Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. CK74639. Jan G. Levine, Judge.
Andrea R. St. Julian, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Robert E. Kalunian, Acting County Counsel, James M. Owens, Assistant County Counsel, and Aileen Wong, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
MALLANO, P. J.
T.R. (Mother) forgot her eight-month-old son (A.R., Jr.) was alone in a car with the windows rolled up for 45 minutes on a hot day. Mother said that she forgot about the baby because she felt extremely overwhelmed and under stress due to financial and health issues. On appeal, Mother challenges the assertion of dependency court jurisdiction over A.R., Jr. and her two older children pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (b) (Mother’s failure to protect), (g) (no provision for support based on paternal neglect), and (j) (abuse of a sibling as to the two older children). We affirm the jurisdictional order because substantial evidence supports the finding that A.R., Jr. was at substantial risk of suffering serious harm because Mother had not offered a full explanation of why the incident occurred and the children thus remained at risk of harm until Mother could “discover that there is a medical condition that [she was] suffering from” or “until [she got] into some counseling and [took] a hard look at what happened....”
Unspecified statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
BACKGROUND
Mother and her three children, S.R. (born in 2001), M.R. (born in 2003), and A.R., Jr. lived together with the maternal grandmother. On a Sunday in September 2008, after attending church with her family, Mother drove herself and A.R., Jr. home to retrieve some clothes and toys, intending to rejoin the rest of her family at the maternal aunt’s house. When Mother arrived home, she had “no idea what she was thinking about, [and] whether she was day dreaming.” Mother recalled being “hungry, light headed, and [that] her feet hurt.”
A.R., Jr.’s alleged father, A.R., was incarcerated. The whereabouts of the alleged father of S.R. were unknown to Mother and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). C.C., the presumed father of M.R., lived in Colorado. None of the fathers attended the proceedings below.
After Mother changed her clothes and gathered some items, including A.R., Jr.’s bottle, cereal, and seizure medication, she returned to her car and found A.R., Jr. “screaming of cries” and trying to catch his breath in his car seat in the back seat of the car. Mother immediately removed A.R., Jr. from the car and gave him juice from his bottle. A.R., Jr. calmed down shortly after drinking the juice. As A.R., Jr. was sweating and very red, Mother put some lukewarm water on him. In a panic, Mother telephoned the maternal grandmother, who told her to call 911, which she did.
The fire department and paramedics arrived and took A.R., Jr.’s vital signs. A.R., Jr. was examined in the hospital emergency room and discharged in good health. Mother was arrested for child endangerment and her three children were detained and placed with the maternal grandmother.
When the sheriff’s deputies were speaking with Mother about what had happened, “she was crying and appeared to be very concerned as to her child’s welfare.” Mother told the deputies that she “must have been distracted and forgot her baby was in the car with her.” The maternal grandmother also told DCFS that “though [M]other may not choose the best male partners, as a parent, [M]other loves [her children and] has never displayed neglectful and/or abusive behavior toward the children, and provides [them] with a healthy life style.” DCFS also interviewed the two older children, who appeared healthy, well-cared for by Mother, and happy living with her. In its detention report, DCFS noted that an earlier referral as to Mother in May 2008 for physical abuse of M.R. was closed after Mother responded that she had already sought therapeutic help and the situation was stabilized. In September 2008, M.R. and Mother were attending counseling and receiving in home behavior management services because of M.R.’s difficulty controlling his anger.
At the detention hearing on September 17, 2008, the children’s attorney informed the court that the maternal grandmother said that “there might be some type of medication going on that [Mother’s] being tested for, and I would like that to be cleared up... before we allow Mother what might be unmonitored contact if she’s living in the [maternal grandmother’s] home.” The juvenile court ordered the children detained in the maternal grandmother’s home. Mother was permitted to reside in the home but was not to be left alone with the children and her visits were monitored. DCFS was ordered to provide Mother with family reunification services, including referrals for individual counseling and parenting.
