In re I.H.
Filed 12/6/12 In re I.H. CA2/8
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 This opinion has not been certified for
publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115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 I.H., a Person Coming
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
B241649
LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT
OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
V.P.,
Defendant and Appellant.
(Los Angeles
County
Super. Ct.
No. CK 70493)
APPEAL from
an order of the Superior Court for the County
of Los
Angeles. Robert
Stevenson, Juvenile Court Referee.
Affirmed.
Marsha F.
Levine, 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 finding her daughter was subject to
court’s jurisdictional finding, so we affirm its order.
I.H. was born in May 2011. At the time, mother was receiving family
reunification services with respect to I.H.’s older sister Nadia (then six
years old), who had been detained and adjudicated a dependent of the court in
October 2010, based on allegations of mother’s drug abuse and history of mental
and emotional problems. (Nadia’s 2010 detention was not mother’s first contact
with the Department of Children and Family Services. Mother also received voluntary
Department in 2005 and 2006, and in 2007 Nadia was placed under the juvenile
court’s supervision. Mother successfully
reunited with Nadia in 2008.)
When I.H. was born, mother was in
compliance with the court’s orders in Nadia’s 2010 case, and the Department
opened a voluntary family maintenance case on I.H.’s behalf in June 2011. Mother had a drug relapse in October 2011,
but after that incident immediately re-enrolled in a substance abuse program
and has been drug free ever since.
In March 2012, several incidents
came to the attention of the Department concerning mother’s neglect of
I.H.
On March 11, 2012, mother was visiting her daughter Nadia at
the home of Nadia’s grandmother.
According to the Department’s detention report, I.H. crawled out of the
second-floor apartment “and was seen ‘swinging and dangling’ from the rails in
the balcony.†The reporting party told
the Department that mother was outside talking on the phone and not attending
to her child. “Apparently when the
mother became aware of [I.H.] dangling from the rails she immediately went to
her and scolded Nadia for not taking care[] of her baby sister.†(Mother said the incident occurred
differently; the child “was not swinging or dangling but barely grabbed on to
the rail and was looking down when one of [grandmother’s] neighbors screamed at
[grandmother] to alert her that the child was too close to the rails and could
fall,†whereupon mother immediately ran to get her daughter. The neighbor said she saw I.H. grab the rails
and look down, and she (the neighbor) panicked and yelled to the grandmother
that I.H. could fall from the balcony.)
On March 14, 2012, while mother and I.H. visited the home of
a neighbor, I.H. crawled out of the bedroom into the living room and grabbed a
hot iron that was on the floor unattended.
I.H. sustained a first degree burn.
Mother said she was in the bathroom when this occurred, and immediately
took I.H. to an urgent care facility for treatment. The neighbor (who was confined to a
wheelchair) said mother was not at fault, and that she (the neighbor) was
supposed to watch I.H. and had no idea her son had left the iron unattended.
These incidents (and another call
to the Department on March 22, 2012, reporting that Nadia had disclosed her
mother had hit her) led the Department to schedule a “team meeting†(including
mother, grandparents and several friends as well as Department workers and
service providers) to discuss a plan to ensure the well-being of the children. One of the participants, who provided family
preservation services to mother, indicated that mother had told him of another
incident with I.H.: “[T]he child
apparently was sleeping on the bed with mother and grabbed the cell phone cord
wrapping it around her. Mother
apparently had woken up to use the bathroom when this incident happened but
came out in time to take the cord away from [I.H.].†(Mother later said I.H. had “wrapped the cord
of the phone charger around her neck.â€) The same participant commended mother
for her disclosure (as he was then able to assist mother “in getting her a crib
for the child and preventing a serious incidentâ€), and indicated he had
“nothing negative to report about the mother or her ability to care properly
[for I.H.].â€
At the meeting, mother stated she
had never intentionally done any harm to any of her children, and felt she was
being penalized because of her past history with the Department. The maternal grandmother expressed concern
that mother would not be able to handle two children, as “[I.H.] is too young
and Nadia is a special needs childâ€; she thought that “too many incidents have
happened to [I.H.] in a short period of time†and “mother is in need of more
services.†The Department was concerned
that I.H. would no longer have supervision; this was because the voluntary
family maintenance services would terminate in June 2012 and could not be
extended. The Department therefore
decided to “request[] court supervision for [I.H.] in order for the child to be
included and services to be offer[ed] to her.â€
The Department filed a dependency
petition on April 4, 2012, but did not request that I.H. be detained. The petition alleged that mother failed to
provide adequate parental supervision, citing the iron burn incident and the
prior occasions on which the child was left unsupervised (the incidents with
the phone cord and when the child “crawl[ed] out on the two story balcony and
grab[bed] the railing.†The petition
alleged that mother’s failure to provide adequate supervision “endangers the
child’s physical health, safety and well-being, creates a detrimental home
environment and places the child at risk of physical harm, damage and
danger.â€
At the jurisdictional hearing on
May 23, 2012, no testimony was taken.
