B.C. v. Super.
Filed 6/5/13 B.C. v. Super. Ct. CA4/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for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
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
B.C.,
Petitioner,
v.
THE SUPERIOR COURT
OF SAN BERNARDINO
COUNTY,
Respondent;
SAN BERNARDINO
COUNTY CHILDREN
AND FAMILY SERVICES,
Real
Party in Interest.
E057865
(Super.Ct.No.
J-245278)
OPINION
ORIGINAL
PROCEEDINGS; petition for extraordinary
writ. Christopher Marshall,
Judge. Petition denied.
Dennis
Moore for Petitioner.
No
appearance for Respondent.
Jean-Rene
Basle, County Counsel, and Jeffrey L. Bryson, Deputy County Counsel, for Real
Party in Interest.
Petitioner
B.C. (mother) is the mother of a baby boy, I.L. (the child), who was born in
July 2012 and immediately removed from mother’s care based on her substance
abuse and mental health issues and failure to reunify with the child’s sibling
born fifteen months earlier. In this
writ petition, mother challenges the juvenile court’s decision to take
jurisdiction of the child under Welfare and Institutions Code, section 300,
subdivision (b).
title="">[1] Specifically, mother argues
the juvenile court’s true findings that mother’s substance abuse and mental
health issues constituted a substantial risk of detriment to the child. However, mother does not address the other
bases for the jurisdictional order, that is, the court’s true findings on
failure-to-protect allegations that mother failed to reunify with the child’s
year-older sibling and failed to obtain prenatal care for the child. As discussed below, because these two
unchallenged true findings adequately support the court’s jurisdictional order,
we deny mother’s writ petition.
and Procedure
Mother
gave birth to her fourth child in July 2012.
At the time she had an open family maintenance case with two sons, ages
17 and 12,
15-month-old child (sibling) after receiving reunification services from April
2011 to April 2012. Mother had completed
a drug treatment program as part of the reunification plan for the sibling, but
the previous social worker told the investigating social worker that mother had
failed to benefit from services and consistently refused to drug test.
Mother
entered the hospital in July 2012 in great distress. She had suffered a placential abruption, and
needed immediate medical care to save her life and that of her unborn child. Mother became very agitated and
non-cooperative with hospital staff. She
choked one of the nurses and wanted to leave the hospital. Security was called and mother was convinced
to remain and undergo an emergency C-section. The child was born pre-maturely and weighed
4.13 pounds. The child tested negative
for drugs. Mother refused to test for
drugs. Mother told medical personnel
that she had abused drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy. Mother had chosen not to receive any prenatal
care, despite having an open family reunification and
services, at the time of her pregnancy.
When
the social worker attempted to interview mother the next day in the hospital,
mother again became very agitated. She
yelled profanities at the social worker.
The entire maternity floor was disrupted and three security staff
members were dispatched to contain the situation. When the social worker returned with a
warrant to detain the child, hospital personnel told her that mother had said
she was going to blow off the social worker’s head and kill her with a
gun. The police were called. They approached mother with weapons drawn and
searched her room and the father. No
weapons were found. However, the
hospital closed down the maternity unit because mother’s behavior put other
patients in danger. Even with police
presence, mother cursed and yelled at the social worker. Police asked the hospital to evaluate mother
for a mental health hold.
On
July 2012, Children and Family Services
(CFS) filed a section 300 petition alleging mother and the father had failed to
protect the child. Regarding mother, CFS
alleged that (b.1) mother’s history of substance abuse limits her ability to
provide adequate care and supervision, (b.3) mother’s drug lifestyle and/or
mental health issues impair her ability to parent, (b.5) mother’s history of
drug abuse and neglect caused her to lose custody of the child’s sibling, (b.7)
mother received no prenatal care for the child and her drug lifestyle impairs
her ability to parent, and (b.9) mother has ongoing mental health issues that
limit her ability to care for and supervise the child.
At
the detention hearing held on July 26, 2012, the juvenile court
ordered the child detained and ordered mother to drug test. The child was placed in foster care. At a hearing held on September 27, 2012, the trial court ordered
mother to drug test that day.
The
jurisdictional hearing that mother challenges by this petition was held on October 5, 2012. Mother was in court earlier that day, but
left before the hearing began because she got frustrated waiting. The juvenile court received into evidence the
detention report dated July 26 and the jurisdiction/disposition report dated
August 15. Counsel stipulated that
mother had failed to drug test on August 10, September 13, 27 and 28, and had
tested negative on August 15 and 25. The
court heard testimony from mother’s current and previous social workers. The previous social worker testified that,
prior to the child’s birth and during the reunification period for the sibling,
both she and the perinatal substance abuse counselor referred mother to have a
mental health assessment performed. They
did so because mother’s behaviors when visiting the CFS office were
“manic.†Mother never obtained the
assessment. On October 9, 2012, the trial court issued its
jurisdiction decision. It found to be
true each of the allegations regarding mother’s failure to protect the child,
and took jurisdiction over the child.
At
the disposition hearing held on January 9, 2012, the juvenile court officially removed
the child from mother’s custody and ordered no reunification services under
section 361.5, subdivisions (b)(10) and (11), because mother had previously had
reunification services terminated and parental rights severed regarding a
sibling and had not subsequently made a reasonable effort to treat the problems
that cause the sibling’s removal. The
court set a hearing under section 366.26 for May 9, 2013, which this court subsequently stayed on
mother’s motion.
On
January 15, 2012, mother
filed her notice of intent to file the
petition in the current writ proceeding, in which she now challenges only the
jurisdictional finding.
In
this petition, mother challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the
juvenile court’s true findings on the allegations in the section 300 petition
that her drug use and mental health issues make her unable to protect the child
and pose a danger to him. The specific
allegations can be broadly interpreted as b.1, b.3, and b.9. However, mother does not challenge the other
two allegations as to which the court made true findings—b.5 - that mother’s
history of drug abuse and neglect caused her to lose custody of the child’s
sibling; and b.7 - that mother received no prenatal care for the child. A single finding, if upheld, or in this case
unchallenged, is enough to support the taking of jurisdiction over a child
under section 300. (See
1491-1492 and cases cited therein.) For
this reason, we need not address the findings that mother contests in her
petition because she leaves undisputed the two findings as to her failure to
reunify with the sibling and failure to seek prenatal care for the child.
The
petition for extraordinary writ is denied.
The stay imposed by order of this court on April 23, 2013, is LIFTED.
RAMIREZ
P.
J.
We concur:
MILLER
J.
CODRINGTON
J.
name="_ftn1" title=""> [1] All section references are
to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
name="_ftn2" title=""> [2] These boys are the child’s
half-siblings. They were removed from
mother’s home about one week after the child was born. On August 13, CFS filed a supplemental
petition under section 387 regarding both boys. The older boy turned 18 in September and the
court officially took jurisdiction over the younger boy and in disposition
officially removed him from mother’s custody at the same time as the October 5
and 9, 2012 jurisdiction hearing for the child.
