I.H. v. K.M. (In re Z.H.)

1

In re Z.H., a Minor.

I.H. et al., Petitioners and Respondents, v. K.M., Objector and Appellant.

B338184

California Court of Appeals, Second District, Third Division

December 4, 2024

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. 23CCAB00002 Nichelle L. Blackwell, Juvenile Court Referee. Affirmed and remanded with instructions.

Christopher Blake, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Objector and Appellant.

Family Building, Ted R. Youmans; and Leslie A. Barry for Petitioners and Respondents.

BERSHON, J. ^[*]

K.M the mother of minor Z.H. (Mother), appeals a judgment freeing the child from her custody and control and thus terminating her parental rights after the child's father I.H. (Father) and paternal grandmother C.L. filed a Family Code section 7822 petition for that relief.^[1] We conclude Mother fails to show the trial court erred or otherwise abused its discretion in terminating her parental rights. We observe, however, that there was a clerical error in the judgment regarding termination of Father's parental rights. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment to the extent it terminates Mother's parental rights but remand with instructions to the trial court to correct the error in the judgment regarding Father's parental rights.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. The Section 7822 Petition and Amended Petition

In March 2023, C.L. filed a petition in this case (Los Angeles County Superior Court case No. 23CCAB00002) to free Z.H., who at the time was eight years old, from Mother's custody and control pursuant to section 7822. Two months later, C.L. filed a notice of related cases stating that there was a pending related case involving custody orders for Z.H. (Los Angeles County Superior Court case No. BF058806). In May 2023, the court ordered the two cases consolidated and stayed further proceedings in case No. BF058806.

In July 2023, Father and C.L. filed an amended section 7822 petition. It alleged that Mother, with the intent to abandon Z.H., left the minor in the care of Father and C.L. without provision for the child's support and without any communication for a period in excess of one year. The amended petition also alleged that C.L. had filed a separate adoption case (case No. 23CCAD01168)^[2] and that Father and C.L. intended to coparent Z.H. According to the amended petition, Z.H. resided with Father and C.L., Father had full physical and legal custody of Z.H., and Mother had not visited Z.H. since December 2, 2017 and had not provided for any of the minor's financial needs since January 2020.

II. The Evidence at Trial

The bench trial began on May 20, 2024. The parties stipulated to certain facts and the admission of certain exhibits. Several witnesses, including Mother and C.L., testified at the trial. Mother and Father's son Z.H. was born in New Mexico in October 2014. C.L. stayed with the family for the week of his birth. Two weeks later, Mother and Father moved with Z.H. to California, where they lived with C.L.

The child has lived in California with Father and C.L. since October 2014. Mother also lived with Father and Z.H., but only until May 2015, when Mother was arrested for domestic violence and an emergency protective order was issued against her to protect Father and Z.H. According to C.L.'s testimony regarding that incident, Mother had attempted suicide. When C.L., a nurse, attempted to discuss Mother's suicidal ideations, Mother told C.L. that she was very depressed. When C.L. discussed wanting to talk to Z.H.'s maternal grandmother and get Mother help, Mother grabbed the baby and said Father and C.L. would never see the baby again. Police officers arrived, and the next day a protective order was issued against Mother.

The protective order was based in part on allegations of Mother's mental health issues-specifically, Mother hearing voices telling her to kill herself and Z.H.-and domestic violence by Mother. As police officers arrived to serve Mother with paperwork, they happened to hear Mother yelling at Father. Father had scratches on his chest and face, and the officers arrested Mother for domestic violence.

In May 2015, based in part on Father's statement that Mother tried to commit suicide, the Solano County Superior Court, in Case No. FFL139085,^[3] awarded Father sole physical and legal custody of Z.H., which he continued to retain at the time of trial. Mother was granted supervised visitation with Z.H. twice per week at a professional facility.

