In re T.Q. CA2/5

Opinion

Filed 9/10/26 In re T.Q. CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 T.Q., a Person Coming B348484 c/w B350452 Under the Juvenile Court Law. _____________________________ (Los Angeles County LOS ANGELES COUNTY Super. Ct. No. DK22840B) DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MIGUEL T., Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Stephen C. Marpet, Commissioner. Affirmed. Lillian F. Hamrick, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie, Assistant County Counsel, and Tracey F. Dodds, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

****** Miguel T. (Miguel) argues that the juvenile court erred in denying his petition seeking to restart juvenile dependency proceedings that had been ongoing for more than eight years, based on his allegation that insufficient efforts had been made to locate him at the outset of those proceedings. Even if we assume that those efforts fell short, Miguel’s absence from the proceedings was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because he is merely an alleged father, because he cannot qualify as a presumed father, and because the juvenile court’s finding that offering reunification services to Miguel at this point would not benefit the child (because it would not be in her best interest) was not an abuse of discretion. We accordingly affirm. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND I. Facts A. The family Monica Q-B. (mother) has three children—C.K. (born 2003), T.Q. (born 2011), and Anthony B. (born 2014). All three children have different fathers.1 At the time of T.Q.’s birth, mother was not married to Miguel and did not live with Miguel. Miguel was not present when T.Q. was born, and was not listed as T.Q.’s father on T.Q.’s 1 Only T.Q. and Miguel are involved in this appeal.

2 birth certificate. According to mother, T.Q. was the product of a “onetime sexual encounter” with Miguel, although no DNA test has been performed to confirm his paternity. B. Mother’s conduct giving rise to dependency jurisdiction On April 6, 2017, at approximately 1:00 a.m., police officers found C.K. and Anthony B. in a stolen vehicle. The children and the driver had just left a party together, and the driver was a friend of mother’s cousin. Anthony B. was not restrained in a car seat and C.K. was unsecured in the bed of the truck. Mother was on probation following a felony assault conviction and had committed multiple probation violations. Her probation officer recommended that she enroll in an inpatient drug treatment program. In late April 2017, mother tested positive for amphetamines and methamphetamine. II. Procedural Background A. Initiation of juvenile dependency jurisdiction On May 10, 2017, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) filed a petition asking the juvenile court to exert dependency jurisdiction over all three of mother’s children due to her substance abuse and “mental and emotional problems” (namely, a diagnosis of depression and anxiety), which “endanger the children’s physical health and safety and places [them] at substantial risk of serious physical harm, damage, and danger,” thereby warranting the exercise of dependency jurisdiction under subdivision (b) of Welfare and Institutions Code section 300.2 2 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.

