Filed 7/16/26 In re L.M. CA2/6
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 SIX
IN RE L.M. et al, Persons 2d Juv. No. B350540
Coming Under the Juvenile (Super. Ct. No. 25JV00342,
Court Law. 25JV00343, & 25JV00344)
(Santa Barbara County)
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY
CHILD PROTECTIVE
SERVICES,
Respondent,
v.
C.M.,
Appellant.
C.M., father, appeals the juvenile court’s disposition order
removing his three children from his custody. The children, L.M.,
then age 14, O.M. then age 10, and V.M. then age 8, were
removed after the court sustained allegations that the parents’
domestic violence, the father’s untreated mental health
symptoms, and the ongoing family law custody disputes have
caused the children to suffer or be at risk of suffering serious
physical and emotional harm. We agree with father that the
juvenile court failed to state facts to support its finding that
reasonable efforts were made to prevent or eliminate the need to
remove of the children, but we conclude any error was harmless
as substantial evidence supports the court’s findings. We will
affirm.
SUMMARY OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Mother and father lived together with their children until
sometime in approximately late 2023 or early 2024. During the
time they were together the children were exposed to multiple
incidents of domestic violence causing them to feel “sick” and
“really scared.”
Mother moved out of the home and obtained a temporary
restraining order against father in late 2023 or early 2024. In
March 2024, however, she moved back into the family home
where she stayed until approximately August 2024 when she
again moved out after father assaulted her.
Custody of the children was a matter of intense
disagreement between the parents in family law court
proceedings. Apparently, in early 2025 the family law court
granted custody of the children to father and may have also
limited mother’s contact.1
1 The record on appeal includes only one family court
minute order dated July 23, 2025. The juvenile court did not
take judicial notice of any other document in the family court file.
We are limited to relying upon what the parties and others have
2
Concerns about the children’s safety resulted in the family
law court making two referrals to the juvenile court. After the
second referral in about July 2025, the Santa Barbara County
Department of Social Services filed Welfare and Institutions Code
section 3002 petitions for all three children and obtained juvenile
court orders detaining them from the custody of both parents.
Father’s Allegations
Father has made many outlandish and unsupported
allegations which he has shared with the children. He has
accused the mother of poisoning him and the children with
arsenic she put in cupcakes. Father has repeatedly told medical
officials, law enforcement, school officials and social workers that
his children’s medical issues are the result of their having been
poisoned by their mother.
Father also believes the paternal step-grandfather has
poisoned the children with arsenic laced food. He has instructed
the children they may not consume food prepared by the
grandfather.
Father claims the mother has tried to kill him by
smothering him with a pillow, by hiring someone to shoot him,
and by dumping his body in a riverbed.
Father contends mother tried to kill their son, L.M., with
poison when he was a baby by feeding him a silica packet.
reported, at times inconsistently, about the family law court
proceedings.
2 Undesignated statutory cites are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code.
3
Mother’s Allegations
Mother reported years of physical abuse by father. Mother
reported to law enforcement in February 2025 that during their
relationship father raped and sodomized her, prevented her from
leaving the home, threatened to make false reports about her to
the police, and threatened to kill her and take the children if she
reported him to law enforcement.
Mother alleges in August 2024 father was raping her when
their son came into the room complaining that mother’s crying
was scaring the two youngest children. Mother moved out of the
home shortly thereafter.
Mother began accusing father of poisoning the children
with arsenic and then blaming her.
Children’s Statements
The children have given detailed accounts of the alleged
arsenic poisoning by mother. Their descriptions closely resemble
what father has reported. O.M. states the parents would argue a
lot, and she could not recall a time when their relationship was
good. She felt scared and sad when her parents fought because
they would yell and her mother would hit her father.
V.M. stated her mother tried to poison her with rat poison
in cupcakes. V.M. stated when the parents lived together she did
not like that they “fought all the time” and that they would “fight
about her and her siblings.”
O.M. and V.M. were diagnosed with anxiety and were
participating in therapy.
L.M. believes the juvenile case was filed due to mother’s
poisoning them with the arsenic laced cupcakes. L.M. also
believes mother tried to put him in juvenile hall because he did
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not believe her when she denied poisoning them. He knows this
because father told him.
