhibit A. The
Department’s motion to dismiss the appeal is granted, and the
appeal is dismissed as moot. (See In re N.S., supra,
245 Cal.App.4th at pp. 58-59 [“An appellate court will dismiss an
appeal when an event occurs that renders it impossible for the
court to grant effective relief.”].)

                                    SEGAL, Acting P. J.

We concur:

      FEUER, J.                     MARTINEZ, J.

1
       Courts may consider whether a challenged jurisdiction
finding could impact current or future dependency proceedings,
for example by influencing a child protective agency’s decision to
file a new dependency petition or a juvenile court’s determination
about whether to order further reunification services; the nature
of the allegations against the parent: “The more egregious the
findings against the parent, the greater the parent’s interest in
challenging such findings”; or whether “[p]rinciples of fairness”
favor discretionary review of cases rendered moot “by the prompt
compliance or otherwise laudable behavior of the parent
challenging the jurisdictional finding on appeal.” (In re D.P.,
supra, 14 Cal.5th at pp. 285-286.)

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