In re A.G. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. C.G., Defendant and Appellant.
No. B248092
Second Dist., Div. One.
Oct. 16, 2013.
Rehearing Denied November 12, 2013
675
Opinion modified October 22, 2013.
Donna B. Kaiser, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
OPINION
MALLANO, P. J.-C.G. (Mother) appeals from the February 14, 2013 jurisdictional and dispositional orders of the juvenile court adjudging minors A.G., born in December 2008, and E.G., born in May 2010, dependents of the court pursuant to
BACKGROUND
On August 28, 2012, law enforcement was called to the family home because Mother was yelling at the neighbors, claiming she was going to be the next female president. Mother was experiencing auditory hallucinations that were telling her to sing, run through the sprinklers, and lie down in the middle of the street. The minors “were in the family home at the time of the incident and witnessed the event.” The officers contacted the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and took Mother to the hospital because they determined she was a danger to herself or others. Mother remained hospitalized for two weeks. Mother later claimed the hospitalization was a ” ‘mistake’ ” because she did not do anything wrong. She was again hospitalized in September for two weeks when she claimed to have supernatural powers, danced around, acted bizarrely, and claimed she was Jesus.
Mother subsequently failed to keep her psychiatric appointments and did not take her psychotropic medication, denying she had a mental illness and claiming her only problem was insomnia. “[O]n at least one occasion,” Mother told the nanny to go home, and the minors were alone with Mother for about three hours until Father returned home from work.
On November 30, 2012, DCFS filed a
On November 30, 2012, the juvenile court ordered the minors to remain released to Mother and Father under the following conditions: Mother to take her psychotropic medication as prescribed; Mother to continue with therapy treatment; Mother not to be left alone with the minors; and Father to participate in individual counseling and family preservation services.
In December 2012, Mother reported to DCFS that she had special powers; she could channel the dead, who made her laugh; and she had spoken to President Lincoln, the Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe, and Michael Jackson. Mother read from her journal that “she is the second coming and she must inform everyone.” She denied having ever heard a voice telling her to hurt herself or anyone else and stated she would never harm her children. On December 27, 2012, Mother‘s psychiatrist reported that after discontinuing her medication, Mother “recently became very psychotic with poor insight and judgment.”
On January 3, 2013, Father told DCFS that “7 years ago,” Mother started having paranoid thoughts at work. Subsequently, Mother was under the care of a psychiatrist and did well for four or five years. Then she stopped taking her medication. Father convinced her to go back on medication, but it took some time for the medication to work because Mother had been off her medication for so long. From that time, Mother has been “experiencing conversations and it never stopped.” Mother was not violent toward the minors or suicidal. Rather, she felt euphoria and invincibility. She believed she was ” ‘the chosen, she feels the presence and experience[s] things and hears conversations.’ ” Mother had also claimed to be the President when she had lain down in the street and jumped through sprinklers. Father had stopped trying to convince Mother to take her medication or attend therapy, “as [M]other does not like that.” Recently, she had isolated herself and had stopped talking to family members.
The current nanny, who had worked for the family for two years, told DCFS that Mother went out on a regular basis but sometimes cooked for the minors and did the laundry. Mother sometimes played with the minors for short time periods but was usually working on the computer or writing in her journal. A.G. had “to call her out loud ‘mommy’ ‘mommy’ to get her attention.”
In-house counselor Cyndi Bellamy reported that Mother would become upset when Father disagreed with her; Mother had complained about gaining weight while on medication and was only taking half the prescribed dose; Mother was trying to engage with the minors more; and Mother had stated that when she wrote in her journal, ” ‘This is not me writing, sometimes people speak to me.’ ” Bellamy was concerned that the minors were “exposed” to Mother‘s behavior.
On January 7, 2013, Mother‘s therapist reported that Mother “presents with symptoms that appear to meet criteria for a provisional diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder that include... paranoia, mood disturbance, delusions and hallucinations.”