DCFS interviewed Mother on October 1, 2008, for the jurisdiction and disposition report. Mother stated that the night before she left A.R., Jr. in the car, she did not feel well; she felt worried and anxious about preparing the food for the family gathering the next day. The next day, the drive home from the church took about 10 minutes. Mother did not remember the drive home and “what is even more confusing to Mother is she does not remember that she had [A.R., Jr.] in the car with her. Mother stated she can’t remember what her thoughts were on the drive home. Mother stated she does not know if [A.R., Jr.] was asleep because she does not remember what she was thinking. Mother denies being on the cell phone on the drive home. She stated she did have the radio on in the car....” Mother explained that “she had a lot of things going on that day and was feeling extremely overwhelmed,” after she gave birth to A.R., Jr. she “has not been feeling well and has had some depression and anxiety,” that she was concerned about her finances and her health, and that “lately she has been feeling faint, dizzy, and low on energy.”
Mother claimed that sometime after the birth of M.R. in 2003 she had suffered two anxiety attacks when she sought emergency room treatment. The doctors minimized her symptoms, told her to read a book or find a hobby, and were “quick to prescribe her medication.” Mother tried anti-anxiety medication but decided to discontinue it because she did not like how it made her feel and she was unable to perform her routine daily activities.
Mother also told DCFS that she was devastated by this incident; it made her realize that she needed to deal with stress and learn to slow down. Mother had been under the care of her family practice doctor and had never been diagnosed or hospitalized for a mental disorder, but she had a neurology appointment scheduled for October 9, 2008.
According to the October 14, 2008 jurisdiction/disposition report, Mother had enrolled in parenting classes on October 2, 2008, and had attended one session, but she had not yet enrolled in individual therapy or obtained a medical clearance from her primary care doctor for symptoms of dizzy spells and light-headedness.
At the jurisdictional and dispositional hearing on October 22, 2008, DCFS informed the court that DCFS spoke with the neurologist who had examined Mother on October 9, 2008, for symptoms of dizziness and light-headedness. The neurologist declined to provide a written report but stated, without further elaboration or explanation, that “there is nothing wrong with [M]other medically and there are no related physical findings as to [M]other forgetting her baby in the car.”
Mother executed a waiver, submitting the matter on the basis of the social workers’ reports. The juvenile court sustained the petition as amended, finding the children were dependents of the court pursuant to section 300, subdivision (b), based on Mother’s forgetting that A.R., Jr. was alone in her car for 45 minutes on a hot day and based on the failure of each of the three fathers to provide his child with the necessities of life. Each child was declared a dependent of the court pursuant to section 300, subdivision (g), based on his or her father’s failure to provide support. The two older children were declared dependents under section 300, subdivision (j) (abuse of sibling), based on Mother’s forgetting that A.R., Jr. was in the car. The juvenile court removed the children from parental custody and ordered that the children were not to be removed from their current placement with the maternal grandmother. Mother was afforded reunification services, including individual counseling, and monitored visitation.
In denying Mother’s request that the juvenile court proceed pursuant to section 360, subdivision (b), the court stated: “[S]hortly either before or after this case was filed we had a case in the same court where a child was left in a car and did not survive. And you know, unfortunately we... see tragic things happen to children and in a lot of instances they are not intentionally done, all of which has made me err on the side of caution when I’m required to make a decision like the decision here. And my inclination is, honestly, that until either you discover that there is a medical condition that you’re suffering from that caused the symptoms that you described that are reported in the reports today or until you get into some counseling and take a hard look at what happened and what you’re going to need to do so that nothing like this happens again — because as [DCFS’s attorney] says, it’s not necessarily that we’re worried you’re going to leave a child in a car, you probably won’t do that, but there, you know, are so many ways that children can hurt themselves that I often think it’s a miracle when a child gets to 18 intact with the most ideal family. So my inclination would be to leave things as they are until you’ve started your counseling and/or resolved your medical situation and we have more information....”
