In re E.D. CA1/4 filed 7/23/26

Filed 7/23/26 In re E.D. CA1/4
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

In re E.D. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

ALAMEDA COUNTYSOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
D.D.,
Defendant and Appellant.
A174277
(Alameda County
Super. Ct. Nos. JD-036658-02, JD-036657-02, JD-036659-02)

D.D. is the mother of three children who were removed from her custody. She challenges an order denying a petition she filed under Welfare and Institutions Code section 388. The petition requested that the juvenile court modify its dispositional orders regarding visitation and reunification services. Mother contends that the juvenile court erred by concluding that she did not make a prima facie showing in support of her petition. She asks that this court reverse the juvenile court’s order and remand the matter for the evidentiary hearing that the court declined to hold.
Subsequent events have rendered such a hearing ineffective relief even if we were to determine that the juvenile court had erred. After mother filed her notice of appeal, the juvenile court terminated her reunification services. In addition, the juvenile court has since held hearings at which visitation and services were addressed and has issued superseding orders. Accordingly, we dismiss her appeal as moot.
BACKGROUND
In September 2023, the Alameda County Juvenile Court detained the children from their parents, who at the time lived together. The court later released the children to mother’s care on a trial basis pending jurisdictional and dispositional hearings. By this time, mother and father lived separately. At the hearings, the court assumed jurisdiction of the children and continued their placement with mother.
The juvenile court subsequently detained the children for a second time, and, in April 2025, it removed them from their parents. As relevant here, the court’s dispositional orders required the Alameda County Social Services Agency (Alameda Agency) to arrange for supervised visits with mother at least once a week for up to four hours per visit. The orders also required mother to submit to a hair follicle test. The children were 11, 9, and 8 years old. After the orders issued, the oldest child expressed that she did not want to attend visits with her mother.
In August, mother filed her petition to modify the orders. She requested therapeutic visitation with her oldest child, individual visitation with her other two children, family counseling for her and all three children, increased visitation, and other changes relating to visitation management. She also requested that the court vacate the requirement that she submit to hair follicle testing. In early September, the juvenile court summarily denied the requests. It concluded that she had not presented changed circumstances or new evidence and that she had not made a showing, supported by competent evidence, that her requested changes would promote the best interests of the children. Mother filed this appeal seeking a remand for an evidentiary hearing.
Less than two months later, in October, the juvenile court held a six-month review hearing. The court had “the statutory power to order that reunification services, including visitation, be offered, modified, continued, or . . .terminated.” (In re Natasha A. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 28, 35; see § 366.21, subd. (e)(7) & (8).) Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended, but mother did not argue, or present evidence in support of, the issues raised in her petition. The court found by clear and convincing evidence that reasonable reunification services had been offered to mother and father. It terminated reunification services for mother; returned custody of the children to father; ordered family maintenance services to father and the children; ordered visitation between mother and the children as frequently as possible consistent with the children’s well-being; and transferred the matter to Mendocino County, where father now lived.
In February 2026, while briefing in this appeal was in progress, the children were detained for a third time, now by the Mendocino County Juvenile Court. Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended the detention hearing. The minutes reflect that the deputy county counsel made statements “regarding visitation with mother.” (Capitalization omitted.) The minutes also reflect that mother’s juvenile court counsel requested that the Mendocino County Department of Social Services (Mendocino Department) set up visitation and that juvenile court counsel be included in the conversation. The court directed the Mendocino Department to schedule a videoconference visit within a week and to include counsel in the visitation discussion.