On January 30, 2013, Father filed a “Walk-On Request,” asking for an order restricting Mother‘s visits and an order requiring her to vacate the family home. Father stated that on January 21, 2013, Mother had been put on a 14-day involuntary hold because she had stopped taking her prescribed medication and became delusional; Father had temporarily moved out of the family home with the minors to protect them from Mother; and Father believed that Mother posed a risk of harm to the minors.
DCFS filed an ex parte application and order pursuant to
On February 5, 2013, DCFS‘s
On February 15, 2013, the date of the adjudication hearing, Mother requested to represent herself and waived her right to counsel. After questioning her, the juvenile court accepted her waiver. The court entered into evidence DCFS documents, including the detention report, the jurisdiction/disposition report, letters from Mother‘s mental health providers, the
The juvenile court asked Mother, “When you stated that you are Obama speaking now through Ms. [G.], are you using that as a metaphor, or should I take that to be that those are President Obama‘s words just through your physical body?” Mother replied, “I am a medium, and people speak through me, including President Obama. He speaks through me because I am the chosen one, and people chose me to do this. And I didn‘t choose it. Someone chose it for me.”
DCFS, Father‘s counsel, and the minors’ counsel submitted on the evidence. The juvenile court found there was a factual basis for finding that the minors were described by
The juvenile court observed that all of the statements from Mother‘s mental health providers disagreed with Mother‘s statement that she was misdiagnosed and that her statements in court that President Obama was speaking through her supported the conclusions of those providers.
At disposition, Mother urged that she had never mistreated the minors, she was a professional, she wanted a second chance, she has taken her medication, and she had been misdiagnosed for eight years. Father‘s counsel asked the juvenile court to terminate the dependency case with a family law order giving Father sole custody of the minors. The minors’ counsel joined in Father‘s request. DCFS requested family maintenance services for Father.
The juvenile court declared the minors dependents of the court and ordered them removed from Mother, stating, “I now find by clear and convincing evidence substantial danger exists to the [minors], and there is no reasonable means to protect them without removing them from [Mother‘s] custody.” The court ordered Father to have sole legal and physical custody of the minors and terminated juvenile court jurisdiction, stating, “There‘s no evidence these [minors] are at risk in [Father‘s] custody.” The court ordered monitored visits for Mother. The custody order was ordered filed in the family court. Mother filed a notice of appeal from the court‘s orders and later filed an amended notice of appeal.
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of review
The juvenile court‘s jurisdictional finding that the minors are persons described in
B. The juvenile court erred in sustaining a petition that alleged only that Mother is mentally ill and is unable to care for the minors where Father has always been, and is, capable of properly caring for them
Mother contends the evidence was insufficient to support the juvenile court‘s jurisdictional order under
“A jurisdictional finding under
Regarding Mother‘s mental illness, the evidence shows that seven or eight years before DCFS became involved, Mother started having auditory hallucinations and delusional thinking. Her condition worsened when she stopped taking medication, and from that time Mother continuously has been “experiencing conversations.” Mother presented with “symptoms that appear to meet
That Mother is mentally ill is not the end of the story because DCFS “has the burden of showing specifically how the minors have been or will be harmed and harm may not be presumed from the mere fact of mental illness of a parent.” (In re Matthew S. (1996) 41 Cal.App.4th 1311, 1318.) Although the evidence supported the finding that Mother was unable to provide regular care for the minors due to her mental illness, Father has shown remarkable dedication to the minors and that he is able to protect them from any harm from Mother‘s mental illness. Father ensured that there was adult supervision, other than Mother, of the minors at all times. Father or the nanny was the minors’ primary caregiver, while Mother usually stayed in her room. As stated, Mother had been left alone with the minors on one occasion, and no harm to them had been reported. Father slept in the bedroom with the minors and kept the door locked pursuant to the advice of the in-home counselor and temporarily moved out of the house with the minors to protect them from Mother.