Shortly after the domestic violence incident, Mother returned to New Mexico. She began visiting Z.H. in California in June 2015. As a result of Mother violating the facility's supervised visitation rules, Mother's visitation of Z.H. at that facility was suspended in July 2015, reinstated in August 2015, and then terminated around September 2015. Sometime in late 2015, Mother moved back to California and lived with her cousin. The court allowed Mother to visit Z.H. in October 2015 for the child's birthday, with the visit to be supervised by her cousin, and subsequently granted Mother supervised visits every Saturday, plus certain additional visits. Mother, however, only visited Z.H. six times during the summer of 2015, plus once for his October birthday, and once on Christmas Day 2015.

In January 2016, Mother took the child to Stockton, California, which was not in Solano County, in violation of the court's order. Police officers arrived and informed her she was violating a court order. Mother did not resume visitation of her son again until March 2016. From March 2016 through July 2016, Mother visited the child approximately six to eight times, with the visits occurring every other Saturday and lasting an hour or two.

When Mother dropped off Z.H. with C.L. after one of the visits, Mother asked if C.L. knew that the child was bleeding and showed C.L. a smudge of red on the child's diaper. C.L. was concerned about Mother's mental health because it was red lipstick, not blood, on the diaper, which was dry.

In July 2016, venue of the custody and visitation case was changed from Solano County to Los Angeles County, with supervision of visits to continue, albeit through persons other than Mother's cousin. Mother moved back to New Mexico sometime in 2016. She had no visits with Z.H. between July 2016 and August 2017. In September 2017, Mother was allowed supervised visitation on alternate Saturdays. From August 2017 through December 2017, Mother visited the child only once per month for no more than one or two hours each time. She completed a total of five visits in 2017 and did not visit her son at all after 2017.

In January 2018, the custody and visitation case was transferred back to the Solano County Superior Court, with Mother to continue to have supervised alternate Saturday visits. In January 2019, the Solano County Superior Court expressed some concerns about Mother's mental health due in part to Mother's claims that an imposter had appeared in court on her behalf. The court also expressed concern that instead of "exercis[ing] her personal visitation" for over a year, Mother chose instead to visit by way of multiple FaceTime calls with a "child [who] doesn't know who [Mother] is because she hasn't exercised her physical visitation." Father's attorney informed the court that, not only did a then four-year-old Z.H. struggle to sit still in a chair during calls that lasted upwards of 30 minutes and during which he was "being exposed to profanity" by Mother's new boyfriend in the background, Z.H. would "hid[e] from the [computer] monitor" and become "distressed." At the close of that hearing, the court in Solano County "suspend[ed] the FaceTime visits," and ordered Mother to resume in-person supervised visitation at a professional facility "so that your child can learn who you are again." The court noted, "It's been a long time since you've had those visits, and that is no one's fault but your own."

A subsequent hearing in May 2019 revealed that Mother had not participated in any supervised visitation with Z.H. since the previous hearing. The court observed that, "despite the fact that there have been a lot of accommodations, both by L.A. County and Solano County, to encourage [Mother] to actively participate in the child's life," Mother had not "done anything to try to exercise her visitation" "for a year and a half." The court expressed frustration with Mother's inability to "establish[] herself as an active parent," lamenting to her counsel, "I don't know what to do to encourage your client to participate in parenting this child." The court reduced Mother's supervised visitation with Z.H. to once per month, indicating, "I'm not convinced that ordering every two week visits, when she's not going to show up for them, is appropriate." In rejecting Father's request to suspend Mother's supervised visitation, the court expressed hope that Mother would "step up and try to reintegrate with [her] child's life" because "[t]he child doesn't know [M]other at this point ...."

On March 11, 2020, the Solano County Superior Court transferred venue back to Los Angeles County and ordered supervised visitation between Mother and Z.H. once per month for two hours. In April 2023, the Los Angeles County Superior Court discharged the previous child visitation orders pending a review hearing and ordered that Mother and Z.H. may have therapeutic visitation if the therapist determined it would be appropriate. No therapeutic visits took place. Despite the multiple visitation orders from 2018 to 2023, Mother's last visit with Z.H. occurred on December 2, 2017. Mother acknowledged in an October 2023 interview with probation that she had missed many important milestones in Z.H.'s life,...