Filed 9/3/26 In re R.T. CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FIVE
In re R.T., Jr., a Person Coming B350230 Under the Juvenile Court Law.
(Los Angeles County
LOS ANGELES COUNTY Super. Ct. No. DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 21CCJP01860) AND FAMILY SERVICES,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
R.T.,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Juan M. Valles, Judge Pro Tempore. Affirmed.
Jamie A. Moran, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie, Assistant County Counsel, and Navid Nakhjavani, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
The juvenile court assumed dependency jurisdiction over R.T., Jr. (Minor) in October 2024 after finding his mother, L.C. (Mother), suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues. Minor’s father, R.T. (Father), with whom Minor did not reside, asked the court to place Minor with him. The juvenile court declined to do so, finding this would be detrimental to Minor, and ordered Minor removed from both parents. We affirmed that disposition order in a prior appeal. (In re R.T. (Mar. 6, 2026, B343695) [nonpub. opn.] (In re R.T. I).) At a more recent six-month review hearing, the juvenile court ordered Minor returned to Mother’s custody and impliedly found that return to Father would be detrimental. We consider whether substantial evidence supports this continued finding of detriment.
I. BACKGROUND1
A. The Dependency Investigation and Petition Minor was born in September 2015. Minor was living with Mother in October 2024 when police responded to an incident at the home and observed Mother “acting in a bizarre and aggressive man[ner].” Mother was involuntarily hospitalized under Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 and Minor was taken into protective custody.2 Minor told a social worker with
1 In reciting the pertinent background facts, we draw on our prior opinion in In re R.T. I. On our own motion, we also take judicial notice of the record in the prior appeal. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459, subd. (a).) 2 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
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the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) that he did not know Father.
The Department filed a dependency petition in October 2024 alleging Mother’s mental and emotional problems placed Minor at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm.3 The petition indicated Father’s whereabouts were unknown. The petition was subsequently amended to add an allegation that Minor was also at risk of harm from Mother’s history of substance abuse.
Later in October, the juvenile court ordered Minor released to Mother on the condition that a maternal great uncle, M.C., reside with Mother and Minor. The juvenile court later added a condition that Mother “not drive [Minor] anywhere.”
Mother told a Department social worker that she and Father were in a relationship beginning in 2013, Father was present for Minor’s birth in 2015, but “the relationship . . . was not good due to domestic violence.” She lived in Texas with Minor and Father until 2018, when she took Minor and “fle[d]”
3 This was not the first time Minor had come to the Department’s attention. In 2021, the juvenile court assumed dependency jurisdiction based on findings that Mother’s substance abuse and mental and emotional problems put Minor at substantial risk of serious physical harm. The juvenile court denied family reunification services to Father in that case “due to his being an alleged father and whereabouts unknown.” Dependency jurisdiction was terminated in June 2022. The following year, the juvenile court dismissed a petition alleging Mother was driving with Minor “under the influence of an unknown substance” when she struck another car and left the scene.
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from Father. Mother reported she had no contact with Father after she left.
Father said he dated Mother for about three years and was present for Minor’s birth. According to Father, he lived with and cared for Minor from Minor’s birth in September 2015 until Mother took Minor to California in April 2016. Father denied there was any domestic violence, and he said their relationship fell apart when Mother “started using drugs.” He said he had only sporadic contact with Minor after Mother left because Mother provided incorrect contact information.
Father provided the Department a mailing address in Arkansas but said he was living in Texas “per terms of his probation.” The Department reported Father was incarcerated from March 2024 to August 2024, on charges including domestic violence, and he would be on probation until 2026.
The juvenile court determined Father is Minor’s presumed father in October 2024. A Department social worker spoke with Father “to assess for possible release” of Minor. Father said he was “working on getting a copy of the terms of his probation to the Department.” He suggested he was on probation for “tampering with physical evidence.” When the social worker asked Father for his address in Texas to have local child welfare workers assess his home, Father declined to provide one. Father said that if Minor were released to him, he would meet him in Arkansas, which is where Father’s wife lived. Father planned to move to Arkansas to recover from an upcoming heart surgery. Although Father previously indicated Minor would need to stay with him in Texas because he was not allowed to leave the state, Father said he had “r[u]n his plan to move to Arkansas by his probation officer, and his probation officer ‘was cool with it.’” The
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social worker called Father’s probation officer, who “stated he [was] not authorized to release any information other than stating [Father] is on his case load and confirming he is on probation.”
B. Adjudication and Disposition Mother pled no contest to the amended dependency petition at an October 2024 jurisdiction hearing. The juvenile court heard testimony on the disposition it should order.
