In re C.H.
Filed 1/11/13 In
re C.H. CA2/8
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 This opinion has not been
certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115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 EIGHT
In re C.H. et
al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.
B242203
(Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. CK
93060)
LOS ANGELES
COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
C.K.,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL
from an order of the Superior Court for the County of
Donna Levin, Juvenile Court
Referee. Affirmed.
Daniel
G. Rooney, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
John F. Krattli,
County Counsel, James M. Owens, Assistant County Counsel, and Peter Ferrera,
Senior Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_____________________________________
The mother in
this dependency case contends the
juvenile court erred in asserting jurisdiction over her three children. Jurisdiction was premised on allegations that
there was a substantial risk of serious physical harm—future sexual abuse—to
mother’s children because of mother’s impromptu marriage to a man the day after
his children were detained as part of an investigation that led to separate
four children in which he was found to be a sexual predator. We find no error and affirm the
jurisdictional order.
On
April 18, 2012, the Department of Children
and Family Services filed a petition to detain mother’s three children,
sons C.H. and J.I. (ages 15 and 9, respectively) and daughter S.K. (age
6). The Department’s addendum report
stated the reason for the proposed detention:
“The mother’s male companion [J.P.] sexually abused two unrelated
children. Mother knew about the sexual
abuse and failed to protect the children by allowing the male companion
unlimited access to the children.â€
(Boldface omitted.)
The
events preceding the detention hearing unfolded this way.
Mother
had been dating J.P. for over two years.
On February
1, 2012, J.P.’s children were taken into
protective custody by the Los Angeles Police Department, because J.P. was being
investigated for raping a 13-year-old girl on at least three occasions between
August 2009 and July 2010, resulting in the birth of a child in April
2011. According to police reports, J.P.
was in a dating relationship with the victim’s mother and lived with them at
the time of the child’s rape. The child
reported instances when J.P. would give her food or a drink, she would feel
sleepy or dizzy and later wake up with her pants or underwear off. When the victim’s mother confronted J.P.
about the child’s pregnancy, J.P. said, “ ‘[W]hat’s done is done.’ †In a pretext telephone call recorded by the
police, J.P. did not deny that he had impregnated the child.
On February 2, 2012, J.P. met with a Department social worker and brought mother
along. They showed the social worker a
marriage certificate showing they were married earlier that day. Mother said she had known J.P. and his
children for some time and was like a mother to his children, and that she had
three children of her own. J.P. wanted
his children released to mother, but was told that screening was necessary
before consideration for placement.
According to a departmental report in the dependency proceeding
involving J.P.’s children, mother told the social workers that she and her
children frequented J.P.’s home and J.P. frequented her home; she said that
“ ‘[J.P.] and her family spend much time together, sometimes sleeping over
at each other’s homes,’ †that J.P.’s children “ ‘refer to her as
“mom†’ â€; and that “ ‘sometimes “the family stays at his house
and sometimes they stay at her house.†’ †(Italics omitted.)
On February 3, 2012, a referral to the Department concerning mother and her three
children “was generated as a ‘related’ referral to that of [mother’s] husband
[J.P.] and his four minor children.â€
On February 14, 2012, the Department received information indicating that J.P.’s
five-year-old daughter had disclosed to her foster mother that J.P. sexually
molested her.
On February 17, 2012, after several unsuccessful attempts, a social worker contacted
mother and her children to investigate the safety of mother’s children. Mother cooperated, and the social worker
talked to each of the three children, all of whom denied any sexual abuse or
maltreatment by mother or J.P. The
social worker told mother she was concerned for the children’s safety, given
the allegations that J.P. had impregnated a 13-year-old and sexually molested
his five-year-old daughter. Mother said
she did not believe her children or J.P.’s children were at risk, and “ ‘I
find it destructive to the family that you guys are involved.’ †But mother “agreed to a safety plan whereby
she agreed that her husband [J.P.] would have zero unmonitored contact with her
children.†Mother also said that, even
though they were married, she and J.P. continued to live in separate residences.
A month later,
on March 19,
2012, the juvenile court sustained the
sexual abuse allegations against J.P. in the dependency case involving his
children, documenting his sexual abuse of his five-year-old daughter and the
rape of his girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter.
That same day, the social worker tried unsuccessfully to contact mother,
and could not contact the children at their schools because mother had refused
permission for the Department to interview them anywhere other than mother’s
home.