3 B. The Department’s initial attempts to identify and locate T.Q.’s father On May 10, 2017, mother informed the Department that T.Q.’s father was Miguel. She gave them a date of birth for Miguel in May 1986, but stated she had “not seen [him] in over six years.” She also reported that he had never held out T.Q. as his own child or provided any financial support for T.Q. Prior to the hearing to adjudicate the petition, the Department in June 2017 conducted a due diligence search to attempt to locate Miguel. In the report documenting that search, the Department (incorrectly) indicated that it did not have a date of birth for Miguel. The Department ran searches through seven databases using only Miguel’s name; three of them returned a match for same first and last name, but did not have “identifying information such as date of birth and social security number for the Miguel [T.] on file.” The Department was unable to conduct searches in at least eight databases due to a lack of a date of birth or social security number. The Department also indicated that it was unable to write letters to relatives or friends, to employers, or to parents because it had no contact information for Miguel. The Department reported it was awaiting results of its request for a birth certificate for T.Q. C. Exertion of jurisdiction, removal, and reunification services On July 11, 2017, the juvenile court sustained three counts from a first amended petition—specifically, counts alleging that (1) mother’s substance abuse renders her incapable of caring for T.Q. and her siblings, (2) Anthony B.’s father has a history of substance abuse, and (3) mother and Anthony B.’s father engaged 4 in domestic violence. The court removed T.Q. from mother’s custody and ordered reunification services. D. Termination of reunification services In anticipation of the 12-month review hearing set for October 2018, the Department conducted another due diligence search for Miguel. This time, the Department’s report noted the birthdate mother had reported. But the results of the search were nearly identical to the first due diligence report. On October 9, 2018, the juvenile court held the 12-month review hearing and terminated reunification services for mother. E. Establishment of guardianship over T.Q. On May 6, 2019, the juvenile court issued letters of guardianship placing T.Q. with Tracy S., a non-relative extended family member, and terminated jurisdiction over T.Q. Mother appears to have been in contact with Miguel around this time period, as T.Q. recalled mother FaceTiming Miguel and he remarked that T.Q. “had [Miguel’s] eyes.” F. Maternal great aunt’s section 388 petition to establish a new legal guardianship in her favor On April 24, 2024, maternal great aunt Norma C. filed a petition under section 388 asking the juvenile court to place T.Q. in a guardianship with her on the ground that Norma C. had custody of T.Q.’s half-sibling, and that it would be best for T.Q. to be raised with them. That petition listed Miguel as T.Q.’s father and listed an address for him. For the first time having Miguel’s contact information, the Department interviewed him. Miguel confirmed that T.Q. ran away from Tracy S.’s custody and stayed with him for “several days” in April 2024. Tracy S. knew “absolutely nothing” about Miguel’s existence. Miguel’s father indicated that Miguel had 5 never told him that T.Q. was his daughter. Norma C. had known Miguel for almost 14 years and was unaware he was T.Q.’s father until early 2024. On July 8, 2024, the juvenile court granted Norma C.’s section 388 petition. Miguel failed to enter an appearance or otherwise make his identity known to the court. Miguel made no efforts to visit T.Q. since she was placed with Norma C. and did not call or inquire as to her well-being. In November 2024, the juvenile court approved legal guardianship with Norma C. as the permanent plan, and set a review hearing for May 5, 2025. Miguel failed to enter an appearance or otherwise make his identity known to the court. Between the time the juvenile court placed T.Q. with Norma C. in July 2024 and May 2025, Miguel visited T.Q. only one time at Thanksgiving. T.Q. stated that Miguel lacked engagement during visits, spending most of his visits on his phone, except to ask about mother. G. Miguel’s section 388 petition On May 23, 2025, Miguel filed a petition under section 388 seeking to “vacate” the 2017 jurisdictional order and “all” subsequent “dispositional findings [and] orders relating to” T.Q. in the intervening eight years on the grounds that the Department did not “make adequate efforts to give proper notice of the [juvenile dependency] proceedings” to him, in violation of due process. The juvenile court set the matter for a hearing. At the August 22, 2025, hearing on the petition, Miguel’s counsel conceded that the Department’s due diligence reports were “unclear” as to whether the Department failed to use Miguel’s date of birth when it ran him through various databases 6 or instead that the searches used his date of birth but the results of those searches “did not [find] a [name and] date of birth that would correlate to [the] information [the Department] had.” The court acknowledged that Miguel, even though he was only an “alleged father,” was “entitled to notice” of the dependency proceedings. The court went on to find that “proper notice was given [to Miguel].” The court also found that it was “not in [T.Q.’s] best interest” to grant the section 388 petition— and effectively re-set the eight years of dependency proceedings— in light of Miguel’s failure to appear, his failure to cooperate with or be interviewed by the Department, and the “little or no contact” he had with T.Q. “since the filing of this 388” petition. H. Appeal Miguel timely filed this appeal. DISCUSSION Miguel argues that the juvenile court erred in denying his section 388 petition. We review the denial of a section 388 motion for an abuse of discretion. (In re Alayah J. (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 469, 478.) In this case, Miguel is an alleged father—that is, a man “who has not established paternity.” (In re G.R. (2024) 106 Cal.App.5th 96, 99.) An alleged father has relatively few rights in a juvenile dependency proceeding, although one of those rights is a due process-based right to have the Department “exercise reasonable diligence to find him” “if [his] whereabouts . . . are unknown.” (In re A.H. (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 340, 350.) He has no right to reunification services, although a juvenile court may extend those services to him if it “‘determines that the provision of [those] services will benefit the child.’” (In re Mia M. (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 792, 806 (Mia M.); § 361.5, subd. (a).)