School records for the two youngest children revealed one
had 45 and the other had 34 unexcused tardies between August
2024 and June 2025. Some records reflect father kept the
children out of school due to poisoning.
Prior Child Welfare Referrals and Interventions
There were approximately 22 calls for service to law
enforcement by the family since January 2024. The calls
reported sexual battery, poisoning and custody disputes.
There have been approximately 15 to 20 prior child welfare
referrals since 2011. The more recently investigated referrals
beginning in January 2024 alleged the mother hitting the
children, domestic violence including yelling and fighting, the
mother poisoning the children, and father’s paranoia. All of the
referrals were closed as inconclusive. The parents were given a
referral for counseling for the children “as it was apparent that
the children would benefit from this.” The Department
attempted to schedule a Child and Family Team Meeting3 but
father declined to attend if mother was present.
In January 2025, the family law court requested a Probate
Code section 1513 assessment due to the parents’ allegations
regarding domestic violence, poisoning of the children, and
3 The “‘Child and Family Team’” is “a group of individuals
who are convened by the placing agency and who are engaged
through a variety of team-based processes to identify the
strengths and needs of the child or youth and their family, and to
help achieve positive outcomes for safety, permanency, and well-
being.” (§ 16501, subd. (a)(4).)
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mother hitting the children.4 The investigation was closed as
“[i]nconclusive.”
A referral in April 2025 stemmed from father taking V.M.
to the hospital emergency room because he was concerned mother
and “her partner” had poisoned her with arsenic. The
investigation was closed “[u]nfounded” after it was determined
the medical tests did not show any arsenic in the child’s system,
and that mother and “her partner” did not have access to the
child.
Detention
After a “referr[al]” from the family law court in July 2025,5
the Department filed WIC 300 petitions for all three children.
The children were detained from both parents and placed with
the paternal grandparents.
Father contested the detention of his children arguing the
children should be placed with him. The court heard testimony
from a social worker, mother, and father. The court found a
prima facie showing of jurisdiction, and ordered the children
4 Probate Code, section 1513, concerns investigations and
reports required when a probate guardianship over minor
children is sought. Subdivision (b) provides that if the proposed
ward is or may be subject to Welfare and Institutions Code,
section 300, the court may refer the matter to the local child
welfare agency to initiate a section 329 investigation. A social
worker who receives a Probate Code section 1513 referral, must
immediately investigate to determine whether juvenile court
proceedings should be commenced. (§ 329, subd. (b).)
5 It is unclear whether this was a standard child welfare
referral, an application to commence juvenile court proceedings
under section 329 or Probate Code section 1513, or something
else.
6
detained from both parents. It also ordered the parents receive
alcohol and drug testing and “[p]arenting education” pending
further proceedings.
Jurisdiction and Disposition
Father contested jurisdiction and the Department’s
recommendation that the children be removed from his custody.
At the contested hearing, the juvenile court considered the social
workers’ detention and combined jurisdiction and disposition
reports, law enforcement and medical reports, and testimony
from the social worker, father and mother.
Father testified, repeating much of what was reported in
the medical, law enforcement and social worker’s reports about
mother poisoning and attempting to kill him and the children
with arsenic. He said he knew she had poisoned him because he
was “bleeding out my eyes, bleeding out my skin, I was cold, I
was weak, I couldn’t move” and mother admitted she poisoned
him. He states mother has tried to poison him with arsenic “at
least three” times. He also repeated his allegations she tried to
suffocate him with a pillow.
Father also explained mother and grandfather have “had
relations” and “they are the ones that ultimately started the
whole poisoning of – targeting me but ultimately my children fell
prey to their shenanigans.” He stated he took V.M. to the
emergency room in April 2025 after she exhibited symptoms
consistent with arsenic poisoning and that O.M. had similar
symptoms.
Father contends despite his repeated reports of mother’s
poisoning to law enforcement, they have never followed up. As a
result, he “started making a plan on how to move out with my
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children safely” and he thereafter made all the food for the
children.
Father denied having anger issues, and having any fault in
the parents’ history of domestic violence because “I’m actually
very calm and collected.”
Mother testified father has physically abused her “multiple
times.” She obtained a temporary restraining order against
father after he attacked her while she was sleeping. He
physically prevented her from attending the hearing on the
permanent restraining order in March 2024. She stated father
enlisted L.M.’s help in keeping her in the home. She eventually
moved out of the home because “during one of the times [father]
was raping” her, L.M. came to the door to complain that her
crying was too loud and she was “scaring the girls.”
