In re X.M. CA2/5

Opinion

Filed 9/3/26 In re X.M. CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FIVE

In re X.M., a Person Coming Under B349714 the Juvenile Court Law. ___________________________________ (Los Angeles County LOS ANGELES COUNTY Super. Ct. No. DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 25CCJP02507) AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. A.F., Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Marguerite Downing, Judge. Affirmed. Daniel Mansueto, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Office of the County Counsel, Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie, Assistant County Counsel, and Sally Son, Senior Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent. A.F. (Father) is the father of a five-year-old daughter, X.M. (Minor).1 The juvenile court assumed dependency jurisdiction over Minor because it found Father’s alcohol abuse and his history of domestic violence with Minor’s mother A.M. (Mother) placed Minor at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm. The court also ordered Minor removed from Father’s custody. We consider whether substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings and the associated removal order.

I. BACKGROUND In August 2025, Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies responded to a call of domestic violence at the family’s home. Mother told the officers that Father was drunk and became physically abusive during an argument: he punched her in the shoulder and strangled her for approximately five seconds. Mother also said that Father has a history of being verbally and physically abusive toward her. Father declined to make any statements to the deputies and they arrested him for domestic assault (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a)). A few days after Father’s arrest, a social worker from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) interviewed Mother and Minor. Mother recounted she had arrived home from work to find Father inside the apartment drinking beer while Minor played outside. Later that evening, a dispute between the parents arose during dinner; Mother tried to walk away, but Father followed and struck her on 1 This was X.M.’s age at the time of the jurisdiction hearing.

2 the arm. Then he began to yell and became more physically aggressive: he grabbed her by the throat and choked her. As Father was choking Mother, Minor intervened and hit him on the leg to try and make him stop. Mother believed the only reason Father stopped choking her was because he heard Minor crying. Mother also told the social worker that there had been prior unreported instances of physical violence between her and Father. One occurred approximately three to four months earlier when she tried to prevent Father from driving her and Minor home while intoxicated; during that incident, Father struck her in the arm, leaving a bruise. Another unreported incident involved Father threatening Mother with a knife during a verbal altercation about his alcohol consumption. In Mother’s opinion, the instances of physical abuse were escalating. Regarding Father’s alcohol use, Mother stated he drinks often and does so in quite significant quantities (e.g., a 12-pack of beer). She believed Father was unable to control how much he drinks. Mother related that Father is sober when she goes to work and leaves Minor in his care, but when she returns home he is intoxicated—which caused her to wonder whether he fed Minor in her absence. Mother advised that her concern about Father’s alcohol consumption caused her to warn Minor’s school not to release her to Father if he appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.2 2 An administrator at Minor’s school confirmed that a few months earlier Mother had requested the school not release Minor to Father if he appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. The administrator also reported that Father never 3 Minor told the social worker that on the day the police came, Father had been drinking beer, he pushed and hit Mother in the bedroom, and Minor then intervened and tried to get Father to stop by kicking him and pulling on his clothes. Minor also said she ran crying into the living room and explained that she cries when she witnesses violence between her parents in the hope that her crying will make Father stop abusing Mother—as it had on an earlier occasion when Father hit Mother in the arm in the car (making it turn purple). Minor reported Father usually drinks a “box of beer” while he supervises her when Mother is at work; after drinking his beer, Minor advised, Father goes to sleep. Minor also reported Father becomes “mean” when he drinks. She told the social worker that she does not want to see Father and would like him to remain in jail. A few days after interviewing Mother and Minor, the social worker spoke to Father. He denied being drunk on the day of his arrest but admitted he was under the influence of alcohol because he consumed seven to eight beers prior to the dispute with Mother. Although he denied punching or choking Mother during their altercation, he admitted he pushed her but he claimed it was “nothing serious,” “just normal.” He also denied Minor tried to intervene during the dispute by kicking him and pulling on his clothes; according to Father, Minor was not present. Father denied any prior incidents of domestic violence, including threatening Mother with a knife, but conceded that on one occasion while in Mother’s car he “tapped” Mother’s arm with his elbow while under the influence of alcohol.

appeared to be under the influence when picking up Minor from school.

