In re T.R.

California Court of Appeal·Decided January 27, 2023·No. E079291·Published

Opinion

Filed 1/18/23 Certified for Publication 1/27/23 (order attached)

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO

In re T.R. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, E079291

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super.Ct.Nos. J291308, J291312)

v. OPINION R.R., Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Steven A. Mapes, Judge. Affirmed in part; reversed in part with directions.

Sean Angele Burleigh, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Tom Bunton, County Counsel and Dawn M. Martin, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Radell R. appeals from a dispositional order denying him reunification services with his eight-year-old and six-year-old daughters under the bypass provision in Welfare

and Institutions Code section 361.5, subdivision (b)(6) for infliction of severe physical 1 harm. He argues the juvenile court failed to satisfy the statutory requirements for making

a bypass finding under section 361.5, subdivision (b)(6) and the finding isn’t supported by substantial evidence. We agree and therefore reverse the bypass finding and remand for the court to reconsider his entitlement to reunification services.

I

FACTS

A. Detention

The subjects of this appeal are Radell’s two daughters with A.S. (mother)—Taylor S. and Teegan S. On November 16, 2021, San Bernardino County Children and Family Services (the department) filed dependency petitions on behalf of Taylor and Teegan, and their older half sisters, Denise and Madison, alleging the girls came within section 300,

subdivisions (a) (serious physical harm), (b) (failure to protect), (d) (sexual abuse), and

2

(j) (abuse of a sibling). Taylor was 7 years old, Teegan was 5, Denise was 13, and

Madison was 10. The department alleged that mother and Radell engaged in domestic violence and used excessive corporal punishment on the girls, that they failed to protect Taylor from the paternal grandmother, and that mother sexually abused Taylor by 1 Unlabeled statutory citations refer to the Welfare and Institutions Code.

2

Mother is not a party to the appeal nor are Denise and Madison or their biological fathers.

pouring alcohol on her vagina. The petitions also alleged the girls had previously been declared dependents “due in part to physical abuse by [Radell].”

The family had come to the department’s attention several days earlier on November 11, 2021, when it received a referral alleging mother was physically abusing the girls, their biological fathers were neglecting them, and Denise had run away from home and was staying with the maternal grandmother. The social worker visited the maternal grandmother’s home to interview Denise, who reported that mother and Radell were physically violent with each other and with her and her sisters.

According to Denise, two days earlier mother had hit her and Madison with a television cord on their face, neck, and arms, leaving welts that had since healed. She also described an incident that had happened three months earlier when Radell had gotten angry with her and Madison. She said he pushed her up against the wall and choked her, punched a hole in the wall, then pulled Madison off her bed by the hair. She said she’d run away from home because mother and Radell fought a lot and she didn’t feel safe there.

The following day, the social worker interviewed Madison, Taylor, and Teegan at school. Madison told the social worker she didn’t know what was going on with her older sister. She said mother had hit her with a belt, not a cord, and she had no idea how Denise was hit. She denied that Radell had ever pulled her off her bed by her hair. She said discipline was usually in the form of hitting the lower parts of the body with a belt.

Teegan said she had seen mother hit Denise and Madison with a television cord on the back of the neck. She said mother and Radell engaged in domestic violence and would discipline her and her sisters with a belt. She also reported some issues with mother and alcohol. She said mother had tried to make her drink alcohol once but Radell stopped her, and another time mother had poured alcohol on her vagina, causing a burning sensation. Taylor was reluctant to speak to the social worker. She said Radell told her to immediately let him or mother know if anyone tried to speak with her at school.

Later that day, the department took the girls into protective custody. Taylor was more forthcoming in her second interview. She said for discipline mother and Radell would generally yell and make them go to their rooms, but she also said she’d been “whoop[ed] with a shoe and hanger” (though the report doesn’t say by whom). She said mother had hit her with a cord a few days earlier for not listening to her. When asked if she’d witnessed any choking, she said the paternal grandmother had choked her on the couch once. She said her parents didn’t do anything when she told them about the incident.

In the detention report the department submitted along with the dependency petitions, the social worker noted the family had been involved in two previous dependencies. She said that in 2013 the juvenile court had exercised jurisdiction over Denise and Madison and ordered mother to stay away from Radell because he had placed two-year-old Madison in a tub of hot water, causing her to suffer first degree burns. In

2016, in a second dependency proceeding, the court removed all four girls from mother and removed Taylor and Teegan from Radell. Mother ultimately reunified with the girls, but the court bypassed services for Radell under section 361.5, subdivision (b)(6).

On November 17, 2021, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Steven Mapes found the department had established a prima facie case to exercise dependency jurisdiction over the girls and ordered them detained. Radell attended the hearing and asked for visitation and predisposition services. The judge ordered supervised visitation for mother and Radell once a week for two hours. The department placed Taylor and Teegan in the same foster home and placed Denise and Madison together in a different one.

B. Jurisdiction and Disposition The social worker interviewed the family a few weeks after the detention hearing.

Although all of the girls reported that Radell lived with them, mother said he just visited, and Radell said he stayed there often though lived primarily with his mother. Both mother and Radell denied physically harming the girls or engaging in domestic violence with each other. Mother denied the cord incident and claimed the only object she ever hit her daughters with was a belt “because they said it was fine to whoop children with a belt in my parenting class.” Radell said he didn’t think it was possible his mother choked Taylor because one of her hands was broken.

Denise told the social worker she didn’t want to return home because Radell was always there and mother would start fights with him. She said she’d seen mother push him down the stairs and bust his lip. She said mother had “anger issues” and “gets mad at us and tells us she does not like us.” When asked if Radell ever hit her, she said no, he’d only choked her that time a few months earlier and pulled Madison off the bed by her hair. Mother, on the other hand, would hit her with hangers, belts, and an electronics cord, sometimes leaving welts.

Madison denied any forms of physical abuse by mother or Radell. However, when asked if she’d ever had bruises or marks on her body, she admitted that mother had recently hit her on the back of the neck with a cord, leaving a bruise.

Taylor said mother “whooped me with a cord because I knocked down a picture on the stairs.” Teegan said that when she gets in trouble “Mommy and Daddy hit me with a belt.” The social worker asked Teegan how she felt about her family and she replied, “They are my life.”

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