Juvenile Court Findings and Orders
After the parties argued, the juvenile court sustained the
petition allegations. The court sustained section 300 subdivision
(b) and (c) counts, finding the children have suffered, or there is a
substantial risk that the children will suffer, serious physical
harm or illness, and emotional distress and anxiety as a result of
the parents’ conduct. The court found true that there were
concerns of ongoing domestic violence between the parents
causing the children to express feeling sad and scared, that the
children report mother is mean and they do not like her,
accusations that the parents are poisoning the children, and that
father has untreated mental health symptoms evidenced by his
taking the children to doctors based on his belief mother has
poisoned them and by his repeated reports that mother and
grandfather have attempted to murder him and the children, and
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by his paranoia about the children being poisoned causing him to
restrict the children’s ability to eat food prepared by others.
In its oral ruling the court stated the “domestic violence
issue” had been an “ongoing pattern for quite some time” and
that the pattern would continue “without some intervention.”
The court also found the facts support that the children are
afraid of their mother, the parents “have a pattern of behavior
that if it continues, there’s no indication that it will stop at this
point, that when it continues will place the children at
substantial risk of suffering emotional damage. I think while not
making a finding the children are suffering emotional damage at
this time, I’m certainly making a finding that there’s a
substantial risk presented to the children of suffering serious
emotional damage. There’s already a hint of that among the
children based on their concerns. And I think the repeated
insistence by the father, at least, that they’re being poisoned, I
think the reasonable inference as to [O.M.] is that she feels
scared and sick of domestic violence, she thinks mom is mean,
and the subjecting the children to unneeded medical treatment
certainly places them in some risk of physical damage and also
serious emotional damage.”
The court then turned to disposition and found the “Agency
has complied with the case plan by making reasonable efforts to
return the children to a safe home.”
In its written orders, the court found that reasonable
efforts had been made to prevent or eliminate the need to remove
the children and that there was clear and convincing evidence to
support the circumstances necessary to remove the children
under section 361 subdivision (c)(1).
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DISCUSSION
Father challenges the court’s removal order on procedural
and substantive grounds. Procedurally he contends the
Department’s reports failed to discuss the reasonable efforts and
the juvenile court failed to state facts supporting its finding that
reasonable efforts were made to prevent or eliminate the need for
the children’s removal from his custody. Substantively, he argues
there is no substantial evidence in the record that could justify
the court’s removal order. While we agree with one of his
procedural contentions, we disagree that there is no substantial
evidence and conclude any error was harmless.
“A dependent child shall not be taken from the physical
custody of [his or her] parents . . . with whom the child resides at
the time the petition was initiated, unless the juvenile court finds
clear and convincing evidence . . . . [¶] (1) [That t]here is or would
be a substantial danger to the physical health, safety, protection,
or physical or emotional well-being of the minor if the minor were
returned home, and there are no reasonable means by which the
minor’s physical health can be protected without removing the
minor from the minor’s parent’s . . . custody.” (§ 361, subd. (c)(1).)
The court is required to consider specified “reasonable
means” including “[t]he option of removing an offending parent,
guardian, or Indian custodian from the home.” (§ 361(c)(1)(A).)
The juvenile court must “make a determination as to
whether reasonable efforts were made to prevent or to eliminate
the need for removal of the minor from [his or her] home” and
“shall state the facts on which the decision to remove the minor is
based.” (§ 361, subd. (e).)
“We review a dispositional order removing a child from a
parent for substantial evidence, “‘keeping in mind that the trial
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court was required to make its order based on the higher
standard of clear and convincing evidence.’” (In re I.R. (2021) 61
Cal.App.5th 510, 520.) In applying this standard of review, “the
question before the appellate court is whether the record as a
whole contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable fact
finder could have found it highly probable that the fact was true.”
(Id. at pp. 995-996.) “[We] view the record in the light most
favorable to the prevailing party . . . and give due deference to
how the trier of fact may have evaluated the credibility of
witnesses, resolved conflicts in the evidence, and drawn
reasonable inferences from the evidence.” (Id.at p. 996; In re
M.V. (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 944, 960.)