On March 17, at a continued jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court sustained the Mendocino Department’s allegations and addressed visitation. Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended the hearing. Mother’s juvenile court counsel stated that in-person visitation for mother had not yet occurred or been scheduled. The court noted that the Mendocino Department was “on notice” that “visitation with both parents is important and the [Mendocino] Department [was] to provide visitation.” (Some capitalization omitted.) The court also noted that “mother request[ed] therapeutic visitation with [the oldest child], for reasons stated.” (Capitalization omitted.) The court set a dispositional hearing for late April.
On April 20, mother’s appellate counsel filed her reply brief in this appeal and a letter notifying this court of the proceedings in the Mendocino County Juvenile Court. This court asked the parties to submit letter briefs regarding whether this appeal had been mooted by the events addressed in mother’s April 20 letter or by any subsequent dispositional hearing. The parties did so, and mother’s appellate counsel informed the court that the dispositional hearing had been continued. This court asked mother’s appellate counsel to provide updates about proceedings in the juvenile court.
Some weeks later, on June 25, the juvenile court held the dispositional hearing. Mother and her juvenile court counsel attended, and mother testified. The court found that the parents had received 18 months of reunification services and 12 months of family maintenance services. It terminated father’s services, and it noted that mother’s services previously had been terminated. For the two older children, the court approved a permanent placement plan with the goal of adoption, and it set section 366.26hearings. For the youngest child, the court delegated placement and care to the Mendocino Department, and it set a permanency planning review date.
The parties and the juvenile court addressed visitation. The minutes reflect that mother’s juvenile court counsel requested that “mother’s visitation remain status quo for reasons stated”; “the parties discuss[ed] . . . mother’s visitation”; and the deputy county counsel “ma[de] statements for the record regarding the difference in the amount of visitation for each parent.” (Capitalization omitted.) The court directed that, supervised by the Mendocino Department, mother visit with the children for a minimum of two hours monthly, in-person, by telephone, or by video chat.
We asked the parties to submit letter briefs regarding the extent to which the dispositional hearing affects whether mother’s appeal has been mooted.
DISCUSSION
The Alameda Agency contends that mother’s appeal is moot and that we should not exercise our discretion to reach its merits. We agree. We first discuss mootness and then the question of exercising our discretion.
I.
“A court is tasked with the duty ‘ “to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.” ’ ” (InreD.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276.) If a reviewing court cannot grant an appellant effective relief because of subsequent events in the case, the appeal is moot. (Ibid.) “Effective relief” includes the requirement that the harm complained of “must be redressable or capable of being rectified by the outcome [the appellant] seeks.” (Ibid.)
Here, even if we were to conclude that the juvenile court erred, the harm could not be redressed in this appeal. The remedy for an erroneous prima facie denial of a section 388 petition is to remand the matter with instructions to the juvenile court to conduct an evidentiary hearing, as mother now requests. (See, e.g., In re R.A. (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 826, 839–840.) At such an evidentiary hearing, mother would seek to demonstrate that changed circumstances or new evidence warranted her requested modifications to the April 2025 dispositional orders. (See § 388, subds. (a)(1) & (d).)
But those orders are no longer in effect. Regarding the hair follicle testing, the juvenile court terminated mother’s reunification services at the six-month review hearing following the petition denial at issue. Mother does not contend that after the termination she still was required to submit to the testing. Regarding visitation and any services such as family therapy, the juvenile court entered an order at the six-month review hearing and then new orders at its recent June 25 dispositional hearing. The orders superseded previous visitation and service orders.
Moreover, as the Alameda Agency argues, mother effectively has received the evidentiary hearing she seeks. We disagree with mother’s contention to the contrary. She had the opportunity to raise the issues in the petition and to present evidence at the six-month review hearing, which resulted in an order addressing visitation. She addressed visitation at the February and March detention and jurisdictional hearings, resulting in a status quo that she sought to maintain at the June dispositional hearing. And she participated in and presented evidence at the June 25 dispositional hearing, at which the parties addressed visitation. After considering the parties’ arguments at that hearing, the juvenile court issued its current visitation orders.