Thereafter,
mother resisted social worker efforts to interview her children again. (Mother told her counsel that after the first
interviews, the children became very upset, and mother wanted to take
precautions to avoid their being upset again.)
On March 22, mother told the social worker that she would not allow any
contact with her children, and requested contact information for a supervising
social worker. Eventually, mother agreed
to come to the Department’s offices for a team meeting.
On April 13,
2012, mother arrived for the meeting but did not bring the children. The supervising social workers expressed the
Department’s concern about the sexual abuse allegations against J.P. and his
access to mother’s children. Department
personnel read the allegations to mother, and explained they were found to be
true. Mother said “she [did] not believe
it†and that the teen mother of J.P.’s child had a 28-year-old boyfriend who
could be the father. Mother said J.P.
had repeatedly denied any sexual abuse, and said she had been to all the
hearings and had “absolutely no concerns for her own children’s safety or the
safety of any other children.â€
Mother became
argumentative and “wanted to know specifics and details surrounding interviews
with the children rather than to consider that her children are vulnerable to
being abused.†The Department informed
mother it would bring the matter before the dependency court; mother said she
would get a lawyer and “remained adamant that her children would not be
available for the [social worker] or for the court.†Mother said her children were with their
grandmother (and that she had given “ ‘legal guardianship’ †of the
children to the grandmother so mother had “ ‘no children in her
custody’ â€). Mother would not
provide the grandmother’s name or address.
Nor would she provide information on the identity and whereabouts of the
children’s fathers; she said the only father who could be contacted was T.I.,
who she said was in Nigeria, and she would not say if he was the father of all
the children. (The Department discovered
they all had different fathers.)
“No safety plan
[for the children] was put in place as [mother] was unable to assure safety of
the children from [J.P.] and [mother was] not in agreement with the decision to
take the matter before the court.†(The
Department indicated that the initial safety plan to which mother had agreed on
February 17, 2012, “was to be in effect for the next 30 days at which point the
Department would speak with mother . . . to reassess the safety of
the children.â€) The Department’s
detention report concluded that “mother’s refusal to acknowledge the risk
against her children places them at extreme risk.†The report indicated a social worker took the
children into protective custody that same day, April 13, 2012, but an addendum report on April 18 asked for
a protective custody warrant and indicated the children’s whereabouts were then
unknown to the Department.
In any event,
mother and children were present at the detention hearing on April 18,
2012. The juvenile court observed that
mother was “obviously a bright, educated woman†with “lovely children who are
very obviously well-behaved and very good in school,†but mother did “a very
dumb thing†by trying to prevent the Department from having access to her
children. While noting that the
Department’s report “does say . . . that [J.P.] doesn’t seem to be in
the home,†the court stated, “You chose
to marry this man. You don’t want your children
to know who and what he is. That’s your business. But you chose to marry him. That’s the reason you’re here today. You didn’t consider the safety of your
children.†The court then found a prima
facie showing the children were within the court’s jurisdiction under Welfare
and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (b) (failure to protect) and
(d) (sexual abuse).
name="_ftnref1" title="">[1] The court released the
children to mother, ordering her to make them accessible for interviews with
the Department, and ordering the Department to visit every day to make sure
J.P. had no contact with the children.
After the
detention hearing, the Department continued its investigation, interviewing the
children again on April 30, 2012, and interviewing the mother and others.
Mother was asked
if she believed J.P. sexually abused the children in the other case, but she
refused to answer that question, saying she had a right not to incriminate her
husband. She said she was aware of an
investigation, but was not aware of the allegations “ ‘until the day he
went to Court.’ †And in the
courtroom, “ ‘they . . . didn’t really divulge any information
until the last court date,’ †so mother “wasn’t aware of the details of
the allegations until recently.†The
allegations made by J.P.’s daughter were “ ‘read . . . in
Court,’ †and mother “ ‘didn’t agree with the statement that [J.P.’s
daughter] gave,’ †but “ ‘prior to that, I didn’t know what was said
because my husband didn’t tell me.’ â€
Further, mother said:
“ ‘Had
I known the situation the way it is, presented today, I wouldn’t been [
that happened to my children’s life, it (marriage) would’ve never happened if I
knew what was there. The situation at
hand.’ †When asked what she would
do to protect her children if the sexual abuse allegations were true, mother
said, “ ‘He would never be around my kids.
