In Michael G. v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court today holds that parents who have had a child removed from their custody and have only inconsistently received reasonable services to help them reunify with the child are, after a specified period, not necessarily entitled to additional time for services before a juvenile court can end their parental rights. The court interprets a statutory scheme that it says addresses “a delicate balance between families’ interests in reunifying and children’s interests in avoiding protracted uncertainty about who will care for them.”
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger concludes that, although inadequate services require extensions earlier in dependency proceedings, after a certain point more time for services is only discretionary and will usually be permitted only in “exceptional circumstances,” such as when “deprivation of reasonable services . . . impede[s] the juvenile court’s ability to properly evaluate the prospects for family reunification.” “Once a child has been out of the parent’s custody for 18 months,” the court says, “the law ordinarily requires the court to proceed to set a hearing to determine a permanent plan for the child’s care.” But “[t]he juvenile court cannot terminate parental rights if a parent never receives reasonable services.”
The opinion comes in a moot case — the juvenile court ended dependency proceedings without terminating parental rights — but the Supreme Court went ahead anyway because it said the case is “ ‘one presenting issues of public importance, capable of repetition, yet tending to evade review.’ ”
The court affirms the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal, published opinion. It disapproves two 2019 decisions by the Fourth District, Division One, a 2018 First District, Division Four, opinion, and a 1994 Second District, Division Seven, decision.
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