Father testified he was present when Minor was born and Minor remained in his custody for “about five, six months.” Father lost contact with Minor for “a couple months” when Mother took him to California, but he then had video chats with Minor (who was still less than one year old) “almost . . . every other day.” Father testified he would “ask [Minor] about his day, how he was doing, ask him how he was doing in school, sometimes play games, talk to each other, tell him how much [he] miss[ed] him.” Father visited Minor in person “every day” over a “two or three week[ ]” period in 2021 when Mother and Minor stayed with a friend in Texas.
Father testified he would sometimes call Minor and receive no answer, or Minor’s phone number would change. Father was also incarcerated at times. When Father lost contact with Minor, he would reach out by phone and email, he would contact Mother’s relatives, and he sometimes “sen[t] the police to check the state of [Minor].” Father denied engaging in domestic violence with Mother, but he acknowledged a domestic violence
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arrest involving a different partner in 2021. Children were present during that domestic violence episode.
The juvenile court postponed the conclusion of the disposition hearing to a future date. In the meantime, the Department submitted a report expressing concern that, contrary to the conditions of the juvenile court’s release of Minor to Mother, M.C. (the great uncle) was not living with them and Mother was driving with Minor. The Department also reported Father failed to provide the terms of his probation as requested.
Minor was detained from Mother in late November 2024.
The juvenile court initially ordered the Department to assess Father for placement, but it modified its order after the Department argued Father failed to respond to the Department’s requests for information regarding his criminal history and probation status in Texas. The court ordered that “[i]f [Father] does present any further documents regarding his criminal matters in Texas, the Department should vet those and address that in [a report] . . . . But the Department has made several attempts to assess, and the outcome has been consistently negative.” The court also ordered the Department to consider Minor’s paternal grandmother for placement.
In early December 2024, the Department reported Minor was not adjusting well to foster care. When social workers picked him up from school to transport him to his new placement, he demanded to be returned to Mother and made “both suicidal and homicidal statements.” Minor also suffered “uncontrollable outbursts” at school and exhibited behaviors “harmful . . . to self and [others].”
The Department also received reports that Mother was encouraging Minor to “‘act up.’” Minor told a social worker he
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wanted to return to Mother’s care and “became somewhat hysterical” when the social worker asked how he felt about staying with Father or his paternal grandmother. Minor said “he does not know his [paternal grandmother].” When a social worker spoke with the paternal grandmother, she said she had not seen Minor since he was three or four years old but she was “more than willing to take [Father] and [Minor] in.” Minor was amenable to living with Father temporarily, “but he d[id] not want to live out of state away from [Mother].”
The Department reported it had “still not received a copy of [Father’s] terms of probation,” though “the delay could be due to [Father’s] probation being transferred to the state of Arkansas.” Father indicated he expected to move to Arkansas “by the end of the month,” and he would need to do so “the day his probation is transferred.” Because Minor’s paternal grandmother lived in Texas, Father could not “agree long-term to living with [her] as a condition of having [Minor] in his care.” Father was “open to having the Department assess the home he share[d] in [Arkansas] with his new wife when he g[ot] there so that [Minor] c[ould] be placed in his care; however, he [was] not there yet and asked if there [wa]s any[ way] the case could be continued indefinitely until he move[d].”
The day before the reconvened disposition hearing, the Department reported it “received a call from [F]ather’s probation officer,” who provided a copy of the terms of probation and stated Father was “currently in compliance.” The probation officer confirmed probation was “being transferred to the state of Arkansas” but was “unable to confirm the status of the transfer.” The probation officer stated Father was on probation for
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“tampering with evidence, assault on a family member, and assault ‘reck breath,’ which means he ‘choked someone out.’”
At the resumed disposition hearing in December 2024, Father asked the juvenile court to place Minor with him pursuant to section 361.2, a statute that provides a child should be placed with a parent with whom the child did not reside when the events giving rise to dependency proceedings began—unless this would be detrimental to the child.
The juvenile court found placement with Father would be detrimental to Minor. The juvenile court reasoned “there is a long history of documented and reported domestic violence” and “while Father reports that he has been compliant with the terms of his Texas probation or parole, there’s no evidence before the court to suggest he’s mitigated this underlying risk.” The juvenile court also emphasized “placement of [Minor] with . . . [F]ather would be harmful to the child’s emotional well- being . . . . Though the court [was] removing [Minor] from Mother’s custody . . . [it could not] ignore the very close bond that these two share.” The juvenile court observed that “Mother and [Minor were] clutching onto one another, and Mother [was] in tears.” Minor was “having a very difficult time emotionally and psychologically being simply detained from his Mother,” and the juvenile court “believe[d] that removing [Minor] from the Southern California area away from his mother would be extremely harmful to [his] emotional well-being.” The juvenile court concluded that, “[w]hatever the source of Father’s inability to establish a relationship with [Minor], the fact remains that there are serious unresolved concerns regarding domestic
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violence and the harm the child would face if removed from California and placed in the care of . . . Father in Texas.”4 Father’s case plan included individual counseling and an order to comply with the terms of his probation. He was granted monitored visitation in California and monitored phone and virtual visits.