He would never be around me.’ â€
She said, “ ‘I’m not going to maintain a relationship with him if
he’s a child molester.’ †And: “ ‘[J.P.’s] not coming around me. I have very high ethics and
morals. . . . It doesn’t
matter emotions. If it conflicts with
morals, then I have to make decisions to ethics and morals.’ †She said that neither J.P. nor anyone else
had a key to her house. The investigator
asked if J.P. had routine access to her children before the child abuse
referrals, and she said, “ ‘No. I
don’t leave my children alone with anyone.’ †Mother said that the children were at day
care until 10 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. (mother both works as a teacher and attends
school, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business marketing), and either mother,
the day care staff, or the maternal grandmother watched the children.
When
the investigator asked mother why she married [J.P.] when an investigation was
ongoing, mother said, “ ‘It was vacation, it was winter session. I was going to get married for the civil
union.’ â€
The
investigator asked mother if she had plans of living with J.P., and she
answered, “ ‘No.
Never.’ †She said the
children have never been left alone with J.P., although he “frequented her home
prior to the current investigations.â€
She said she does not take the children with her when she visits
J.P. “ ‘Your department was aware
of the fact we had separate residences from the beginning. I was never interested in engaging in one
single family home.’ †“ ‘I
have a separate house, I have a separate life.’ †Mother said she was engaged to J.P. in
October 2011, and could provide photos if the department wanted to see the
engagement ring. When asked if she
visited [J.P.] when the children were at day care, mother said she sometimes
did “ ‘for maybe 30 minutes.’ â€
C.H.,
mother’s 15-year-old son, said that his mother had never left him or his
siblings alone with J.P., and when asked if he thought she would do so, he
said, “ ‘Nah. I think she wouldn’t. I highly doubt that. She has a paid baby sitter.’ †C.H. said he had no contact with J.P.; that
when his mother wanted to go see J.P., “ ‘she never has us around’ â€
and “ ‘[w]e’re . . . always at day care.’ †He said he had never been sexually abused by
J.P. and was not concerned about his siblings being sexually abused. C.H. said, “ ‘We don’t have contact with
[J.P.]. From the beginning from when he
got married, he kept his house and we kept our house.’ †(C.H. said his mother asked him his opinion
about moving in with J.P., and he told mother he did not want the family to
move.)
C.H. said the
children had no relationship with J.P., had “ ‘only met him once or
twice[,]’ †a long time ago when his mother first met him. “ ‘We don’t know really much of
him. I don’t even think the little kids
know they’re . . . married.
They don’t know nothing of him.
My mom doesn’t speak of him.’ â€
C.H. said he had not seen J.P. in the last six months. When asked if J.P. had ever come to the
house, he said, “ ‘I have no idea.
Not while I’m here. Not when my
sister or brother are here.’ †He
thought his mother had had a relationship with J.P. “ ‘for a while, but
. . . kept it away from us.
Didn’t really involve us much.
Because he had a big family already.’ â€
J.I.,
mother’s nine-year-old son, likewise reported that he had not been physically
or sexually abused by anybody. His
relationship with J.P. was “ ‘[j]ust a friend. But now, I haven’t seen him in a
while.’ †When asked when he last
saw J.P. and how often, J.I. said:
“ ‘Just a little days. Not
like once a week . . . we like helped him or something. Or we went there for holidays. Because he’s like my mom’s friend that we met
when I was 7.’ †J.I. said neither
he nor his sister had ever been left alone with J.P. “ ‘She (mother) doesn’t leave me
alone.’ â€
S.K.,
mother’s six-year-old daughter, shook her head “no†when asked if she had ever
been touched in her private areas by anybody, if she had ever been hit by
anybody, if she had ever been left alone with J.P., and if J.P. visited her
home. S.K.’s alleged father was
interviewed by telephone, and said that mother told him S.K. was “ ‘taking
her clothes off at school’ †and “ ‘saying bad words.’ †S.K.’s teacher was interviewed and reported
that S.K. had “ ‘a lot of behavioral issues[,]’ †including lack of
attention, taking the clothes off stuffed animals, and “ ‘put[ting] her
hands in her underwear or behind.’ â€
She said S.K. was “ ‘very self-conscious,’ †“timid and
withdrawn,’ †but that she “does have friends and plays with those
friends.†When asked if she suspected
any abuse or neglect, the teacher said, “ ‘I don’t know about abuse. Maybe neglect. Not enough attention. [S.K.] just doesn’t get enough attention at
home.’ [¶] ‘Based on [S.K.’s] behaviors, something is
wrong.’ â€
Present
and former day care providers were interviewed.
