Filed 2/20/18 In re E.N. CA4/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO



In re E.N., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

K.N.,

Defendant and Appellant.


E068616

(Super.Ct.No. J262240)

O P I N I O N


APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Annemarie G. Pace, Judge. Dismissed.
Konrad S. Lee, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Jean-Rene Basle, County Counsel, and Jamila Bayati, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
I. INTRODUCTION
The juvenile court took jurisdiction over E.N. because of her parents’ general neglect and cruelty and E.N.’s serious emotional damage. Plaintiff and respondent, San Bernardino County Children and Family Services (CFS), placed E.N. with a foster family. In May 2017, after E.N. had been with her foster family for nearly two years, the court terminated the parents’ reunification services and set a selection and implementation hearing. In June 2017, the juvenile court authorized CFS or its delegate to obtain a passport for E.N. so that she could travel to Costa Rica with her foster family/prospective legal guardians for a two-week vacation in July 2017. Defendant and appellant, K.N. (mother), challenges the court’s order authorizing the passport and travel for various reasons. We agree with CFS that the case is moot and dismiss this appeal.
II. FACTS AND PROCEDURE
E.N. and her four siblings came to CFS’s attention in September 2015 when E.N., who is the oldest, was five years old. E.N.’s three-year-old sister had a broken femur, and doctors treating her at a Barstow hospital did not believe J.N.’s (father) explanation of the injury. Law enforcement officers visited the family home and found E.N. and her two-year-old brother strapped into car seats with their hands tied to their bodies. Someone had also covered their hands with plastic Kool-Aid jars like mittens, so that they were bound and unable to free themselves. The social worker visited the home shortly after and discovered E.N. was nonverbal and not toilet trained. E.N. screamed at a high pitch several times and appeared to be autistic. Mother said she and father used “hard mittens” on the children and restrained them in car seats to prevent them from picking paint off the walls, playing with their feces, and scratching themselves, but she also restrained them when she was busy cleaning or when father left the house. Mother fed the children one meal a day and two snacks, or sometimes two meals a day. Officers arrested the parents for false imprisonment, although the charges were later amended to willful cruelty to a child.
CFS removed E.N. and her four siblings and placed the children with different foster families. It filed a petition alleging E.N. came within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300. The court found a prima facie case for detaining E.N.
E.N.’s foster mother reported that E.N. had two to four tantrums a day. She would throw things, take off all her clothes, destroy toys, spit, bite, kick, scratch, jump off furniture, and run all over the house. She had tried to run out the front door and had run away from school staff. She also had trouble sleeping; she would sleep, at most, four to five hours, be awake for a few hours, and sometimes sleep another two to three hours. Additionally, she would go days without a bowel movement and appeared upset and scared when she did have one, and she resisted being cleaned after bowel movements. She did not make eye contact, respond to her name, or interact with the other children in the foster home, and she had spoken only three words since she began living there. She followed directions only when it was meal time. The Loma Linda Pediatric Teaching Office diagnosed E.N. with unsocialized aggression, delayed social development, fine motor development delay, and speech delay. A psychologist had also assessed her and concluded she displayed autistic-like characteristics.
The court sustained jurisdictional allegations that E.N. came within section 300, subdivisions (b), (c), and (i), based on the parents restraining her in the car seat with hard mittens for hours at a time, their long-standing failure to provide medical care, their failure to provide appropriate nutrition and food, and E.N.’s signs of serious emotional damage. It ordered forensic psychological evaluations, reunification services, and visitation once a week for the parents.
The parents ultimately received 18 months of reunification services before the court terminated services and set the matter for a section 366.26 hearing. During the entire reunification period, E.N. remained with the same foster family. She had officially been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and received services through the Inland Regional Center. She became toilet trained, but she still suffered from insomnia, chronic constipation, poor impulse control, tantrums, and running out of doors. These symptoms and behaviors would improve for a time but become worse after visits with the parents. CFS recommended a permanent plan of legal guardianship with the foster parents.
A few weeks after the court terminated reunification services, on June 5, 2017, CFS sought court approval to obtain a passport for E.N. The foster family/proposed guardians were planning to travel to Costa Rica for vacation from July 16 to July 30, 2017, and they wanted E.N. to vacation with them. CFS e-mailed notice of the request to counsel for all parties, including mother. The court approved the request on June 14, 2017, in a minute order, stating: “Court authorizes CFS or delegate to obtain a passport for the child.”
Mother, acting in pro. per., submitted a handwritten letter to the court on June 24, 2017. Mother objected to E.N. traveling out of the country and felt E.N. needed to be around her and father more, not less, and she asserted she had not seen E.N. for seven weeks. Mother also filed a notice of appeal.
III. DISCUSSION
Mother contends the court violated her due process rights by authorizing CFS to obtain a passport for E.N. without conducting a properly noticed evidentiary hearing. She further contends the court abused its discretion because (1) it failed to ensure all parties had proper notice of the request for E.N. to travel outside the country, (2) it failed to give mother a hearing after she submitted her letter of objection, (3) it did not require CFS to show the travel was necessary for E.N.’s welfare, and (4) E.N.’s serious behavioral problems made international travel problematic. Finally, mother contends the court violated the separation of powers doctrine and illegally gifted public funds when it ordered CFS to pay for E.N.’s passport.
To begin with, mother erroneously claims that the court ordered CFS to pay for E.N.’s passport. The court merely “authorize[d] CFS or [its] delegate to obtain” a passport. Nowhere in that order does the court say CFS should pay for the passport.
Moreover, as CFS points out, this appeal is moot. We have a 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 [us].”’” (Eye Dog Foundation v. State Board of Guide Dogs for Blind (1967) 67 Cal.2d 536, 541.) If we cannot grant any effective relief, even were we to decide the case in favor of the appellant, the appeal is moot and we should dismiss it. (Ibid.; In re Jessica K. (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 1313, 1315.) Here, mother’s various arguments boil down to the fact that the court approved E.N.’s travel to Costa Rica, and mother did not want E.N. to travel outside the country. But the travel already occurred in July 2017. A reversal of the court’s order authorizing CFS to obtain a passport for travel to Costa Rica would have no practical effect.
We may exercise our discretion to decide a technically moot case when the question is of broad public interest and is likely to recur yet evades review. (Gordon v. Justice Court (1974) 12 Cal.3d 323, 326, fn. 1; In re Yvonne W. (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1394, 1404.) Mother, in one conclusory sentence, claims this is such a case. She does not identify what broad public interest is at issue or explain why the foster parents’ international travel is anything but a one-time occurrence. Nor does the record contain information suggesting their international travel request is likely to recur yet evade review. Furthermore, if it does recur, mother’s counsel presumably will receive notice of the request, as she did this time, and mother may direct her counsel to dispute the request at that time. We decline to exercise our discretion to decide this moot case.
IV. DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

FIELDS
J.


We concur:

RAMIREZ
P. J.

CODRINGTON
J.