4 Regarding alcohol use, Father acknowledged he drinks more than seven to eight cans of beer while supervising Minor when Mother is at work. He denied having a drinking problem or becoming aggressive while under the influence of alcohol, and he maintained that he can manage his consumption of alcohol and stop drinking at any time. Following his release from jail, and after promising to Mother to stop drinking alcohol, Father returned to the family home. The Department filed a dependency petition alleging Minor was a child described by Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (a) and (b)(1).3 The subdivision (a) count in the petition alleged Minor was at risk of suffering serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally as a result of Father’s violent conduct toward Mother. The two subdivision (b)(1) counts in the petition averred Minor was at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm as a result of her parents’ history of engaging in violent altercations and Father’s alcohol use.4 At the initial detention hearing, the juvenile court removed Minor from Father’s custody, released her into Mother’s care, and ordered monitored visitation for Father. The court also issued a temporary restraining order protecting Mother from Father. Before the jurisdiction hearing on the dependency petition, a Department investigator re-interviewed Minor and her parents.

3 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Welfare and Institutions Code. 4 In connection with each of the subdivision (b) counts, the Department alleged Mother failed to protect Minor by allowing Father to reside in the family home and have unlimited access to them.

5 Minor in her (re)interview denied seeing Father hit or choke Mother on the day of his arrest and denied intervening to stop the assault. Minor also denied witnessing Father physically abuse Mother on any prior occasion. She also stated neither Father nor Mother consumed beer. Mother reaffirmed Father punched and choked her on the day he was arrested, but this time she denied Father had bruised her arm during a prior argument in her vehicle and denied Father had ever threatened her with a knife. Mother also denied ever noticing Father being intoxicated when she returned home from work. Father in his interview admitted to pushing Mother and hitting her on the arm on the night of his arrest, but he denied choking her and denied Minor intervened in the altercation. He also denied any prior incidents of domestic violence. Father admitted to having a “problem” with alcohol since he was 18 years old and described drinking “6, 7 beers” at a time.5 Father further admitted to consuming alcohol on occasion while caring for Minor on his own, admitted such conduct interfered with the “attention” Minor needed, and admitted Mother was aware of his drinking while caring for Minor. Father said, that as a result, he had begun participating in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). At the combined jurisdiction and disposition hearing held in October 2025, the juvenile court admitted the Department’s reports into evidence. The court sustained the petition as pled, removed Minor from Father’s care, placed her with Mother, and ordered monitored visitation and family preservation services. In 5 Father was 39 years old at the initiation of dependency proceedings.

6 addition, the court granted Mother’s request for a permanent restraining order, but the court observed that it was “not confident that [Mother] will follow it”—pointing to the more recent interviews in which Mother had started to recant some prior allegations of abuse and Minor’s recantation of some prior statements, which the court attributed to “coaching by her parents.”

II. DISCUSSION Father’s challenges to the juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings and removal order lack merit. There is substantial and mostly undisputed evidence Father assaulted Mother in Minor’s presence (compelling Minor to intervene to try to stop it). That establishes the requisite substantial risk of serious physical harm, and Father’s only rejoinder (that Mother said she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him and obtained a restraining order) is unconvincing. The jurisdiction hearing was held just two months after Father hit and choked Mother, and multiple aspects of the case history gave the juvenile court adequate reason to believe that the risk to Minor remained (as the court observed when it expressly stated on the record that it had doubts whether the parties would comply with the restraining order). For much the same reasons, plus Father’s longstanding alcohol abuse, the juvenile court’s order removing Minor from Father’s custody was proper.