Father appealed the disposition order, and this Court affirmed in In re R.T. I. We held that substantial evidence supported the juvenile court’s finding that the Department made reasonable efforts to prevent or eliminate the need for removal. We further held that Father’s challenge to the juvenile court’s decision not to place Minor with him as a non-custodial parent under section 361.2 lacked merit for several reasons. Among other things, the statute only applies to parents who, unlike Father, had not had a removal order entered against them. Moreover, as we shall discuss, the juvenile court returned Minor to Mother’s care at a subsequent review hearing, so it did not make sense to analyze Father’s right to have Minor placed with him under a statute addressing placement when a child is removed from a custodial parent. In any case, we held, the detriment finding was adequately supported by evidence that Father had a recent history of domestic violence, by evidence that the emotional strain Minor suffered out of Mother’s custody was likely to be exacerbated by placement in another state, and by the
4 The juvenile court found Father’s testimony concerning his relationship to Minor “on the whole not credible. The statements he provided were inconsistent with evidence already before the court. Some of the timelines he provided [we]re simply not plausible in light of the child’s age . . . .”
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juvenile court’s finding that Father’s testimony concerning his relationship with Minor was not credible.
C. The Six-Month Review Hearing The juvenile court called the matter for a six-month review hearing in June 2025 but determined Father did not receive proper notice and continued the hearing to the following month. The court also ordered, among other things, the Department to “report back on Father’s engagement with the case plan and the Department, as well as including any information on Father’s visitation with [Minor].”
In July 2025, the Department filed a report indicating it attempted to reach Father by phone a couple days earlier but his voicemail was full. Father did not respond to text messages requesting he call the Department. The juvenile court again continued the six-month review hearing when Minor was not present. The court remarked, however, that it “would have found that the Department ha[d] failed to provide Father with reasonable services.” The Department’s records indicated it had not made “any attempts to communicate with . . . [F]ather until very recently,” which was “wholly unacceptable.” The juvenile court ordered the Department “to explain in clear detail why Father was not contacted between the end of last year at disposition, through the first setting of this [six-month review hearing].”
In a subsequent report, the Department explained it had failed to maintain contact with Father after disposition because of other “issues requir[ing] urgent attention,” including Minor’s behavioral challenges and Mother’s resistance to services. In “managing the immediate crisis,” a Department social worker
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“did not realize until it was raised by the court that she had not made contact with [Father].” The Department later documented additional efforts to reach Father by mail, phone, and text message.
The juvenile court held the six-month review hearing in September 2025. The Department asked the court to order Minor returned to Mother with family maintenance services and to order enhancement services for Father.
Father’s attorney argued he did not receive reasonable services following the disposition hearing. She also remarked that although she did “not have a specific direction from [her] client” regarding the Department’s recommendation, Father’s “previous request at the disposition . . . hearing was release given that he was a non-offending and previously a non-custodial parent.” Father’s attorney further emphasized Father “ha[d] an appeal pending, and he [wa]s not waiving any appealable issues.”
When the juvenile court asked the Department’s attorney to “address the issue of reasonable services as to Father,” the attorney acknowledged “a lack of contact and reasonable services to . . . Father since the disposition” hearing. The court found the Department failed to provide Father with reasonable services from December 2024 through July 2025. The juvenile court ordered “an administrative review of this matter,” with a report to be filed no later than October 15, 2025. The court remarked it “ha[d] never seen such an apparent and glaring lack of servicing,” with “absolutely no efforts to communicate with . . . [F]ather” in the months following the disposition order.
The juvenile court retained jurisdiction over Minor, but ordered him released to Mother—conditioned upon her continued compliance with her case plan. The juvenile court explained that,
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“had Father been provided services and [had] Father . . . engaged in those services, Father may have been eligible for return today.” However, Father was “in the same place he was eight months ago.” Although this was “not his fault” and “squarely the Department’s responsibility,” “[t]he only remedy for Father . . . [wa]s for the court to extend family enhancement services to him as [Minor] [was] returned to the care of Mother.” The juvenile court set a further hearing for March 2026.