They described mother as a good parent, “ ‘a kind conscientious
person’ †who “ ‘watches where they go, and . . . doesn’t
let them just go anywhere[]’ â€; who “ ‘wants to know who they’re
with, where they’re going’ â€; and who is “ ‘[v]ery much involved in
the kids life.’ â€
The
Department’s jurisdiction/disposition report stated that mother “placed her
children at risk of harm by continuing her relationship with [J.P.] who has
unlimited access to her children.†The
Department was “highly concerned about the children’s safety and well-being due
to the fact that the mother is married to the sexual abuse perpetrator Mr. [J.P.]. She maintains a relationship with [J.P.] and
has protected him throughout this investigation. Although the mother and perpetrator reside in
separate residences, her children have had contact with [J.P.] in the past and
it’s highly likely he will have future contact.
Furthermore, it is unclear when the mother sees [J.P.] and why she keeps
the children in day care the vast majority of the time. It is also concerning that the mother is
unwilling or unable to acknowledge the fact that her children are at high risk
of harm because of her relationship with [J.P.].â€
The Department
concluded it was “apparent†that the children “are at very high risk of harm by
[J.P.] due to [mother’s] relationship with [J.P.]â€; that at the April 13th team
meeting she “supported her husband . . . and minimized the severity
of the risk to her childrenâ€; that “[a]lthough the mother may or may not have
known why [J.P.] was initially being investigated, it is clear that she was
aware after the fact and yet decided to maintain her relationship with [J.P.]
and even marry him.†The Department
admitted that mother “has been compliant with not allowing [J.P.] any access to
the children,†but was “not confident that she is able or willing to protect
her children from [J.P.] given her false understanding of the allegations
[against him].†The report states that
mother “claims that her beliefs and judgment about [J.P.] are based upon the
Penal Code and not the [Welfare and Institutions C]ode[,]†and mother “did not
specify if she would or would not continue her relationship with the
perpetrator.†The Department also
expressed concern about mother’s daughter S.K., whose “behaviors may suggest
some form of abuse or trauma, although it is not clear what[,]†and stated that mother’s “continued support
of her husband creates a detrimental home environment for her children.â€
Mother did not
appear at the jurisdictional hearing
on May 23, 2012. The Department again
asked that the children be removed from mother’s custody, and both mother’s
counsel and the children’s counsel asked for dismissal of the petition. Mother’s and the children’s lawyers pointed
out there was no evidence the children had any contact with J.P. after the
petition was filed; the children stated they do not see J.P.; mother visits
J.P. at his residence; and the children stated they were never left alone with
J.P., before or after the petition was filed.
The Department’s lawyer said she thought that, once the Department got involved,
mother “advised the children to not be truthful with respect to the amount of
time that the children spent with [J.P.] and his children[,]†and she did not
think that mother had been truthful about her children’s involvement with
J.P. The Department again said that
mother was “in denial†about what her husband did, and that mother “knew that
he had done this, and then married him.â€
The court found
“there is more than enough evidence here that the mother has put her children
at risk, evidenced by her attitude, her
statements . . . .†The
court eliminated language in the petition that alleged mother allowed her
husband to have “unlimited access†to the children, stating that “[i]t is not
clear that she did allow him in the home frequently.†The court stated: “. . . I think that it’s very
troubling also that mother has not showed up today given her attitude about
this matter and that the children are released to her. So I will find that the children are persons
described by Welfare and Institutions Code [section] 300, subdivision (b).â€
Thus, the court
sustained the allegations that “[o]n prior occasions
from 2009 to 2010, the children[’s] . . . mother’s . . .
husband, [J.P.], sexually abused an unrelated child, . . . by
forcibly raping the unrelated child by placing his penis in the unrelated
child’s vagina, resulting in the unrelated child’s pregnancy and the birth of
the child . . . . On
a prior occasion, [J.P.] sexually abused an unrelated child . . . ,
by placing his penis in the unrelated child’s vagina as well as tickling and rubbing
the unrelated child’s breasts with his penis and put his penis between the
unrelated child’s breasts. The mother
knew of the sexual abuse of the unrelated children by [J.P.] and failed to
protect [her] children, in that the mother allowed her husband [J.P.] to
frequent the children’s home. Such
sexual abuse of the unrelated children by the mother’s husband, and the
mother’s failure to protect [her] children, endangers the children’s physical
health, safety and well-being, creates a detrimental home environment and
places the children at risk of physical harm, damage, danger, sexual abuse, and
failure to protect.†The court struck
the allegation that the children were subject to the court’s jurisdiction under
section 300, subdivision (d) (sexual abuse).
