Filed 7/23/26 In re E.D. CA1/4
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FOUR
In re E.D. et al., Persons Coming
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
ALAMEDA COUNTY SOCIAL A174277
SERVICES AGENCY, (Alameda County
Plaintiff and Respondent, Super. Ct. Nos. JD-036658-02,
v. JD-036657-02, JD-036659-02)
D.D.,
Defendant and Appellant.
D.D. is the mother of three children who were removed from her
custody. She challenges an order denying a petition she filed under Welfare
and Institutions Code section 388.1 The petition requested that the juvenile
court modify its dispositional orders regarding visitation and reunification
services. Mother contends that the juvenile court erred by concluding that
she did not make a prima facie showing in support of her petition. She asks
that this court reverse the juvenile court’s order and remand the matter for
the evidentiary hearing that the court declined to hold.
1 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions
Code unless otherwise indicated.
1
Subsequent events have rendered such a hearing ineffective relief even
if we were to determine that the juvenile court had erred. After mother filed
her notice of appeal, the juvenile court terminated her reunification services.
In addition, the juvenile court has since held hearings at which visitation and
services were addressed and has issued superseding orders. Accordingly, we
dismiss her appeal as moot.
BACKGROUND
In September 2023, the Alameda County Juvenile Court detained the
children from their parents, who at the time lived together. The court later
released the children to mother’s care on a trial basis pending jurisdictional
and dispositional hearings. By this time, mother and father lived separately.
At the hearings, the court assumed jurisdiction of the children and continued
their placement with mother.
The juvenile court subsequently detained the children for a second
time, and, in April 2025, it removed them from their parents. As relevant
here, the court’s dispositional orders required the Alameda County Social
Services Agency (Alameda Agency) to arrange for supervised visits with
mother at least once a week for up to four hours per visit. The orders also
required mother to submit to a hair follicle test. The children were 11, 9, and
8 years old. After the orders issued, the oldest child expressed that she did
not want to attend visits with her mother.
In August, mother filed her petition to modify the orders. She
requested therapeutic visitation with her oldest child, individual visitation
with her other two children, family counseling for her and all three children,
increased visitation, and other changes relating to visitation management.
She also requested that the court vacate the requirement that she submit to
hair follicle testing. In early September, the juvenile court summarily denied
2
the requests. It concluded that she had not presented changed circumstances
or new evidence and that she had not made a showing, supported by
competent evidence, that her requested changes would promote the best
interests of the children. Mother filed this appeal seeking a remand for an
evidentiary hearing.
Less than two months later, in October, the juvenile court held a six-
month review hearing.2 The court had “the statutory power to order that
reunification services, including visitation, be offered, modified, continued,
or . . . terminated.” (In re Natasha A. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 28, 35; see
§ 366.21, subd. (e)(7) & (8).) Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended,
but mother did not argue, or present evidence in support of, the issues raised
in her petition. The court found by clear and convincing evidence that
reasonable reunification services had been offered to mother and father. It
terminated reunification services for mother; returned custody of the children
to father; ordered family maintenance services to father and the children;
ordered visitation between mother and the children as frequently as possible
consistent with the children’s well-being; and transferred the matter to
Mendocino County, where father now lived.
In February 2026, while briefing in this appeal was in progress, the
children were detained for a third time, now by the Mendocino County
Juvenile Court.3 Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended the
detention hearing. The minutes reflect that the deputy county counsel made
2 On our own motion, we take judicial notice of the record in A174804,
an appeal mother filed from the review-hearing orders. (See Evid. Code,
§§ 452, subd. (d), 459.) The A174804 record includes the hearing’s notice,
minutes, and recorder’s transcripts.
3 On our own motion, we take judicial notice of minutes from hearings
in the Mendocino County Juvenile Court on February 10, March 5, and
March 17. (See Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459.)
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statements “regarding visitation with mother.” (Capitalization omitted.) The
minutes also reflect that mother’s juvenile court counsel requested that the
Mendocino County Department of Social Services (Mendocino Department)
set up visitation and that juvenile court counsel be included in the
conversation. The court directed the Mendocino Department to schedule a
videoconference visit within a week and to include counsel in the visitation
discussion.
On March 17, at a continued jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court
sustained the Mendocino Department’s allegations and addressed visitation.
Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended the hearing. Mother’s
juvenile court counsel stated that in-person visitation for mother had not yet
occurred or been scheduled. The court noted that the Mendocino Department
was “on notice” that “visitation with both parents is important and the
[Mendocino] Department [was] to provide visitation.” (Some capitalization
omitted.) The court also noted that “mother request[ed] therapeutic
visitation with [the oldest child], for reasons stated.” (Capitalization
omitted.) The court set a dispositional hearing for late April.
On April 20, mother’s appellate counsel filed her reply brief in this
appeal and a letter notifying this court of the proceedings in the Mendocino
County Juvenile Court. This court asked the parties to submit letter briefs
regarding whether this appeal had been mooted by the events addressed in
mother’s April 20 letter or by any subsequent dispositional hearing. The
parties did so, and mother’s appellate counsel informed the court that the
dispositional hearing had been continued. This court asked mother’s
appellate counsel to provide updates about proceedings in the juvenile court.
4
Some weeks later, on June 25, the juvenile court held the dispositional
hearing.4 Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended, and mother
testified. The court found that the parents had received 18 months of
reunification services and 12 months of family maintenance services. It
terminated father’s services, and it noted that mother’s services previously
had been terminated. For the two older children, the court approved a
permanent placement plan with the goal of adoption, and it set section 366.26
hearings. For the youngest child, the court delegated placement and care to
the Mendocino Department, and it set a permanency planning review date.
The parties and the juvenile court addressed visitation. The minutes
reflect that mother’s juvenile court counsel requested that “mother’s
visitation remain status quo for reasons stated”; “the parties discuss[ed] . . .
mother’s visitation”; and the deputy county counsel “ma[de] statements for
the record regarding the difference in the amount of visitation for each
parent.” (Capitalization omitted.) The court directed that, supervised by the
Mendocino Department, mother visit with the children for a minimum of two
hours monthly, in-person, by telephone, or by video chat.
We asked the parties to submit letter briefs regarding the extent to
which the dispositional hearing affects whether mother’s appeal has been
mooted.
DISCUSSION
The Alameda Agency contends that mother’s appeal is moot and that
we should not exercise our discretion to reach its merits. We agree. We first
discuss mootness and then the question of exercising our discretion.
4 On our own motion, we take judicial notice of the minutes and
findings and orders from the contested dispositional hearing held in the
Mendocino County Juvenile Court on June 25. (See Evid. Code, §§ 452,
subd. (d), 459.)
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I.
“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.” ’ ” (In re D.P.
(2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276.) If a reviewing court cannot grant an appellant
effective relief because of subsequent events in the case, the appeal is moot.
(Ibid.) “Effective relief” includes the requirement that the harm complained
of “must be redressable or capable of being rectified by the outcome [the
appellant] seeks.” (Ibid.)
Here, even if we were to conclude that the juvenile court erred, the
harm could not be redressed in this appeal. The remedy for an erroneous
prima facie denial of a section 388 petition is to remand the matter with
instructions to the juvenile court to conduct an evidentiary hearing, as
mother now requests. (See, e.g., In re R.A. (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 826, 839–
840.) At such an evidentiary hearing, mother would seek to demonstrate that
changed circumstances or new evidence warranted her requested
modifications to the April 2025 dispositional orders. (See § 388, subds. (a)(1)
& (d).)
But those orders are no longer in effect. Regarding the hair follicle
testing, the juvenile court terminated mother’s reunification services at the
six-month review hearing following the petition denial at issue. Mother does
not contend that after the termination she still was required to submit to the
testing. Regarding visitation and any services such as family therapy, the
juvenile court entered an order at the six-month review hearing and then
new orders at its recent June 25 dispositional hearing. The orders
superseded previous visitation and service orders.
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Moreover, as the Alameda Agency argues, mother effectively has
received the evidentiary hearing she seeks. We disagree with mother’s
contention to the contrary. She had the opportunity to raise the issues in the
petition and to present evidence at the six-month review hearing, which
resulted in an order addressing visitation. She addressed visitation at the
February and March detention and jurisdictional hearings, resulting in a
status quo that she sought to maintain at the June dispositional hearing.
And she participated in and presented evidence at the June 25 dispositional
hearing, at which the parties addressed visitation. After considering the
parties’ arguments at that hearing, the juvenile court issued its current
visitation orders.