II. DISCUSSION
Emphasizing the Department’s failure to maintain contact with Father between disposition and the six-month review hearing, Father contends the Department did not carry its burden to show that returning Minor to Father’s care would be detrimental to Minor.5 Father’s position is that a detriment finding made at a six-month review hearing cannot stand unless it is supported by fresh evidence collected after disposition. We hold to the contrary on the facts here and conclude the record supports the juvenile court’s detriment finding and placement decision.
5 The issue on appeal is not the Department’s acknowledged failure to provide Father with reasonable services, for which the juvenile court already ordered the only available remedy—i.e., additional services. (In re Alvin R. (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 962, 975 [“The remedy for a failure to provide reasonable reunification services is an order for the continued provision of services,” not “to return the child to the parent in spite of a finding of a substantial risk of detriment”]; Michael G. v. Superior Court (2023) 14 Cal.5th 609, 625.)
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The statute pertinent to the issue presented provides that “after considering the admissible and relevant evidence” at the six-month review hearing, the juvenile court “shall order the return of the child to the physical custody of their parent or legal guardian unless the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the return of the child to their parent or legal guardian would create a substantial risk of detriment to the safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of the child. The social worker shall have the burden of establishing that detriment.” (§ 366.21, subd. (e)(1); see also § 366.21, subd. (e)(2) [“Regardless of whether the child is returned to a parent or legal guardian, the court shall specify the factual basis for its conclusion that the return would be detrimental or would not be detrimental”].) “In making its determination, the court shall review and consider the social worker’s report and recommendations . . . and shall consider the efforts or progress, or both, demonstrated by the parent . . . and the extent to which they availed themselves of services provided . . . .” (§ 366.21, subd. (e)(1).) Our review of the court’s determination is for substantial evidence. (Robert L. v. Superior Court (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 619, 625; In re E.D. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 960, 966.)
As the juvenile court candidly acknowledged, it did not have current information regarding Father’s progress in his case plan or his circumstances more generally on the date of the six- month review hearing because the Department failed to maintain contact with him. Nevertheless, we are unconvinced, as Father argues, that the Department could not satisfy its burden without evidence post-dating the disposition hearing because the predisposition evidence was still relevant and adequate. To ignore
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this evidence at the six-month review hearing would contravene settled law explaining the past is “predictive of the future” and “‘a parent’s future potential is undoubtedly revealed in the parent’s past behavior with the child.’ [Citation.]” (In re Jasmon O. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 398, 424; see also In re Cole C. (2009) 174 Cal.App.4th 900, 917 [in deciding whether to remove a child from a parent’s custody at disposition, “the court may consider the parent’s past conduct as well as present circumstances”]; In re Troy D. (1989) 215 Cal.App.3d 889, 900 [“While jurisdiction must be asserted on the basis of conditions which exist at the time of the jurisdictional hearing, the court is not required to disregard the [parent’s] prior conduct”].) It would also risk conflating the issue of reasonable services (which the trial court rightly found were not provided) and the risk of detriment to a removed child.
Father’s recent history of domestic violence plus the emotional strain on Minor caused by separation from Mother combine to provide substantial evidence for the juvenile court’s conclusion that releasing Minor to Father, who lives out of state and with whom Minor does not have a longstanding relationship, would be detrimental.6 (In re A.C. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 38, 43- 45 [affirming detriment finding at disposition where the non- custodial parent lived out of state, the child did not have a strong
6 Father’s suggestion that the juvenile court did not make the required detriment finding also lacks merit. The juvenile court clearly stated the factual basis for its implied detriment finding at the September 2025 hearing, which is all that section 366.21, subdivision (e)(2) requires. Specifically, the juvenile court lamented “Father may have been eligible for return today” but for the Department’s failure to provide reasonable services, which left Father “in the same place he was eight months [earlier].”
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relationship with that parent, and the child had strong local attachments].) Although there likely would come a time when evidence compiled prior to the disposition hearing would be too stale to suffice, it was reasonable for the juvenile court to infer (at the same time it appropriately made a no reasonable services finding and extended the time to provide services) that the relevant circumstances did not meaningfully change between disposition and the six-month review hearing. (In re R.T. (2017) 3 Cal.5th 622, 633 [in undertaking substantial evidence review, a reviewing court draws “‘all reasonable inferences from the evidence to support the findings and orders of the dependency court’” and “‘review[s] the record in the light most favorable to the court’s determinations’”].)
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DISPOSITION
The juvenile court’s order is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
BAKER, J.
We concur:
HOFFSTADT, P. J.
MOOR, J.