Filed 8/27/26 In re D.H. CA2/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
In re D.H., a Person Coming B347722
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY (Los Angeles County
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN Super. Ct. No.
AND FAMILY SERVICES, 24CCJP03970A–D)
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
K.H.,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from findings of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Tara Newman, Judge. Affirmed.
Megan Turkat Schirn, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie,
Assistant County Counsel, and Tracey Dodds, Principal Deputy
County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
______________________________
K.H. (mother) appeals from the juvenile court’s
jurisdictional findings regarding her four children, D.H. (born
Feb. 2012), D.H.W. (born Sept. 2015), K.S. (born May 2019), and
Z.S. (born Feb. 2021). Finding no error, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
I. The Family
All four children resided with mother. Mother entered into
a relationship with Q.S. (father), the father of K.S. and Z.S., in
2017.1 In 2019, father went to prison, where he was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder, PTSD, hallucinations, and schizophrenia.
Upon his release, he resumed “an on and off relationship” with
mother.
Mother reported that she “officially ended the relationship”
with father in 2023, but father claimed that “he had been living
with the family . . . from March 2024 to September 2024.”
II. Inciting Incident
On November 4, 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) responded to a call at the family home. Mother reported
that father physically assaulted her and threatened her life.
Mother initially told the children to go into a separate bedroom,
but when then 12-year-old D.H. heard the fighting, she exited the
bedroom, brandished a broom or mop at father, and told him to
leave. When father refused, mother told D.H. to grab a knife
1 Neither Q.S. nor the fathers of D.H. and D.H.W. are part of
this appeal.
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from the kitchen, telling D.H. that she (mother) “was going to gut
[father] like a fish.” D.H. grabbed the knife and again told father
to leave. Father “told [D.H.] to stab him.” Mother grabbed the
knife from D.H., called the police, and told father to leave.
Father finally complied.
III. Investigation
The following week, the Los Angeles County Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS) investigated the incident.
Mother told a social worker that the November 4 incident
represented “common behavior” by father, who had been
subjecting mother to “ongoing harassment[.]” Mother said that
father was “fixated on the idea that [she] has a new man in the
home[,]” “spam[med] her phone using blocked numbers[,]” and
had “show[n] up” at the family home and the homes of relatives
“unannounced, aggressive, and armed . . . in hopes to see”
mother.
Mother also told the social worker that father refused to
engage with mental health services and take prescribed
medication, instead “repeatedly turn[ing] to crystal meth and
other drugs.” However, even when mother suspected that father
was “on drugs[,]” she “allow[ed] [him] to come over every day to
hang [out] with his children.”
Mother reported that she was often “the aggressor” in
altercations between herself and father saying that she would
“ ‘blank out’ ” and “ ‘see red’ ” when she “ ‘g[o]t mad[.]’ ” She told
a dependency investigator about another incident wherein “she
hit . . . father with her car because he swung on her[.]” The
investigator noted that “[m]other was laughing when she was
explaining . . . how she put her car in reverse[,] and hit . . . father
with her car.”
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Father agreed that mother “becomes escalated very
quickly[,]” and said that mother often “taunt[ed][]” or “provok[ed]
him.”
Between March 2024 and November 2024, mother and
father made multiple calls to the LAPD. In these calls, mother
claimed that father “verbally threaten[ed]” her, “refus[ed] to
leave her home” while on drugs, and made “threats to harm her
and vandalize her vehicle[.]” On at least one occasion prior to
November 4, mother armed herself with a knife in fear of father.
Father also claimed that mother “maced [him] and threatened
[him] with a bat.”
The three oldest children confirmed that father and mother
fought often, but they all felt safe with mother. D.H. and D.H.W.
reported not feeling safe around father.
IV. Petition
In December 2024, DCFS filed a Welfare and Institutions
Code section 3002 petition. The petition alleged that mother and
father’s “history of engaging in violent altercations in the
children’s presence,” including the November 4 incident in which
D.H. “armed herself . . . and intervened in the altercation[,]”
endangered the children. (§ 300, subds. (a) [nonaccidental harm
inflicted by a parent] & (b)(1) [accidental harm]; counts a-1 & b-
1.)