We do not agree with mother that the juvenile court’s failure to hold an
evidentiary hearing in response to mother’s section 388 petition has infected
or will infect the outcome of subsequent proceedings. In denying mother’s
petition at the prima facie stage, the court did not make findings that
prejudice or stigmatize mother. Moreover, within two months at the six-
month review hearing and then again at the June 25 dispositional hearing,
mother had the very opportunity she sought to argue for and present
evidence for her requested changes.
In re Dylan T. (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 765, cited by mother, is
distinguishable. There, the court ruled that an appeal by a formerly
incarcerated mother challenging a visitation denial was not mooted by her
release from custody. (Id. at p. 769.) The child was one year old, which
meant that the reunification period would be shorter than for an older child.
(See id. at pp. 768, 769.) The court reasoned that “[b]ecause reunification
efforts could be terminated after six months, the lack of all opportunity for
visitation during a significant portion of this time is an error which could
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infect the outcome of subsequent proceedings.” (Id. at p. 770.) The court also
noted that the problem could recur because the mother could be
reincarcerated if her in-patient treatment program failed. (Id. at pp. 769–
770.)
Here, by contrast, the juvenile court did not prevent mother from
visiting with the children. Its April 2025 dispositional orders directed the
Alameda Agency to arrange for supervised visits with mother at least once a
week. The juvenile court’s denial of mother’s section 388 petition also did not
preclude mother from visiting the children. Moreover, mother could have
argued for her requested changes at the six-month review hearing following
the denial, but she did not.
In re P.S. (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 541, also cited by mother, is
inapposite. There, a juvenile court denied a mother’s motion for a bonding
study. (Id. at p. 546.) The social services agency contended that the mother’s
appeal from the decision was moot because she did not appeal subsequent
orders that terminated her reunification services and denied her renewed
request for a bonding study. (Id. at p. 551.) The court disagreed, reasoning
that the requested bonding study still could be useful to her at a future
section 366.26 hearing. (Id. at pp. 551–552.) Here, an evidentiary hearing on
mother’s requested changes to superseded orders—after she has already had
the opportunity to argue and present evidence—would be redundant rather
than useful.
The other decisions on which mother relies are distinguishable because
they involve adverse findings that could prejudice the parent in later
proceedings. (See In re C.C. (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1481, 1488 [juvenile
court’s finding of detriment could prejudice mother in future family law
proceedings]; In re A.R. (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 733, 740 [juvenile court
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jurisdictional finding relating to physical abuse continued to result in father’s
restricted access to daughter after court terminated jurisdiction].) Even
accepting mother’s contention that visitation orders can have effects in
subsequent proceedings, mother was not denied visitation and there were
less than two months between the court’s denial of the section 388 petition
and mother’s opportunity to seek a change at the six-month review hearing,
and she had another opportunity at the dispositional hearing. (Cf.
In re Dylan T., supra, 65 Cal.App.4th at pp. 775–776 [lengthy erroneous
denial of visitation should not count against mother in evaluating
reunification and making further orders].) Mother has already received the
evidentiary hearing she seeks.
II.
We disagree with mother that we nonetheless should exercise our
discretion to reach the merits of her appeal.
“[C]ourts will generally exercise their discretion to review a moot case
when ‘the case presents an issue of broad public interest that is likely to
recur,’ ‘when there may be a recurrence of the controversy between the
parties,’ or ‘when a material question remains for the court’s determination.’ ”
(In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 282.) In the dependency context, courts
also consider whether a finding could prejudice the appellant, affect current
or future proceedings, or stigmatize the appellant. (Id. at pp. 285–286.)
These factors are not exhaustive. (Id. at p. 286.) “[A] court should be guided
by the overarching goals of the dependency system: ‘to provide maximum
safety and protection for children’ with a ‘focus’ on ‘the preservation of the
family as well as the safety, protection, and physical and emotional well-
being of the child.’ ” (Ibid.)
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Here, the juvenile court did not make findings that prejudice or
stigmatize mother, or that affect current or future proceedings. No other
factor justifies reaching the merits of her moot appeal. The underlying order
that mother sought to modify is no longer in effect, and she has had
opportunity to litigate the merits of her requests.
DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed.
GOLDMAN, J.
WE CONCUR:
STREETER, Acting P. J.
SWEET, J. *
*Judge of the Marin Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice
pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
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