Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Theresa M.

161 Cal. App. 4th 253, 74 Cal. Rptr. 3d 138, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 397
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 5, 2008
DocketNo. B198837
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 161 Cal. App. 4th 253 (Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Theresa M.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Theresa M., 161 Cal. App. 4th 253, 74 Cal. Rptr. 3d 138, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 397 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

Opinion

FLIER, J.

Mother, Theresa M., and father, Sasha R., appeal for a second time from the order terminating parental rights to seven-year-old N.M. and five-year-old I.R., claiming again that the juvenile court and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (Department) failed to comply with the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA; 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.). We disagree and affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

1. Facts and Procedural History from Our Prior Opinions

This is the third appeal in this case. In the first appeal, In re N.M. (July 19, 2005, B179269), a nonpublished opinion, we rejected mother’s challenge to juvenile court orders that denied her family reunification services and reduced the amount of her visits with the minors. In the second appeal, In re N.M. (Sept. 6, 2006, B188500), a nonpublished opinion, we rejected the parents’ contention that the juvenile court lacked sufficient evidence that the minors were likely to be adopted, but we ordered a limited reversal of the order terminating parental rights for compliance with the ICWA and reinstatement of the order if ICWA compliance did not indicate Native American heritage.

We set forth a summary of facts and procedural history taken from our prior opinions, with appropriate deletions and additions:

“Mother has seven children, all of whom have been dependents of the juvenile court at different times.

“In 1998, before N.M. and I.R. were bom, mother physically abused N.M. and I.R.’s then 14-year-old brother. As a result, the [Department] filed a [257]*257petition under [Welfare and Institutions Code1] section 300 for N.M. and I.R.’s older siblings. The juvenile court sustained the petition, declaring the older siblings to be dependents of the juvenile court. Mother received reunification services for the older siblings, and they were returned to her care. However, mother remained physically abusive toward her children, and the court terminated mother’s reunification services with N.M. and I.R.’s older siblings in 2002. Of the five older siblings, the three who [were still] minors live[d] with their legal guardian.

“The present proceeding, involving N.M. and I.R., commenced in 2004. In July 2004, mother struck four-year-old N.M., causing a swollen, black, fist-sized bruise around his left eye, ruptured blood vessels and a cut underneath the eye. Although she knew N.M. was in pain, mother failed to seek medical attention for him.

“Father is the biological parent of N.M. and I.R., but not mother’s older children. He lived separately and was not present during the incident. Several months before N.M. and I.R. were detained, father was arrested for engaging in domestic violence with mother. He was required to attend anger management classes and ordered to stay away from mother. Father told a neighbor he did not take N.M. to the doctor after the incident because mother was scared the social worker would take N.M. away from her. [][]... [f]

“The Department. . . filed a petition under section 300, subdivisions (a), (b) and (j) for N.M. and I.R. . . .

“At the detention hearing in July 2004, the juvenile court found the Department made a prima facie case for detaining N.M. and I.R. from their parents and that the children were persons described by section 300, subdivisions (a), (b) and (j). The Department recommended that mother be denied reunification services. However, the court granted both father and mother preliminary reunification services pending adjudication and disposition. Each parent was allowed monitored visits, but the court granted the Department discretion to liberalize visits for father only.

[At this hearing, mother told the juvenile court she had Native American heritage through two tribes; Hopi Nation and Chumash.]

“In August 2004, the court set the case for trial and, while N.M. and I.R. were detained in foster care prior to disposition, granted the parents [limited] monitored visitation each week at a Department-approved location. The court [258]*258permitted the parents to have [additional visitation] if they could find a Department-approved monitor.

“In September 2004, at the Department’s request, the court further ordered that mother’s visits be restricted to the Department’s office.

“At the adjudication and disposition hearing in November 2004, the court sustained the Department’s allegations under section 300, subdivisions (a), (b) and (j). The court found by clear and convincing evidence that mother’s reunification services for N.M. and I.R.’s older siblings had previously been terminated because mother had failed to reunify with the siblings, the siblings had been removed from mother and mother had not subsequently made a reasonable effort to treat the problems that led to the removal of the siblings. The court further found that mother had failed to benefit from the reunification programs provided her and had not addressed her issues of domestic violence, anger management and physical abuse.

“The Department had reported that, within the month preceding disposition, mother had displayed inappropriate and volatile behavior [during visitation]. . . . Mother violated explicit visitation rules by showing up at father’s visits and by following the children and their foster mother, on foot and by car, after her own visits. Mother’s inappropriate conduct resulted in visits being cut short or cancelled. [She made repeated harassing phone calls to the social workers and foster family.]

“. . . The court ordered reunification services for father, including a domestic violence program, individual counseling for anger management and a parenting class that would include protection of the children from mother. The court also ordered monitored visits for father, which the court ordered were to be kept confidential from mother.[2] ... [][].. . [|]

[The court limited and imposed conditions on mother’s visitation. We rejected mother’s appeal from these orders in the first appeal.]

“[The November 2004] orders included requirements that father attend 26 weeks of counseling regarding domestic violence and parent education. He also had to obtain individual counseling ‘to address: anger management/co-dependence/protection of children with licensed therapist.’

“In February 2005, the Department obtained a restraining order against mother, to prevent her from tampering with the voicemail of the Department’s workers, and verbally harassing its employees and other clients.

[259]*259“[Subsequently,] [t]here continued to be problems at mother’s weekly visits to the children, but not at father’s weekly visits. . . . The social worker was concerned with the lack of proof that father had enrolled in parent education. She recommended termination of father’s family reunification services because he had not fully complied with the court’s orders, still lived with mother, and continued to have codependency issues, [f] . . . The Department strongly felt that father’s family reunification services should be terminated, because he would not protect the children from mother. [][]... [f]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
161 Cal. App. 4th 253, 74 Cal. Rptr. 3d 138, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/los-angeles-county-department-of-children-family-services-v-theresa-m-calctapp-2008.