Opinion
B326500
09-06-2023
In re J.J. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. v. J.C., Defendant and Appellant. LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent,
Jill Smith, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, Assistant County Counsel, and Navid Nakhjavani, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. 19CCJP04452A-C, Lisa A. Brackelmanns, Commissioner. Conditionally affirmed with directions.
Jill Smith, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, Assistant County Counsel, and Navid Nakhjavani, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
WILEY, J.
A mother appeals findings and orders from a permanency planning hearing. She has two arguments: the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (Fam. Code, § 3400 et seq. (UCCJEA)) and there was insufficient inquiry under the Indian Child Welfare Act and related state law (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq., Welf. & Inst. Code, § 224 et seq. (the Act)). As to jurisdiction, any error was harmless. We conditionally affirm and remand with directions to comply with the Act.
Undesignated statutory citations are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
I
The mother left her three young children at a Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services office on July 11, 2019 because she was unable to care for them. The mother and children had been living in California for less than three months. Before coming to California, they had lived in Missouri for about five months. Before Missouri, they had lived in Arkansas.
Much of the children's family live in Arkansas. Their father lives there. Before October 2018, the children sometimes stayed with him. The children's maternal grandmother and maternal great aunt also live in Arkansas. The children are currently placed with their maternal grandmother, who is their prospective adoptive parent.
The day the mother left the children with the Department, the Department requested information from the child welfare agency in Arkansas about the family's child welfare history there. Staff from Arkansas replied. They had received and investigated a referral involving the family in May 2018. Arkansas had substantiated the referral and had opened a case.
The court asked the Department to get more information from Arkansas. The Department told the Arkansas agency that it was investigating the family, the mother and children had moved from Arkansas, and the father lives in Arkansas. The Department asked for additional information about investigations or cases involving the family. Arkansas replied with 32 pages of records. According to the records, on June 28, 2018, staff in Arkansas had closed the 2018 investigation.
In August 2019, the court spoke with the clerk of the administrative presiding judge in Arkansas. The clerk confirmed there was not an open child welfare case involving the family.
In November 2019, the mother said she did not know if she wanted to reunify with the children.
The mother moved to Tennessee and in July 2020, she refused to give the Department her address. She said she did not want the Department to contact her and she would block their calls. She said, "I need to stop stressing about my children."
When the Department emailed referrals to the mother in October 2020, the mother replied, "I already told them I wasn't doing anymore services. Next?"
In May 2021, the mother reiterated her intention not to participate in services.
The mother did not contest the termination of reunification services and the court terminated these services in July 2021.
In September 2022, the children were placed with their maternal grandmother in Arkansas.
Regarding Indian ancestry, the mother denied Indian ancestry, then said her great-grandfather was "Black Indian," and alternately said she might have ancestry in an unknown tribe through a paternal great-great-grandfather. She did not know that person's first name. The father said he might have Cherokee ancestry through his paternal grandmother.
The Department spoke to and had contact information for the children's maternal grandmother, maternal great aunt, and the maternal great aunt's child, who would be the children's first cousin once removed. (The exact nature of these relationships is unclear. One document in the record refers to the maternal great aunt as the mother's "second aunt" and that person's daughter as the mother's "second cousin.")
The court asked the Department to investigate the father's ancestry and to "notice the Cherokee tribe."
The Department sent notices to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and three Cherokee tribes. The notices had some missing information. For example, there was no full birth date or address information for the father's mother or for any of the parents' grandparents.
The three tribes said the children were neither registered nor eligible for membership. The court found the Act did not apply.
At a hearing in January 2023, the court found that continued jurisdiction was necessary. It also found the case plan, which included a permanent plan of adoption, was necessary and appropriate. The mother appeals the findings and orders from this hearing.
II
A
We affirm the court's assumption of jurisdiction because it was harmless.