A. Substantial Evidence Supports Dependency Jurisdiction Section 300, subdivision (b)(1) authorizes a juvenile court to assume dependency jurisdiction over a child when “[t]he child has 7 suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm or illness, as a result of . . . [¶] (A) [t]he failure or inability of the child’s parent or guardian to adequately supervise or protect the child.” We review a juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings for substantial evidence, drawing “‘all reasonable inferences from the evidence to support the findings . . . [and] review[ing] the record in the light most favorable to the court’s determinations . . . .’ [Citations.]” (In re R.T. (2017) 3 Cal.5th 622, 633.) The evidence that Father physically abused Mother in Minor’s presence—and that Minor intervened to try to stop the violence while it was occurring—was quite strong. Mother’s statements, Minor’s (initial) statements, and the records of Father’s arrest all established Father’s domestic violence and only he denied it (though even he conceded there had been physical contact, which he described as “nothing serious” or just a “tap[ ]”). That establishes dependency jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b)(1) was proper. (See, e.g., In re T.V. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 126, 134-135; In re R.C. (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 930, 941-942; In re E.B. (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 568, 575-576, disapproved on another ground in Conservatorship of O.B. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 989; compare In re Daisy H. (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 713, 716-717 [evidence of domestic violence insufficient to support jurisdiction where the single incident occurred two to seven years earlier and none of the children witnessed it], disapproved on another ground in In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266.) Father believes otherwise only because he asserts there was no chance that domestic violence, and the concomitant threat of serious physical harm to Minor, would recur in light of 8 Mother’s expressed view that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with Father and the restraining order that the juvenile court entered. The juvenile court, however, was unconvinced Father and Mother would steadfastly adhere to the terms of the restraining order, and with good reason. Mother and Father had been living together for six years, there had been prior unreported instances of domestic violence, Mother agreed to receive Father back into the family home even after his arrest for hitting and choking her in Minor’s presence, neither Mother nor Father were engaged in any programming to prevent domestic violence (at the time of the jurisdiction hearing), and Mother (and Minor) had begun to recant some aspects of their prior descriptions of Father’s domestic violence. Particularly when the jurisdiction hearing was held just over two months after the domestic violence giving rise to the dependency petition had occurred, the juvenile court was reasonably concerned there would be further interaction between Mother and Father and, accordingly, a substantial risk of further domestic violence when Minor was around—particularly in light of Father’s alcohol abuse problem that had persisted for over two decades. Because we conclude the court’s finding that Father’s domestic violence posed a substantial risk of serious physical harm to Minor, we need not discuss the juvenile court’s other bases for assuming jurisdiction. (In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766, 773.)

B. Sufficient Evidence Supports the Removal Order A juvenile court may not remove a child from a parent’s custody unless it “finds clear and convincing evidence” that “[t]here is or would be a substantial danger to the physical 9 health, safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of the minor if the minor were returned home, and there are no reasonable means by which the minor's physical health can be protected without removing the minor from the minor's parent’s . . . physical custody.” (§ 361, subd. (c)(1).) “A removal order is proper if it is based on proof of: (1) parental inability to provide proper care for the minor; and (2) potential detriment to the minor if he or she remains with the parent.” (In re T.W. (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 1154, 1163.) Our review of a removal order is for substantial evidence. (In re V.L. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 147, 154-155; see also O.B., supra, 9 Cal.5th at 1011-1012.) The juvenile court’s finding of a danger to Minor’s physical well-being if placed with Father is well justified by the domestic violence we have already described and Father’s longstanding alcohol abuse that he (by that time) had only just begun to attempt to address via attendance at AA meetings. The fact that Minor had not yet suffered actual physical harm does not undermine the evidence supporting removal. “‘The parent need not be dangerous and the minor need not have been actually harmed before removal is appropriate. The focus of the statute is on averting harm to the child.’ [Citation.]” (In re N.M. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 159, 169-170.)

10 DISPOSITION The juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings and removal order are affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

BAKER, J. We concur:

HOFFSTADT, P. J.

KIM (D.), J.