The petition also alleged that father’s “history of mental
and emotional problems[,]” coupled with his “fail[ure] to take . . .
psychotropic medications as prescribed” and “regularly attend
mental health treatment[,]” endangered the children. Mother
“allowed . . . father to have unlimited access to the children”
2 All further undesignated statutory references are to the
Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
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despite knowing about these issues. (§ 300, subd. (b)(1) [failure
to protect]; count b-2.)
V. Subsequent Developments
In December 2024, father was incarcerated for probation
violations. Mother reported that father “ha[d] been calling her
and verbally harassing her from the jail phones.”
In February 2025, DCFS confirmed that father had been
arrested on new charges unrelated to this case. There was no
information about when father would be released.
VI. Findings; Appeal; Postjudgment Developments
In May 2025, the juvenile court held an adjudication
hearing on the petition. The court found that “repeated violent
conduct . . . against . . . mother[] put[] the children’s physical
health and safety at risk[,]” justifying jurisdiction under section
300, subdivision (a). The court also found that jurisdiction was
warranted under subdivision (b)(1), explaining that while mother
“did contact the police on numerous occasions[,] . . . she
repeatedly allowed . . . father back into the home . . . . [and]
allow[ed] [him] unlimited a[cc]ess to the children . . . despite [his]
repeated and ongoing behaviors.” Accordingly, the court
sustained counts a-1, b-1, and b-2 as to mother.
The juvenile court released the children to mother’s home
with family maintenance services.
Mother timely appealed.
In November 2025, the juvenile court terminated
jurisdiction and released the children to mother’s sole legal and
physical custody.3
3 On May 21, 2025, DCFS requested that we take judicial
notice of orders terminating jurisdiction. We hereby grant the
request. (In re M.F. (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 86, 110
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DISCUSSION
I. Mootness
As an initial matter, we address whether mother’s appeal is
moot. As noted above, after mother filed the instant appeal, the
juvenile court terminated its jurisdiction and awarded her sole
legal and physical custody of the children.
DCFS claims the juvenile court’s order terminating
jurisdiction arguably rendered mother’s appeal moot. Mother
counters that her appeal is not moot because the allegations
underlying the jurisdictional findings must be reported for
inclusion in California’s Child Abuse Central Index (CACI),
pursuant to the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA)
(Pen. Code, §§ 11164–11174.3). (In re S.R. (2025) 18 Cal.5th
1042, 1052 (S.R.); Pen. Code, § 11169.) Mother notes that these
findings, if erroneous, would directly affect her legal rights in
future proceedings, including by foreclosing her ability to
administratively contest inclusion in CACI. (In re D.P. (2023) 14
Cal.5th 266, 279 (D.P.).)
It is not clear that the allegations in this case rise to the
level of inclusion in CACI. (Compare S.R., supra, 18 Cal.5th at
p. 1053 [appellant and DCFS agreed that sustained allegations of
a parent’s “physical violence towards her . . . daughter” triggered
mandatory CACI reporting] with In re Landon M. (2026) 121
Cal.App.5th 686, 697 [appellant did not show that she would be
included in CACI where the sustained allegations established
that “the parents’ conduct collectively ‘endanger[ed] the[ir]
children’s physical health and safety and place[d] the[m] . . . at
[“[P]ostjudgment evidence . . . is admissible for the limited
purpose of determining whether [a] subsequent development has
rendered an appeal . . . moot”].)
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risk of serious harm . . .’ but . . . did not allege conduct by [the]
[m]other constituting either ‘child abuse’ or ‘severe neglect[]’ ” as
defined by CANRA].) Our Supreme Court has suggested that,
where “the conduct at issue is likely but not indisputably
reportable[,]” the reviewing court should consider exercising its
inherent “discretion to conduct a merits review of the parent’s
claim even if the case is moot.” (S.R., supra, 18 Cal.5th at
p. 1054.)
Given the nature of the allegations against mother, we will
exercise our discretion to hear her appeal.
II. Substantial Evidence Supports the Jurisdictional
Findings
A. Standard of review
Jurisdictional findings must be made by a preponderance of
the evidence. (§ 355, subd. (a); Cynthia D. v. Superior Court
(1993) 5 Cal.4th 242, 248.)
We review those findings for substantial evidence—
“evidence that is reasonable, credible and of solid value.