In re Phoenix B. (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 787 is illustrative. There, the minor was detained when the mother was hospitalized involuntarily after suffering a mental breakdown. The mother and father were married, but living separately. When the father came forward, the minor was released to his care. The department of social services reported that the mother denied that she needed therapy and asked inappropriate questions about the minor. The mother needed to complete therapy and would have to be closely supervised and complete parent education classes in order for the
Mother relies on In re James R., supra, 176 Cal.App.4th 129, in support of her argument that any causal relation between Mother‘s mental state and harm to the minors is speculative. In that case, the appellate court held that because there was no evidence of actual harm to the minors from the mother‘s conduct or evidence that the parents were unable to provide care for them, any causal link between the mother‘s mental state and future harm to the minors was speculative. (Id. at p. 136.) Although this case is distinguishable from In re James R. because here, Mother‘s mental state was such that she was incapable of caring for the minors, it is similar in that there is no doubt that Father could ensure the minors’ safety.
In In re David M. (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 822, also relied on by Mother, the appellate court held that the social services agency had failed to show “evidence of a specific, defined risk of harm to [the minors] resulting from mother‘s or father‘s mental illness....” (Id. at p. 830.) “The evidence was uncontradicted that [the minor] was healthy, well cared for, and loved, and that mother and father were raising him in a clean, tidy home. Whatever mother‘s and father‘s mental problems might be, there was no evidence those problems impacted their ability to provide a decent home for [the minor].” (Ibid.) Here, while Mother is mentally ill, which impacts her ability to care for the minors, Father‘s ability to protect the minors and to provide a decent home for them has not been questioned.
In re Kristin H. (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1635, cited by DCFS for the proposition that the juvenile court properly asserted jurisdiction over the minors, is also distinguishable. In that case, the mother refused to take her psychotropic medication, succumbed to severe anxiety attacks, neglected to care for the minor, and ingested illegal drugs which were
In re John W. (1996) 41 Cal.App.4th 961, superseded on other grounds by statute as noted in In re Marriage of David & Martha M. (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 96, 102-103, is instructive. In John W., a bitter child custody case became a juvenile dependency case by virtue of unproved allegations of child molestation. After more than a year in the juvenile dependency system, during which there was no finding of abuse, the juvenile court terminated its jurisdiction over the minor but split physical custody between the parents. Both the mother and the father appealed from the orders of the juvenile court. The appellate court remanded the matter “to the family court where this case should have been all along.” (John W., at p. 965.) The appellate court stated: “The juvenile courts must not become a battleground by which family law war is waged by other means. It is common knowledge that the resources of local government social service agencies are stretched thin; in the juvenile dependency context those resources are manifestly intended to be directed at neglected and genuinely abused children.” (Id. at p. 975.) The court noted, “If indeed there is ever a place for it, the place for a custody battle is in the family law courts. There the battle will not consume public resources which are better directed to children who typically do not have the luxury of two functional parents fighting for custody, and where the taxpayers do not have to pick up the tab for lawyers and psychologists.” (Id. at p. 976, fn. omitted.)
While the facts before us are different from those of In re John W., and we mean no criticism of Mother and Father, the wisdom to be gleaned from John W. is that matters such as this one belong in family court, where it ultimately ended up after the juvenile court determined the minors were not at risk in Father‘s custody and awarded Father custody and Mother monitored visitation. As the appellate court did in In re John W., we remand the matter to the family court.
Accordingly, we conclude that the juvenile court erred in sustaining a petition that alleged only that Mother is mentally ill and is unable to care for the minors where Father has always been, and is, capable of properly caring for them. At the adjudication hearing, the juvenile court should have dismissed the petition, staying the order until Father obtained from the family court an award of custody to him and monitored visitation to Mother. Therefore, we reverse the jurisdictional and dispositional orders of the juvenile court and remand the matter to the family court for a hearing on the custody and visitation issue.
The juvenile court‘s jurisdictional and dispositional orders and judgment are reversed. The matter is remanded to the family court for a hearing on the custody and visitation issue.
Chaney, J., and Johnson, J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing was denied November 12, 2013, and on October 22, 2013, the opinion was modified to read as printed above.