Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. CK56982, Jan G. Levine, Judge.
Lori A. Fields, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Raymond G. Fortner, Jr., County Counsel, and Fred Klink, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
WILLHITE, J.
INTRODUCTION
Brenda R. (Mother) appeals from several orders made by the juvenile court regarding her children, Jennifer and Jesus. Department concedes that most of the contested orders should be reversed and that said disposition renders Mother’s other claims of error moot. Having examined the record, we conclude that Department’s concession of reversible error is well-taken. We therefore only briefly summarize the operative facts.
Department is the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
This matter first came to Department’s attention in October 2004 after the police stopped a car driven by Jennifer’s father. Eight-month old Jennifer and Mother were passengers in the car. The police found substantial quantities of drugs in the vehicle. Mother was arrested and subsequently pled guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11378.)
Department filed a section 300 petition in regard to Jennifer. In February 2005, the trial court sustained the petition on the basis that Jennifer’s parents had put her at risk by placing her in a car with controlled substances. (§ 300, subd. (b).) Jennifer was removed from her parents’ custody and placed with her aunt. The court ordered reunification services and directed Mother to complete various programs.
All undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
Jennifer’s father is not a party to this appeal. He absconded after he posted bail.
By the time the six-month review hearing was conducted in June 2005, Mother had successfully completed most of her court-ordered programs. In addition, as part of her probation on the criminal charge, she had entered drug counseling and had tested negative on multiple occasions. Because of the progress Mother had made, the trial court placed Jennifer with her.
In June 2005, Jesus was born. Three weeks later, Mother entered into a Voluntary Family Maintenance Services Contract with Department in regard to him.
On August 24, 2005, the social worker saw Mother and her two children. The children were in good health and very active.
Shortly thereafter, Mother (a Mexican citizen who was not lawfully present in the United States) returned to Mexico with her children without court approval or Department’s knowledge. She later explained that she had done so because she felt alone and overwhelmed in California. She did not speak English and was unhappy here. But before she left California, she had completed all programs ordered by the juvenile court. In Mexico, she was able to work and her parents helped care for Jennifer and Jesus. Mother’s parents confirmed that she had called them and told her that she had “been very sad and lonely [and] needed to come home.”
Mother subsequently provided her social worker with letters of completion from her drug program, her parenting classes, and her individual counseling.
In September 2005, Department filed two petitions. The first, filed pursuant to section 342, alleged that Mother had abducted Jennifer and that their whereabouts was unknown. The second, filed pursuant to section 300, contained similar allegations about Jesus. Each petition alleged that the abduction put the child at risk of physical and emotional harm.
In September 2007, the children entered California with their maternal grandparents. They were detained because child protective warrants had been issued for them. A physician examined the children and found both to be “comfortable, in no apparent distress, well developed, well nourished, well groomed, behavior is cooperative, appropriate for age, pleasant, alert[,] content [and] playful.”
In November 2007, the trial court sustained amended versions of the two petitions filed in regard to Jennifer and Jesus, found that there would be a substantial danger to the children if they were returned to Mother, and removed them from Mother’s custody. The court gave different reasons to deny reunification services for each child. This appeal challenges those rulings.
DISCUSSION
The crux of Mother’s appeal is the claim that that the record does not support the trial court’s findings that her taking of Jennifer and Jesus to Mexico put them at risk of physical or emotional harm. Department concedes this point, noting that there is no evidence that the children were endangered by the trip. Hence, Department agrees that the section 300 petition and order removing Jesus from Mother’s custody must be reversed as well as the section 342 petition and order removing Jennifer from Mother’s custody. This analysis renders moot the question whether the trial court properly denied reunification services for the children.
In regard to Jennifer, Department also correctly notes that her “case is different from that of Jesus in that she was already a ward of the court under a validly sustained [section 300] petition” before the section 342 petition was sustained. Consequently, Department suggests that the “matter should be remanded to the trial court for further proceedings with regard to continuing jurisdiction over Jennifer.” On that point, Department notes: “The DCFS Area Regional Administrator . . . was contacted, and her position was that, in light of the record, the children should be returned to mother and mother be allowed to return to Mexico as mother has stated she desires to do. Retaining further jurisdiction over Jennifer would be problematic in light of mother’s immigration status which prevents her from legally residing in or working in the United States.” We accept Department’s concessions of error and adopt its proposed approach.
DISPOSITION
The trial court’s November 1, 2007 orders sustaining the sections 300 and 342 petitions regarding, respectively, Jesus and Jennifer are reversed as are its November 13, 2007 orders removing each child from Mother’s custody. The matter is remanded to the trial court with directions to determine whether to continue or to terminate jurisdiction over Jennifer.
We concur: EPSTEIN, P. J., SUZUKAWA, J.