The court allowed mother to retain custody, and ordered her “to do a
developmentally appropriate parenting class and individual counseling to
address case issues,†and to make the children available for unannounced home
visits. The court also ordered the
daughter to be assessed for counseling.
Mother filed a
timely appeal.
Mother asks us
to reverse the juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding. She contends jurisdiction was improper
because the petition did not allege a “statutorily identified injury,†there was no evidence of any risk of physical
harm to the children, and the use of reports from the dependency proceeding
involving J.P.’s children breached statutory confidentiality requirements. We find no merit in any of these contentions.
1.
The Claimed Absence of a “Statutorily Recognized Basis†for
Jurisdiction
Juvenile court
jurisdiction is proper under section 300, subdivision (b) if “[t]he child has
suffered, or there is a substantial risk the child will suffer, serious
physical harm or illness, as a result of the failure . . . of his or
her parent or guardian to adequately supervise or protect the
child . . . .†(§
300, subd. (b).) Mother contends the
allegation in this case stated that “the mother’s failure to protect the
children . . . places the children at risk of . . . damage,
danger, sexual abuse, and failure to protect.â€
She says the references to “failure to protect†show “circular
reasoning†and that the words “damage, danger, [and] sexual abuse†do not
appear in section 300, subdivision (b), and are not “acceptable euphemisms†for
the statutory term, “serious physical harm or illness.â€
The allegations
mother questions are the “supporting factsâ€
for the statutory basis for jurisdiction: that “there is a substantial risk that the
[children] will suffer[] serious physical harm or illness.†There is no requirement that the supporting
facts use the term “serious physical harm,†so long as the facts alleged
support the existence of a substantial risk of serious physical harm. Moreover, mother’s apparent claim that “sexual
abuse†does not constitute “serious physical harm,†a claim for which she cites
no authority, is patently wrong. (Cf.
Cal.App.4th 393, 398 [“[i]t may be inferred from the fact of a lewd touching
that the victim suffered serious physical harmâ€].) The court plainly concluded that there was a
substantial risk the children would suffer serious physical harm, in the form
of sexual abuse, as a result of mother’s failure to protect them by allowing
J.P. “to frequent the children’s home.â€
So long as there was substantial evidence to support that conclusion,
jurisdiction was proper.
2.
The Claim There Was No Risk of Physical Harm to the Children
Mother next
claims there was no evidence of a substantial risk of serious physical harm to
the children. We disagree.
In reviewing a
challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting jurisdictional
findings, “we consider the entire record to determine whether substantial
evidence supports the court’s findings.
[Citation.] We do not pass on the
credibility of witnesses, attempt to resolve conflicts in the evidence or weigh
the evidence. Rather, we draw all
reasonable inferences in support of the findings, view the record favorably to
the juvenile court’s order and affirm the order even if other evidence supports
a contrary finding. [Citations.]†(In re
James R. (2009) 176
Cal.App.4th 129, 134-135.) While
substantial evidence may consist of inferences, “those inferences must be
products of logic and reason and must be based on the evidence. Inferences that are the result of mere
speculation or conjecture cannot support a finding. The ultimate test is whether a reasonable
trier of fact would make the challenged ruling considering the whole record.†(Id. at
p. 135.)
As we have seen,
jurisdiction is proper if there is a substantial risk the children will suffer
“serious physical harm or illness†as a result of mother’s failure to
adequately protect them. (§ 300, subd.