We do not agree with mother that the juvenile court’s failure to hold an evidentiary hearing in response to mother’s section 388 petition has infected or will infect the outcome of subsequent proceedings. In denying mother’s petition at the prima facie stage, the court did not make findings that prejudice or stigmatize mother. Moreover, within two months at the six-month review hearing and then again at the June 25 dispositional hearing, mother had the very opportunity she sought to argue for and present evidence for her requested changes.
In re Dylan T. (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 765, cited by mother, is distinguishable. There, the court ruled that an appeal by a formerly incarcerated mother challenging a visitation denial was not mooted by her release from custody. (Id. at p. 769.) The child was one year old, which meant that the reunification period would be shorter than for an older child. (See id. at pp. 768, 769.) The court reasoned that “[b]ecause reunification efforts could be terminated after six months, the lack of all opportunity for visitation during a significant portion of this time is an error which could infect the outcome of subsequent proceedings.” (Id. at p. 770.) The court also noted that the problem could recur because the mother could be reincarcerated if her in-patient treatment program failed. (Id. at pp. 769–770.)
Here, by contrast, the juvenile court did not prevent mother from visiting with the children. Its April 2025 dispositional orders directed the Alameda Agency to arrange for supervised visits with mother at least once a week. The juvenile court’s denial of mother’s section 388 petition also did not preclude mother from visiting the children. Moreover, mother could have argued for her requested changes at the six-month review hearing following the denial, but she did not.
In re P.S. (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 541, also cited by mother, is inapposite. There, a juvenile court denied a mother’s motion for a bonding study. (Id. at p. 546.) The social services agency contended that the mother’s appeal from the decision was moot because she did not appeal subsequent orders that terminated her reunification services and denied her renewed request for a bonding study. (Id. at p. 551.) The court disagreed, reasoning that the requested bonding study still could be useful to her at a future section 366.26 hearing. (Id. at pp. 551–552.) Here, an evidentiary hearing on mother’s requested changes to superseded orders—after she has already had the opportunity to argue and present evidence—would be redundant rather than useful.
The other decisions on which mother relies are distinguishable because they involve adverse findings that could prejudice the parent in later proceedings. (See In re C.C. (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1481, 1488 [juvenile court’s finding of detriment could prejudice mother in future family law proceedings]; In re A.R. (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 733, 740 [juvenile court jurisdictional finding relating to physical abuse continued to result in father’s restricted access to daughter after court terminated jurisdiction].) Even accepting mother’s contention that visitation orders can have effects in subsequent proceedings, mother was not denied visitation and there were less than two months between the court’s denial of the section 388 petition and mother’s opportunity to seek a change at the six-month review hearing, and she had another opportunity at the dispositional hearing. (Cf. InreDylanT., supra, 65 Cal.App.4th at pp. 775–776 [lengthy erroneous denial of visitation should not count against mother in evaluating reunification and making further orders].) Mother has already received the evidentiary hearing she seeks.
II.
We disagree with mother that we nonetheless should exercise our discretion to reach the merits of her appeal.
“[C]ourts will generally exercise their discretion to review a moot case when ‘the case presents an issue of broad public interest that is likely to recur,’ ‘when there may be a recurrence of the controversy between the parties,’ or ‘when a material question remains for the court’s determination.’ ” (In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 282.) In the dependency context, courts also consider whether a finding could prejudice the appellant, affect current or future proceedings, or stigmatize the appellant. (Id. at pp. 285–286.) These factors are not exhaustive. (Id. at p. 286.) “[A] court should be guided by the overarching goals of the dependency system: ‘to provide maximum safety and protection for children’ with a ‘focus’ on ‘the preservation of the family as well as the safety, protection, and physical and emotional well-being of the child.’ ” (Ibid.)
Here, the juvenile court did not make findings that prejudice or stigmatize mother, or that affect current or future proceedings. No other factor justifies reaching the merits of her moot appeal. The underlying order that mother sought to modify is no longer in effect, and she has had opportunity to litigate the merits of her requests.
DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed.
GOLDMAN, J.

WE CONCUR:

STREETER, Acting P. J.
SWEET, J.*