In re K.J. CA2/8

Opinion

Filed 8/25/26 In re K.J. CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 EIGHT

In re K.J., et al., Persons Coming B345450 Under the Juvenile Court Law. ______________________________ Los Angeles County Superior LOS ANGELES COUNTY Court No. 25CCJP00696A-C DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. R.M., Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Marguerite Downing, Judge. Affirmed. Nicole Kronberg and Jennifer Peabody, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie, Assistant County Counsel, and Sarah Vesecky, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent. ____________________ A mother challenges the juvenile court’s assumption of jurisdiction. She claims the court’s inquiry under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (Fam. Code, § 3400 et seq.) (the Act or UCCJEA) was faulty and the wrong Texas court ceded jurisdiction. She asks us to remand the matter for a proper inquiry. Assuming the mother did not forfeit this challenge, she has not cleared the hurdle of harmless error. The Act determines the proper forum to adjudicate issues involving children subject to out-of-state custody orders. It sets out various ways in which a court may assert jurisdiction over a child. The Act applies to dependency proceedings. (In re Kayla W. (2023) 97 Cal.App.5th 99, 105 (Kayla).) The mother came from Texas to California with her three children in the fall of 2024 after she met a man online who lived in Lawndale. The mother did not have a permanent home in Texas. The detention report notes she “had a long history of homelessness with her children.” She told a social worker she was “in multiple shelters in Texas” with her children and she did not have help from family there. Her father reported she had been “bouncing around San Antonio Texas” before heading to California. On appeal, the mother concedes her family “was quite transient.” Over winter break, the mother briefly moved back to Texas after her boyfriend beat her. Again, she and her children stayed in shelters. But the family soon returned to California and the boyfriend. With him, the mother admitted, they had a place to stay and a dad. The oldest child reported they were living out of 2 their car in Texas and came back to California “ ‘because we had nowhere else to go.’ ” The mother said she had no contact information for the children’s father. She denied there were any formal custody arrangements and denied “any referral or case history in the state of Texas.” The juvenile court broached the Act at the initial hearing in March 2025. The mother gave the court the name of a town (“Frefer”) where she “could go” in Texas. (“Freer” is in Duval County, Texas.) The mother said she had stayed in a home there for a year or so, at some unspecified time. Then she backtracked: “It’s hard for me to say I can go to the house, trust father will not remove us from this again.” She came to California “from shelters.” The minute order for this hearing recognizes “there may be a UCCJEA” issue and states the court would follow up with the state of Texas. A social worker emailed a Texas agency “to obtain any child abuse history” for the family in Texas. The Department eventually learned there were investigations, but the children never were removed from their parents. Our record contains a letter from a Bexar County court showing the mother’s last known address was in San Antonio, Texas — which is in Bexar County. The letter reports court staff searched their archives, found no responsive case, and it appeared Bexar County had no basis for jurisdiction. This letter was filed in this case. At a hearing the next day, the juvenile court announced it had reached out to “Frefer County in Texas,” which did not have cases for this family, was not interested “in pursuing anything,”

3 and was willing to let California take jurisdiction. The court concluded “the UCCJEA issue has been addressed.” No one objected or commented. In April 2025, there was a brief contested jurisdiction hearing where no party questioned the ability of the court to assert jurisdiction under the Act. Even assuming the mother did not forfeit her UCCJEA challenge, her appeal fails because she has not shown a more favorable result was likely, absent the error alleged here. (See Kayla, supra, 97 Cal.App.5th at p. 106 [“a failure to comply with the UCCJEA’s procedural requirements is subject to harmless error analysis. [Citations.] The party challenging a lower court’s ruling must therefore show it is reasonably probable a result more favorable to the appellant would have been reached in the absence of any error”]; see also In re A.C. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 661, 673–674 [reversal not required where mother made no attempt to carry her burden on appeal to show it was reasonably probable she would have obtained a more favorable result with changes to the court’s UCCJEA inquiry].) The mother concedes this harmless error analysis applies. She assumes harm because the record shows she lived in other parts of Texas and because Texas police and social workers checked on the children a few times because of domestic violence between her and the father. She posits there was reason to believe the family had an earlier dependency history there. This speculation is not enough, particularly coupled with the results of the Department’s investigations into this history and the mother’s denials about any such history and any custody arrangements.

4 DISPOSITION We affirm the challenged orders.

WILEY, Acting P. J.

We concur:

VIRAMONTES, J.

SCHERB, J.