In In re S.R., the Supreme Court today holds a mother’s appeal of a dependency court’s finding that requires an entry into a consequential state child abuse database was not moot even though the dependency court had ended its jurisdiction over the mother’s children. The ruling allows the mother to challenge in the Court of Appeal the dependency court’s initial assumption of jurisdiction over her two minor daughters based on a finding that her self-defense actions against the older minor daughter and an adult daughter were not reasonable.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Goodwin Liu concludes the termination of jurisdiction might moot in the dependency court the effect of a jurisdictional finding, but it didn’t moot the harmful effect of entry into the database, California’s Child Abuse Central Index.
The court resolves an issue the court left undecided in In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266 (see here). The D.P. decision held an appeal was moot (although subject to discretionary appellate review) because the parent there had “not shown that the . . . allegation against him was reported for inclusion in the CACI, nor . . . that this type of allegation is reportable.” (Id. at pp. 279-280.) In today’s case, the court finds the mother “has shown an ongoing harm . . . by demonstrating that the sustained allegation of child abuse has been or will be included in the CACI.”
Although answering a previously open question, the court leaves undecided another issue: “whether a case is moot if, for example, a parent shows the conduct at issue is likely but not indisputably reportable.”
All seven justices sign the court’s opinion, but the opinion’s author — Justice Liu, joined by Justice Kelli Evans — writes a separate concurrence. The court’s opinion reports the claim of the respondent Department of Children and Family Services that “acting in reasonable self-defense to ward off an attack by a minor constitutes child abuse,” but it says it’s unnecessary to address the claim to determine the appeal isn’t moot. However, the concurrence “explain[s] why a person’s conduct toward a minor that constitutes lawful self-defense cannot provide a basis for including that person in the CACI.” Justice Liu says it’s important to do so “because the Department’s position may prevent parents, including Mother, from obtaining relief at a later point in the proceedings when there is no entitlement to counsel.”
The court reverses a Second District, Division Eight, Court of Appeal unpublished order that dismissed the mother’s appeal.
Related:
Supreme Court’s reversal of mootness dismissal yields Court of Appeal reversal on the merits