Section 360, subdivision (b) provides: “If the court finds that the child is a person described by Section 300, it may, without adjudicating the child a dependent child of the court, order that services be provided to keep the family together and place the child and the child’s parent or guardian under the supervision of the social worker for a time period consistent with Section 301.”
On appeal from the jurisdictional order, Mother contends that substantial evidence does not support the assertion of dependency jurisdiction under section 300, subdivisions (b), (g), and (j).
DISCUSSION
“We review the juvenile court's jurisdictional findings for sufficiency of the evidence. [Citations.] We review the record to determine whether there is any substantial evidence to support the juvenile court’s conclusions, and we resolve all conflicts and make all reasonable inferences from the evidence to uphold the court’s orders, if possible. [Citation.]” (In re David M. (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 822, 828.) A finding is not supported by substantial evidence if it is based solely on unreasonable inferences, speculation or conjecture. (In re H.B. (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 115, 120.)
“When a dependency petition alleges multiple grounds for its assertion that a minor comes within the dependency court’s jurisdiction, a reviewing court can affirm the juvenile court’s finding of jurisdiction over the minor if any one of the statutory bases for jurisdiction that are enumerated in the petition is supported by substantial evidence. In such a case, the reviewing court need not consider whether any or all of the other alleged statutory grounds for jurisdiction are supported by the evidence. [Citations.]” (In re Alexis E. (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 438, 451.)
“The three elements for a section 300, subdivision (b) finding are: ‘(1) neglectful conduct by the parent in one of the specified forms; (2) causation; and (3) “serious physical harm or illness” to the [child], or a “substantial risk” of such harm or illness.’ [Citation.] The third element, however, 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 (e.g., evidence showing a substantial risk that past physical harm will reoccur). [Citations.]” (In re Savannah M. (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1387, 1395–1396 (Savannah M.).)
Mother maintains that her “one time mistake” of leaving A.R., Jr. unattended in the car was “completely unintentional” and “insufficient to support a finding of jurisdiction and disposition under [section] 300, subdivision (b)” because there was no evidence of an underlying condition of drug abuse or mental illness that would cause the behavior to reoccur and thus place the child at risk of future serious harm.
Notwithstanding the lack of evidence of drug abuse or mental illness, Mother did not remember after a 10 minute drive home that her baby was in the back seat of the car with the doors closed and windows rolled up on a hot day. Mother thus experienced an episode of severely impaired memory. The juvenile court reasonably could have concluded that Mother’s impaired memory exposed her baby to a risk of serious harm in the future because the cause of Mother’s impaired memory had not been identified. At the time of the jurisdictional and dispositional hearing, Mother had not yet begun individual counseling, and the record suggested various causes for the incident, including post-partum depression, anxiety, dizziness, light-headedness, illness, and concerns with finances and health. Because the cause of Mother’s episode of impaired memory was not yet identified, the court reasonably could have concluded that the cause was still operative and that the baby was at substantial risk of serious harm in the future.
Mother misplaces reliance on Savannah M., supra, 131 Cal.App.4th 1387, In re Ricardo L. (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 552 (Ricardo L.), and In re R.M. (Jul. 13, 2009, B210077) ___ Cal.App.4th ___ [2009 D.A.R. 10322] (R.M.).
In Savannah M., the parents left their 19-month old twins briefly in the care of a family friend, David. The parents returned home to catch David in the act of sexually molesting one of the children and immediately contacted the police. The parents had seen David change the child’s unsoiled diaper earlier in the evening, conduct which they thought to be strange, but was not sufficient to “have caused them, or any ‘reasonably aware’ parent for that matter, to reasonably foresee David would later sexually abuse Savannah.” (Savannah M., supra, 131 Cal.App.4th at p. 1396.) The Court of Appeal reversed the jurisdictional findings under section 300, subdivisions (b) and (j), determining that “[a]bsent such clearer evidence of wrongful intent [of David], reasonable parents should be permitted to trust, and have faith in, a family friend they have known for two years who had otherwise never given them any reason to doubt his good intentions toward their or other children. Given the diaper-changing incident, the juvenile court could not reasonably find [the parents] were negligent in failing to protect Savannah from David’s apparent subsequent sexual abuse of her.” (Id. at pp. 1396–1397, fn. omitted.) And because the parents’ reaction to the abuse and their conduct after the incident was appropriate, the Court of Appeal determined that there was no evidence that, at the time of the jurisdictional hearing, Savannah was at substantial risk of future serious physical harm. (Id. at p. 1397.)