[Citations.] We do not evaluate the credibility of witnesses,
attempt to resolve conflicts in the evidence or determine the
weight of the evidence. Instead, 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 there is
other evidence supporting a contrary finding.” (In re R.V. (2012)
208 Cal.App.4th 837, 843.) “Substantial evidence may include
inferences, so long as any such inferences are based on logic and
reason and rest on the evidence.” (In re Madison S. (2017) 15
Cal.App.5th 308, 318.)
B. Analysis
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Under section 300, subdivision (a), the juvenile court has
jurisdiction over and may adjudge to be a dependent of the court
a child who “has suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the
child will suffer, serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally
upon the child by the child’s parent . . . .”
Exposing children to domestic violence between their
parents is sufficient to trigger jurisdiction under this provision if
(1) the violence places the child in harm’s way, and (2) “there is
evidence that the violence is ongoing or is likely to continue.” (In
re Giovanni F. (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 594, 598–599.) “For
example, if . . . an older child intervenes during a fight to protect
her mother from her father’s abuse, the risk of harm to the child
may be properly viewed as nonaccidental.” (In re Cole L. (2021)
70 Cal.App.5th 591, 603 (Cole L.).)
“The somewhat more common potential for accidental
injury during parents’ physically violent fights in the presence of
bystander children, however, constitutes a failure or inability to
protect the child, creating the potential for dependency
jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b)(1).” (Cole L.,
supra, 70 Cal.App.5th at p. 603; see also § 300, subd. (b)(1)
[authorizing jurisdiction over a “child [who] has suffered, or there
is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical
harm or illness, as a result of . . . [¶] . . . [t]he failure or inability
of [his or her] parent . . . to adequately supervise or protect the
child”].)
Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the
juvenile court’s findings (In re D.L. (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 1142,
1146), there is ample evidence that the parents’ domestic violence
warrants jurisdiction under subdivisions (a) and (b)(1). Mother
and father had an ongoing history of domestic violence, which
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occasionally devolved into serious physical altercations. On one
occasion, mother intentionally hit father with a car. On another,
D.H. intervened in a physical altercation between mother and
father; mother deputized D.H. to get a knife so that mother could
“gut [father] like a fish”; and when D.H. complied, father told her
to “stab him.” This created a significant risk of nonaccidental
harm. (Cole L., supra, 70 Cal.App.5th at p. 603.)
Moreover, father’s history of arriving to the family home
and relatives’ homes unannounced and armed—and mother’s
history of “taunting[]” and “provoking” father, despite knowing
about his mental instability and violent tendencies—constituted
a failure to protect the children from domestic violence. (See In
re M.W. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 1444, 1453–1454 [“[O]ngoing
domestic violence in the household where children are living,
standing alone, ‘is a failure to protect [them] from the substantial
risk of encountering the violence and suffering serious physical
harm or illness from it.’ ”].)
Mother argues that any future risk of domestic violence
was minimal due to father’s incarceration. (In re M.M. (2015)
240 Cal.App.4th 703, 719 [courts must look to whether “ ‘ “[the]
circumstances at the time of the [jurisdictional] hearing subject
the minor to the defined risk of harm” ’ ”].) But the record
provides no indication of how long father would stay incarcerated.
He was arrested and jailed pending adjudication of new criminal
charges, but the record does not suggest that he was convicted or
sentenced. There is ample basis to infer that father would
resume his part in the cycle of domestic violence if he regained
his liberty, especially since he had continued telephonically
harassing mother from jail. Moreover, mother had previously
resumed a relationship with father upon his release from prison.
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Under these circumstances, the record supports the juvenile
court’s determination that the children were, at the time of the
adjudication hearing, endangered by the parents’ domestic
violence. (In re M.D. (2023) 93 Cal.App.5th 836, 848 [“[T]he
juvenile court may consider past events when determining
whether a child presently needs its protection.”].)
In light of our conclusion that evidence of the parents’
domestic violence supports jurisdiction under section 300,
subdivisions (a) and (b)(1), mother’s arguments challenging
alternate bases for jurisdiction are moot. (See In re A.F. (2016) 3
Cal.App.5th 283, 289 [a single basis for dependency jurisdiction is
enough to support the exertion of jurisdiction over a child].)
DISPOSITION
The jurisdictional findings are affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.
_____________________, J.
GOORVITCH
We concur:
________________________, P. J.
LUI
________________________, J.
CHAVEZ
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