PROCEEDINGS BELOW

            A 2004 Family Law order awarded custody of R.M. and his sister, S.M., to Mother and visitation rights to Father.  In June 2008 the Department of Family and Children Services (DCFS) filed a petition in juvenile court only under section 300, subdivision (b) alleging that R.M. and S.M. had suffered and were at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm as a result of their parents’ inability to adequately supervise or protect them.  The record does not disclose how the family came to the attention of the DCFS.  Mother and Father waived their right to a trial on the allegations and the court sustained the petition on the basis of the reports submitted by the DCFS. 

            The court found that “periodic episodes of inadequate supervision of the children” caused by Mother’s and Father’s “divergent approaches to parenting” resulted in S.M.’s exposure to “inappropriate sexual conduct” by her brother, R.M.  The court further found that Mother’s “physical and emotional problems [and depression] . . . periodically render her unable to provide adequate care and supervision for the children” thereby placing the children “at risk of physical and emotional harm and damage.”

In a juvenile dependency action, juvenile court order removing dependent children from their mother's custody and placing them in separate foster homes is reversed and remanded where the evidence was insufficient to sustain the juvenile dependency petition.

California Supreme And Appellate Court Opinions Directory