The Department’s detention and jurisdiction/disposition reports were
received in evidence without objection, including supporting letters from
mother’s counselor and from friends and relatives. Documents presented by mother were also
admitted, including a report showing her progress in Nadia’s case and a
supporting letter from her counselor.
The trial court sustained the petition, declaring I.H. a dependent child
of the court, continuing her placement at home with her mother under the
Department’s supervision, ordering family maintenance services, and ordering
mother to continue drug and alcohol testing, join Alcoholics Anonymous or
Narcotics Anonymous, and participate in a dyadic parenting program.
Mother filed a
Mother asks us to reverse the
juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding.
She contends the evidence was insufficient to support the court’s
finding of a substantial risk that I.H. would suffer “serious physical harm†as
a result of mother’s failure to adequately supervise the child. We disagree.
Welfare and Institutions Code
section 300, subdivision (b) authorizes dependency jurisdiction if “there is a
substantial risk that the child will suffer[,] serious physical harm or
illness, as a result of the failure or inability of his or her parent or
guardian to adequately supervise or protect the
child . . . .â€
(Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300, subd. (b).)
In
reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting jurisdictional
findings, we determine if substantial evidence, contradicted or uncontradicted,
supports them. “In making this
determination, we draw all reasonable inferences from the evidence to support
the findings and orders of the dependency court; we review the record in the
light most favorable to the court’s determinations; and we note that issues of
fact and credibility are the province of the trial court.†(In re Heather A. (1996) 52
Cal.App.4th 183, 193.) “We do not
reweigh the evidence or exercise independent judgment, but merely determine if
there are sufficient facts to support the findings of the trial court. [Citations.]
‘“[T]he [appellate] court must review the whole record in the light most
favorable to the judgment below to determine whether it discloses substantial
evidence . . . such that a reasonable trier of fact could find [that
the order is appropriate].â€â€™
[Citation.]†(In re
Matthew S. (1988) 201 Cal.App.3d 315, 321.)
The court’s
order was plainly appropriate. Three
incidents, each of which could have resulted in serious
occurred within a three-week period—the phone cord around the neck on February
22, the balcony incident on March 11,
and the burn incident on March 14. (The
juvenile court erroneously stated there were three incidents in two days, but
we do not consider this point significant.)
Both of I.H.’s grandmothers expressed concern about mother’s level of
supervision of her children. A dependency
investigator who visited mother on April 20, 2012, observed the baby I.H.
“crawling out of the home twice without mother noticing until [the
investigator] brought it [to] mother’s attention.â€
In short, we cannot quarrel with
the juvenile court’s analysis of the evidence:
“Mother knows she has a very active ten month old, and, to me, to leave
a child in a neighbor’s home . . . with somebody who is elderly in a
wheelchair at ten months old with an active child doesn’t appear to be
appropriate to me.†And, “why was there
a cord near where the mother was sleeping in the bed with the child—and the
child gets the cord wrapped around her neck.
And then the next time mother was not supervising adequately and the
child goes outside and could have fallen, could have had a terrible fall and
[been] severely injured. . . .
I just think that shows a pattern of mother not supervising this ten
month old who is very active correctly.
[¶] I think one of those things
to have occurred would have put mother on notice.†So do we.
Mother
argues there is “no concrete evidence of future risk†from these “isolated
incidents,†but this view of the
evidence defies common sense. Three
serious incidents in three weeks cannot be properly characterized as
“isolated,†and a pattern of neglect is evidence of future risk sufficiently
“concrete†for this court. (Cf.
1003 [“Reasonable apprehension stands as an accepted basis for the exercise of
state power.â€].)
Mother also argues that finding
I.H. was at risk of future injury “seems incompatible†with allowing her to
remain in her mother’s custody, but that is not so either. I.H. remains with her mother, but she is
under the supervision of the Department and the court, and under a plan of family
maintenance with specific requirements that mother must meet or risk losing
custody of her child. We see no
“incompatibility†in the juvenile’s court’s decision.
The order
is affirmed.
GRIMES,
J.
WE CONCUR:
RUBIN,
Acting P. J. FLIER,
J.
