In re MARIAH T.
Welfare and Institutions Code Sec. 300(a), which allows dependency court to take jurisdiction of minor if child has suffered or is at a substantial risk of suffering "serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally" by a parent or guardian, but excepts from phrase any "reasonable and age-appropriate spanking to the buttocks where there is no evidence of serious physical injury," is not unconstitutionally vague because it is sufficiently certain, and parents of common intelligence can discern what injuries fall within its reach. Where mother struck children with belt causing serious physical harm, denied and minimized what she had done and attempted to justify it as legitimate corporal punishment, and dismissed daughter's claim of sex abuse by mother's boyfriend and threatened girl that she would never see her father again if she told anyone about it, sufficient evidence existed to find that mother's conduct posed a substantial risk of serious harm to children under Sec. 300(a), (b) and (j). Evidence that mother's boyfriend had requisite intent to sexually abuse daughter under Penal Code Sec. 11165.1 or to commit lewd or lascivious acts under Penal Code Sec. 288 was sufficient to support dispositional order taking children from mother and placing them with father under Welfare and Institutions Code Sec. 300(d). Dependency court's dispositional order placing children with father after finding by clear and convincing evidence that leaving them with mother created a substantial danger to their physical and emotional well-being and that there were no reasonable means to protect the children short of removing them from mother's custody was proper where evidence supported both court's jurisdictional findings and its finding that lesser alternatives to removal would not have worked.
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