(b).) The jurisdictional requirement of
a substantial risk of serious physical harm “ ‘effectively requires a
showing that at the time of the jurisdictional hearing the child is at
substantial risk of serious physical harm in the
future . . . .’ â€
(In re James R.,
Mother asserts
there is no evidence of a risk of serious physical harm to the children as a
result of her allowing J.P. “to frequent the children’s home,†as alleged, and claims that jurisdiction was based “on
the social workers’ suspicions generated by . . . mother’s
idiosyncratic lifestyle†rather than on actual evidence of risk. She points to the Department’s incorrect
statements to the court that she married J.P. (on February 1) with knowledge of
J.P.’s rape of the 13-year-old, and her own statements that she did not know of
those allegations until J.P. went to court (in mid-March). She also points out her statements that she
had no plans to live with J.P. and never left the children alone with him, and
the Department’s concession that mother and J.P. live in separate homes and
that mother “has been compliant with not allowing [J.P.] any access to the
children.â€
But mother
misapprehends the substantial evidence rule, under which we draw all reasonable
inferences in support of the court’s findings, and affirm the order “even if
other evidence supports a contrary finding.â€
(In re James R.,
findings that J.P. was a sexual predator (and indeed said that the sexual abuse
allegations “really hurt[] him. Because
both of them [the 13-year-old victim and his five-year-old daughter] are like
his daughtersâ€). While mother may not
have known the details of the allegations against J.P. when she married him,
she knew that an investigation was in progress and that his children had been
detained and removed from his custody.
Moreover, learning more about the allegations, and that they were found
true by the juvenile court, did nothing to convince her that her own children were
at risk.
Mother failed to
appear and testify at the jurisdictional hearing. That being so, the juvenile court was under
no obligation to give any credence to mother’s reported statements that she did
not intend to live with J.P. or leave her children alone with him. Indeed, it was reasonable to infer the
contrary, as mother’s statements in the dependency proceeding for J.P.’s
children indicated the two families routinely frequented each other’s homes. Mother’s refusal to accept the evidence of
J.P.’s molestations of children to whom he had access in a family setting, and
her obduracy in opposing any contact by the Department with her children, gave
no comfort to the juvenile court and no reason to infer that her future conduct
would differ from the past. And if more
evidence were needed, there is daughter S.K.’s unusual behavior at school, and
son C.H.’s claim that he had “only met [J.P.] once or twice,†a long time ago
when his mother first met him, a claim that is inconsistent with mother’s
statement that J.P. “frequented her home prior to the current
investigations.â€
In short, it was
fair to infer from the evidence a substantial risk that mother would in the
future allow her husband to frequent the children’s home, and consequently a
substantial risk her husband would molest her children, just as he molested the
child of his previous girlfriend and his own child. Accordingly, jurisdiction over the children
was proper.
3.
The Evidentiary Claim
Finally, mother
contends it was improper for the juvenile court to consider the information
contained in the Department’s reports in the dependency proceeding involving
J.P.’s children. She says these reports
were confidential under section 827, and the social workers in her case should
not have had access to that information without a court order. We reject this claim.
“Section 827
provides that certain persons may inspect juvenile court records without a
court order.†These persons include
“[t]he county counsel, city attorney, or any other attorney representing the
petitioning agency in a dependency action.â€
(In re Christian P. (2012)
208 Cal.App.4th 437, 445, quoting § 827, subd. (a)(1)(F).) Those persons also include “[m]embers of the
child protective agencies as defined in Section 11165.9 of the Penal Code.†(§ 827, subd. (a)(1)(H).) In re
Christian P. rejected the mother’s claim that the Department
attorney’s access was limited to the specific case for which he or she was
appointed, holding that the Department’s attorneys “are permitted to access juvenile
court files generally, and therefore the attorney in this case was not required
to petition the trial court to request access to the file for [another
case].†(In re Christian P.,
supra, 208 Cal.App.4th at p. 447.)
Mother contends
that In re Christian P. “says
nothing about the social worker†and that there is no evidence the social
worker “properly sought access to documents in the proceeding involving the
children of [J.P.].†However, section
827 includes among those who may inspect a case file “[m]embers of the child
protective agencies . . . .†(§ 827, subd. (a)(1)(H).) We need not engage in statutory
interpretation of that provision in this case because, unlike the mother in
objection to the admissibility of the reports before the juvenile court, and
accordingly has forfeited her right to raise the issue on appeal. (See In
re Richard K. (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 580, 590 [“As a general rule, a
party is precluded from urging on appeal any point not raised in the trial
court.â€]; In re Cheryl E. (1984) 161
Cal.App.3d 587, 603 [“[a] party on appeal cannot successfully complain because
the trial court failed to do something which it was not asked to doâ€].)
The order is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
GRIMES,
J.
WE CONCUR:
BIGELOW,
P. J.
RUBIN,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Further statutory references are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code, unless otherwise specified.