A party challenging the court’s orders has the burden of
demonstrating error. (In re D.C. (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 41, 55.)
If the child welfare agency recommends removal, its social
study must include “[a] discussion” of the reasonable efforts it
has made to prevent or eliminate the need to remove the
children. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 5.690(a)(1)(B)(i).)
We agree with father that here the social worker’s reports
are mostly devoid of any discussion of the efforts they undertook
to eliminate the need to remove the children. But father failed to
raise this objection in the juvenile court where it could have been
addressed. We therefore find his claim forfeited. (In re G.C.
(2013) 216 Cal.App.4th 1391, 1398-1399.)
We also agree that the juvenile court’s ruling on disposition
merely stated its conclusory findings that reasonable efforts had
been made but it did not state any facts upon which this finding
was based. Findings that merely repeat the statutory
requirements are not a replacement for a statement of case
specific facts that support that finding. (In re D.P. (2020) 44
11
Cal.App.5th 1058, 1067.) “‘[O]ur dependency system is premised
on the notion that keeping children with their parents while
proceedings are pending, whenever safely possible, serves not
only to protect parents’ rights but also children’s and society’s
best interests.’” (In re Henry V. (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 522, 530.)
The requirement for a discussion by the child welfare agency of
its reasonable efforts to prevent or eliminate removal (Cal. Rules
of Court, rule 5.690(a)(1)(B)(i)) and a statement by the court of
the facts supporting removal (§ 361, subd. (d)), play important
roles in this scheme. Without those safeguards there is a danger
the agency’s declarations that there were “‘no reasonable means’
other than removal ‘by which the [children’s] physical or
emotional health may be protected’ and that ‘reasonable efforts
were made to prevent or to eliminate the need for removal’ can
become merely a hollow formula designed to achieve the result
the agency seeks.” (In re Ashly F. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 803,
810.)
Again, father did not raise this issue in the juvenile court
and we could find his claim is forfeited but we exercise our
discretion to reach the merits.
We conclude any error was harmless because substantial
evidence supports the juvenile court’s findings and it is not
reasonably probable the juvenile court would have reached a
result more favorable to father in absence of the error. (In re
Jason L. (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 1206, 1218; In re L.O. (2021) 67
Cal.App.5th 227, 247.)
In his brief, father admits the “primary danger to the
minors arose out of the intensely disputed family law matter and
the emotional harm they suffered because of their parents’
dysfunctional relationship.” Before and after the family law
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court proceedings began, father participated in numerous
investigations triggered by reports of domestic violence and
poisoning. Social workers and law enforcement have intervened
numerous times. He has met with medical professionals about
his concerns the children have been poisoned. Father reports he
had been attending therapy since November 2024. Yet despite all
of these interventions, he continues to deny being the aggressor
in the violent incidents with mother, he continues to assert
mother and grandfather are poisoning him, and that mother has
attempted to murder him and the children. He shares these and
other unfounded beliefs with the children. The juvenile court
could reasonably conclude this behavior would continue unabated
until father began to participate in services and that the risk to
the children would not be alleviated until then. (See In re L.O.,
supra, 67 Cal.App.5th at p. 238; In re V.L. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th
147, 156 [“A parent’s denial of domestic violence increases the
risk of it recurring”]; In re Gabriel K. (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 188,
197 [“One cannot correct a problem one fails to acknowledge”].)
Father contends the court could have allowed the children
to remain with him and ordered the parents to not have contact.
But that would not address his repeated unfounded accusations
against mother and grandfather which he shares with the
children.
Father suggests the children could be kept safe in his home
with frequent unannounced social worker visits. But because
“[u]nannounced visits can only assess the situation . . . at the
time of the visit” (In re A.F. (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 283, 293), the
court could reasonably conclude that such visits would not
alleviate the risk to the children.
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We conclude substantial evidence supports the juvenile
court’s findings.
DISPOSITION
The juvenile court’s October 27, 2025 disposition orders are
affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
CODY, J.
We concur:
YEGAN, Acting P. J.
BALTODANO, J.
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Gustavo E. Lavayen, Judge
Superior Court County of Santa Barbara
______________________________
Melissa A. Chaitin, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Appellant.
Rachel Van Mullem, County Counsel, Lisa A. Rothstein,
Senior Deputy Counsel, for Respondent.
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