B341278_20250827

Filed 8/27/25 In re Delilah M. CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Nancy A. Ramirez, Judge. Appeal dismissed.

Jordan Brown, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Dawyn Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, Assistant County Counsel, and Kimberly Roura, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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We resolve this case by memorandum opinion because it “raise[s] no substantial issues of law or fact.” (Cal. Stds. Jud. Admin., § 8.1.)

C.M. (Father) filed a timely notice of appeal from the juvenile court’s September 26, 2024 disposition order. He seeks reversal of the following jurisdictional finding, made under Welfare and Institutions Code¹ section 300, subdivision (a): “The child, Delilah M[.’s] mother, Irene O[.] and the child’s father, [C.M.], have a history of engaging in violent physical altercations in the presence of the child. On 07/13/2024, the mother and the child’s father engaged in a physical altercation while in the child’s home and in the child’s presence. On 07/13/2024, the mother and father repeatedly struck each other in the presence of the child. The mother and father both sustained visible injuries due to the incident. On 07/13/2024, the mother was arrested for PC-Corporal Injury to Spouse/Cohabitant. On prior occasions, the mother and father engaged in violent physical altercations. The violent conduct by the mother and the father endangers the child’s physical health and safety, creates a detrimental home environment, and places the child at risk of serious physical harm, damage, and danger.” In his appellate briefing, Father does not dispute that during the July 13, 2024 physical altercation described in this jurisdictional finding, he was holding then-two-year-old Delilah in his arms.

Father argues that the domestic violence incidents described in the above finding did not support the assumption of jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (a), a provision which requires a finding that “[t]he child has suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally upon the child by the child’s parent.”² Father does not challenge the other jurisdictional finding against him, made under section 300, subdivision (b)(1), a provision which requires a finding that the “child has suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm or illness, as a result of” certain enumerated circumstances, including a parent’s failure or inability to protect the child. The language of the unchallenged finding is identical to that of the challenged finding, except that the former includes additional language stating that Father failed to protect Delilah from Irene O. (Mother).³

Shortly after Father filed his opening appellate brief, the juvenile court terminated dependency jurisdiction and issued a final custody order, awarding joint legal and physical custody of Delilah to Father and Mother, with a custodial time arrangement of “two days on, two days off” for each parent. Neither parent appealed from the order terminating jurisdiction or the custody order, and the statutory deadline for doing so has passed.

Respondent Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) argues we should dismiss this appeal as moot due to the juvenile court’s termination of jurisdiction.⁴ A case is moot when it is “ ‘ “impossible for [a] court, if it should decide the case in favor of [the appellant], to grant him any effect[ive] relief.” ’ [Citation.] For relief to be ‘effective,’ . . . the [appellant] must complain of an ongoing harm [that is] . . . redressable or capable of being rectified by the outcome the [appellant] seeks.” (In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276 (D.P.).) To establish the appeal is not moot, the appellant must “demonstrate[] a specific legal or practical consequence that would be avoided upon reversal of the jurisdictional finding[].” (Id. at p. 273.) Absent such a specific legal or practical consequence, we may still exercise our discretion to decide the merits of a moot appeal in a dependency case. (Id. at pp. 282-283, 286 [setting forth a non-exhaustive list of factors for assessing “whether a court should exercise discretionary review of a moot appeal,” and noting that “no single factor is necessarily dispositive”].) For example, “The exercise of discretionary review may . . . be informed by whether the jurisdictional finding is based on particularly pernicious or stigmatizing conduct.” (Id. at pp. 285-286.)

In his appellate reply brief, Father disputes that his appeal is moot, arguing that the “stigmatization” of a section 300, subdivision (a) finding could “potentially affect[] future custody disputes, employment, or other legal matters.” But as the Supreme Court stated in D.P., “We conclude that Father’s appeal is moot because Father, though asserting that the juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding is stigmatizing, has not demonstrated a specific legal or practical consequence that would be avoided upon reversal of the jurisdictional finding[].” (D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 273.) Father is no longer subject to the juvenile court’s orders, including a case plan, and he has a final custody order that is favorable to him. There is no effective relief we can grant him by reversing a jurisdictional finding. “[S]peculative future harm” is not “sufficient to avoid mootness.” (Id. at p. 278.)

We further conclude that the purported stigma Father attributes to the challenged finding—because it concerns a risk of nonaccidental infliction of harm (§ 300, subd. (a)) rather than a failure to protect (§ 300, subd. (b))—is insufficient to justify our discretionary review of the merits, especially given the unchallenged finding is based on the same factual events.⁵ After considering this and the other factors set forth in D.P., “guided by the overarching goals of the dependency system,” including child safety and family reunification (D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 286), we decline to exercise our discretion to consider the merits of this moot appeal, and we dismiss it.

DISPOSITION

The appeal is dismissed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

M. KIM, J.

We concur:

BENDIX, Acting P. J.

WEINGART, J.