Savannah M. is of no avail to Mother because that case does not involve an unresolved condition affecting a parent’s ability to provide adequate care for her children, as is the case here. For similar reasons, R.M. is also distinguishable.
In R.M., a 13-year-old boy watched adult films on his parents’ computers, dressed in women’s clothing, and spied on his 10-year-old sister in the shower; the children also rubbed their hands on each other’s private parts. We reversed a jurisdictional finding as to the mother under section 300, subdivision (b) because the evidence was insufficient to establish that the mother inadequately supervised her children or that the parents’ “‘divergent approach to parenting’” caused the children’s behavior. (R.M., supra, ___ Cal.App.4th at p. ___ [2009 D.A.R. at pp. 10322–10323].) We held that nothing in the record supported the conclusion that the mother earlier should have been aware of her children’s inappropriate sexual conduct or that she had a physical and emotional problem that rendered her unable to provide adequate care and supervision of her children. (Ibid.) Unlike the situation in R.M., here there is substantial evidence that Mother has an unidentified and unresolved condition that seriously impairs her memory and ability to parent.
In Ricardo L., the Court of Appeal reversed a jurisdictional finding under section 300, subdivision (j) because the record did not contain any evidence of the problems that led to Ricardo’s siblings being declared dependents under section 300, subdivision (b), and without the history of abuse and neglect, “it is nearly impossible to determine whether Ricardo, Jr. is at risk of suffering from the same abuse and neglect.” (Ricardo L., supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at p. 567.) Unlike the situation in Ricardo L., our record is complete.
We reject Mother’s contention that the juvenile court’s finding of a future risk of harm was based on mere speculation. Rather, it was based on substantial evidence that Mother has an unresolved condition that seriously impairs her memory and hence her ability to parent.
We also conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support jurisdiction over the two older children under section 300, subdivision (j). “[S]ubdivision (j) has two prongs: (1) that ‘[t]he child’s sibling has been abused or neglected, as defined in subdivision (a), (b), (d), (e) or (i)’; and (2) ‘there is a substantial risk that the child will be abused or neglected, as defined in those subdivisions.’ [Citation.]” (Ricardo L., supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at p. 566.) As explained above, substantial evidence supports the first prong. Substantial evidence also supports the second prong because Mother’s unresolved condition placed her two older children at substantial risk of being neglected. The juvenile court reasonably could have inferred that Mother’s unresolved condition posed a risk that Mother will be inattentive to the needs of the older children.
Because we affirm the jurisdictional findings as to A.R., Jr. pursuant to section 300, subdivision (b), and as to the two older siblings pursuant to section 300, subdivision (j), we need not discuss whether jurisdiction was also proper based on the allegations of paternal abandonment under section 300, subdivision (g). None of the fathers has appealed and Mother fails to show that she is aggrieved by the findings pertaining to the children’s fathers. (In re Vanessa Z. (1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 258, 261 [“An appellant cannot urge errors which affect only another party who does not appeal.”]; In re D.S. (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 671, 674 [“Standing to challenge an adverse ruling is not established merely because a parent takes a position on an issue that affects the minor [citation]; nor can a parent raise the minor’s best interest as a basis for standing [citation]. Without a showing that a parent’s personal rights are affected by a ruling, the parent does not establish standing.”].)
DISPOSITION
The October 22, 2008 order is affirmed.
We concur: ROTHSCHILD, J., MILLER, J.
Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.