Opinion
A148077
01-27-2017
In re R.A., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. ALAMEDA COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. B.A., Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. OJ14023845)
Appellant B.A. (father) appealed from an order continuing his daughter R.A. as a dependent child and continuing jurisdiction. During the several months that his appeal has been pending, the juvenile court dismissed jurisdiction and awarded father custody of R.A. Because we agree with respondent Alameda County Social Services Agency (Agency) that the dismissal renders father's appeal moot, we dismiss it.
I.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL
BACKGROUND
These juvenile-dependency proceedings were initiated more than two years ago, when the Agency filed a dependency petition in November 2014 alleging that father was arrested for spanking then six-year-old R.A. at a convenience store; that father regularly spanked R.A.; and that the whereabouts of R.A.'s mother, who is not a party to this appeal, were unknown. R.A. was detained in foster care, and the juvenile court ultimately sustained allegations under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (b) (failure to protect) and (g) (no provision for support), adjudged R.A. a dependent child, and ordered reunification services for father.
In the months that followed, father engaged in reunification services, including a two-week trial visit with R.A., and made substantial progress with his case plan. In May 2015, the juvenile court ordered that R.A. be returned to father's custody and that they receive family-maintenance services. Later that year, father sought to have dependency proceedings dismissed, but the Agency advocated that it continue to provide supervision.
Following a contested review hearing in March 2016, the juvenile court continued R.A. as a dependent child, referred the matter for mediation and for consideration of dismissal, and ordered father to ensure that R.A. attend individual therapy.
Father timely appealed on April 13, 2016. Following lengthy delays with record preparation, father's opening brief was filed on October 24. In it, father argued that there had been insufficient evidence to support the juvenile court's order continuing jurisdiction. Then following a hearing on November 3, the juvenile court dismissed jurisdiction and entered a custody order awarding custody to father and ordering him to ensure R.A.'s consistent participation in therapy. Father was notified of his right to appeal, but he did not do so.
By orders dated December 9 and December 14, 2016, this court took judicial notice of the juvenile court's dismissal and custody orders.
II.
DISCUSSION
The Agency argues that this appeal should be dismissed as moot, and we agree. As this court explained in In re N.S. (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 53, 60, "the critical factor in considering whether a dependency appeal is moot is whether the appellate court can provide any effective relief if it finds reversible error." The court declined to exercise its discretion to review the juvenile court's jurisdictional findings in N.S. after the court dismissed dependency proceedings because there was no effective relief to be granted beyond that which appellant mother already had obtained. (Id. at p. 62.) Likewise here, there is no effective relief we could grant to father even if we concluded that the juvenile court erred in continuing jurisdiction in March 2016, given that the court has since dismissed jurisdiction.
Father acknowledges that the juvenile court has now granted him the relief he previously had sought but argues that his appeal should not be dismissed as moot because he will continue to be negatively affected by the order appealed from insofar as it formed the basis of the court's subsequent visitation order directing that father ensure that R.A. attend therapy and that R.A.'s mother be allowed visitation. He relies on In re Joshua C. (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 1544, but that case is distinguishable. In Joshua C., the juvenile court sustained a dependency petition finding that a father sexually abused his daughter, awarded sole physical and legal custody of the girl and her twin brother to the mother, and terminated dependency jurisdiction. (Id. at pp. 1546-1547.) The appellate court held that it could consider the father's appeal from the jurisdictional findings, notwithstanding the termination of dependency proceedings, because those findings were the basis for restrictive visitation and custody orders that continued to negatively affect the father—and from which the father appealed. (Id. at pp. 1546, 1548.) Here, by contrast, father has not appealed from the juvenile court's final custody order. That means that even if we agreed that it was inappropriate to continue jurisdiction in March 2016, we could not reverse the subsequent custody order.
Father also complains that the order he did appeal from will be prejudicial to him if he is ever involved in future dependency proceedings, because true findings regarding child abuse and endangerment "carry a lifetime stigma as a child abuser, which impinges on father's fundamental rights." Again, however, father never appealed from the order sustaining those abuse allegations, only the March 2016 order continuing jurisdiction.
Finally, we also disagree that dismissing father's appeal implicates a "broad public interest" that would warrant exercising our discretion to proceed to the merits of the order appealed from.
As in In re N.S., supra, 245 Cal.App.4th at pages 62-63, we are sympathetic to the argument that declining to review the juvenile court's findings will insulate them from review, but we are unconvinced that any ruling we could issue here would have any practical effect on future dependency proceedings. Both negative and positive facts from these proceedings almost certainly would be available in any future proceedings. (Id. at p. 63.) Because father has not shown any adverse effect from the order appealed from, we decline to exercise our discretion to review it. (Ibid.)
III.
DISPOSITION
Father's appeal is dismissed.
/s/_________
Humes, P.J. We concur: /s/_________
Dondero, J. /s/_________
Banke, J.