7 An alleged father may file a section 388 petition as the vehicle for making a due process challenge based on lack of notice, including the failure to exercise reasonable diligence to locate him. (Ansley v. Superior Court (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 477, 481-488.) Where the Department makes absolutely “no attempt” to notify an alleged father of a pending dependency proceeding, that failure may constitute structural error necessitating automatic reversal (In re Jasmine G. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 1109, 1115-1116); but where the Department makes an effort but that effort is deficient, that deficiency entitles the alleged father to relief only if his absence from the proceeding is prejudicial (In re Daniel F. (2021) 64 Cal.App.5th 701, 715-716). “An error in attempted notice is subject to a harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard of prejudice.” (Mia M., supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 806.) Because the Department in this case asked mother about T.Q.’s father, obtained information from mother about Miguel’s relationship with T.Q., and conducted two due diligence searches (one using his name and the other using his name and date of birth), this is not a case where the Department made “no attempt” to locate Miguel. Because any deficiency in the notice is not subject to automatic reversal, we need not determine whether the Department exercised reasonable diligence in trying to find Miguel; instead, we may assume an absence of reasonable diligence and then ask: Was Miguel’s absence from the dependency proceedings harmless beyond a reasonable doubt? We conclude it was, and do so for two reasons. First, Miguel made no effort—despite knowing about T.Q. since at least his 2019 FaceTime conversations with mother—to establish his status as a presumed father. More to the point, 8 even if he had tried, he could not have prevailed as a matter of law. Where, as here, the mother is unmarried at the time of the child’s birth, a man is the “presumed father” only if he has received the child into his home and openly held the child out as his own. (Fam. Code, § 7611, subd. (d).) Here, it is undisputed that Miguel never received T.Q. into his home and never held her out as his own. Nor did he contact her until she was 13 years old, ever provide any financial support—or, for that matter, even tell his own relatives of T.Q.’s existence and his belief that he was her biological father. Second, even if we examine Miguel’s rights as an alleged father, there is also no possibility that the juvenile court would have exercised its discretion to extend reunification services to him. Whether to grant those services turns on whether they would benefit the child. (§ 361.5, subd. (a).) Here, the juvenile court expressly found that it was not in T.Q.’s best interest to hit the reset button on these longstanding proceedings, which would have necessarily included deciding whether to extend Miguel reunification services as a discretionary matter. The court did not abuse its discretion in so concluding, as the record indicates that, even after Miguel became aware of T.Q.’s existence in 2019, and made himself known in early 2024, he still made little to no effort to visit T.Q. and was wholly unresponsive to the Department’s efforts to involve him in the proceedings. It was not unreasonable for the juvenile court to conclude that it would not benefit T.Q.—and hence not be in her best interest—to delay stability and permanency by starting these nine-year-old proceedings all over again so that an apathetic potential father 9 could be denied reunification services because they would be of no benefit to T.Q.3 DISPOSITION The juvenile court’s orders are affirmed. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

______________________, P. J. HOFFSTADT I concur:

_________________________, J. MOOR 3 Because we apply the “benefit” test to assess whether Miguel would be extended reunification services in the exercise of the court’s discretion, we are not asking whether granting section 388 relief in this case would be in the “best interest” of T.Q.—a test that Mia M., supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at pp. 810-811, disclaimed as inappropriate when a section 388 petition is aimed at addressing a defect in notice. (Cf. § 388 [asking whether relief would be in the child’s best interest, as a general matter].) Whether the juvenile court applied the best interest of the child standard in denying the 388 petition is of no consequence to our review.

10 In re T.Q. B348484 BAKER, J., Concurring The opinion for the court concludes the notice error asserted by M.T. is amenable to harmless error analysis and was indeed harmless. It does not, however, cite In re Christopher L. (2022) 12 Cal.5th 1063. I have considered our Supreme Court’s opinion in Christopher L., and I agree the error asserted by M.T. in this case is amenable to harmless error analysis. I further agree M.T. has not demonstrated prejudicial error.

BAKER, J.