The UCCJEA has several aims: avoiding jurisdictional competition and conflict, promoting interstate cooperation, litigating custody where the child and family have the closest connections, discouraging continuing conflict over custody, deterring abductions and unilateral removals of children, avoiding forum shopping, and avoiding relitigation of another state's custody decisions. (See Kumar v. Superior Court (1982) 32 Cal.3d 689, 695 &698; In re M.M. (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 703, 715.)
Harmless error analysis applies to the UCCJEA. (In re Cristian I. (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 1088, 1098.) We reverse only if it is reasonably probable the appealing party would have had a more favorable result absent error. (Id. at pp. 1098-1099.)
Assuming there was error in California's exercise of jurisdiction, it is not reasonably probable this affected the outcome of the case for the mother. The mother argues California lacked jurisdiction because Arkansas had significant connections jurisdiction. (See Fam. Code, § 3421, subd. (a)(2).) The case began because the mother left the children with the Department. The mother correctly concedes California had at least temporary emergency jurisdiction, which applies when children are abandoned. (Fam. Code, § 3424, subd. (a).) The children remain out of the mother's custody. This is the only reasonable outcome for a parent who left her children and consistently refused services to reunify with them. The children are now with their maternal grandmother in Arkansas, the state the mother says has jurisdiction. The mother does not suggest a different potential outcome that would be more favorable to her, nor do we perceive one.
Our result is consistent with the purposes of the UCCJEA. This case exemplified jurisdictional cooperation, not conflict. Arkansas closed its 2018 investigation involving the family and had no conflicting custody decisions. Stakeholders in Arkansas cooperated with California's inquiries and never questioned California's jurisdiction. Reversing California's jurisdiction would not further the Act's purposes as there was no competition or conflict between the states.
The mother's jurisdictional argument fails.
B
We conditionally affirm with directions on remand to comply with the inquiry and notice requirements of the Act. The Department correctly concedes it erred in three ways: it did not interview several available extended family members; it sent incomplete notices; and it did not document its efforts to contact relatives.
There is no evidence the Department inquired of any maternal or paternal relatives. The Department and court have an affirmative and continuing duty to inquire about ancestry and the initial inquiry duty includes asking extended family members. (§ 224.2, subds. (a) &(b).) The Department communicated with maternal relatives, including the maternal grandmother, but did not inquire. There is no evidence the Department tried to contact any paternal relatives. This was insufficient initial inquiry.
The Department's duties went beyond initial inquiry. If there is reason to believe a child is an Indian child, the Department must make further inquiry. Further inquiry helps to determine whether there is reason to know a child is an Indian child. (§ 224.2, subd. (e).) Having a reason to know then triggers formal notice requirements to tribes. (Id., subd. (f).)
The father's statements about Cherokee ancestry gave reason to believe. There is reason to believe if information suggests a parent or the child is a member or may be eligible for membership in an Indian tribe. (§ 224.2, subd. (e).) The court impliedly found there was reason to believe based on the father's statements because the court told the Department to give notice to a tribe. The Department therefore needed to make further inquiry.
The Department's further inquiry was deficient.
The Department's inquiry was insufficient as to the family. The Department should have attempted to inquire of extended family members and sought information about family members' names, birth dates, addresses, and places of birth and death. (§ 224.2, subd. (e); § 224.3, subd. (a)(5).)
The Department's further inquiry of tribes was also faulty. The statute contemplates something less than formal notice to tribes as the method of further inquiry with them. (See § 224.2, subd. (e) [listing telephone, fax, and email as potential contact methods].) But the Department's effort at further inquiry here was to send formal notices. If the notices were correct and complete, they could have satisfied further inquiry. Here, the notices were missing information. Some of this information may not be available. Absent evidence the Department tried to get the missing information from extended family members, though, we will not assume this information is unavailable. The Department must inquire of extended family and seek this missing information.
On remand, the Department must satisfy its initial and further inquiry duties.
DISPOSITION
We conditionally affirm and remand with directions to comply with inquiry requirements under the Indian Child Welfare Act and related state law (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq., Welf. &Inst. Code, § 224 et seq.) in accordance with this opinion. We otherwise affirm.
We concur: STRATTON, P. J., GRIMES, J.