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California Supreme Court:
‘Beneficial Relationship’ With Parent Bars Adoption
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal erred in holding that a mother’s drug addiction and failure to address her mental health problems signaled the need to proceed with an adoption of her child by a woman who was capable of providing care, the California Supreme Court held yesterday, saying that the “beneficial relationship exception” to the presumption in favor of adoption predominates.
Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar wrote for a unanimous court in disapproving of an April 9, 2019 opinion of the First District’s Div. One. That opinion, by Justice Gabriel P. Sanchez, reversed a Juvenile Court order for long-term foster care for the minor, Caden C. (who could not have been safely returned to his mother), rather than terminating parental ties and permitting an adoption to proceed.
Sanchez said that “it cannot be seriously disputed that Caden had a beneficial relationship with mother,” as found by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Monica F. Wiley, but declared:
“We conclude this is one of the rare and difficult cases in which the juvenile court’s application of the beneficial relationship exception amounted to an abuse of discretion. On this record, no reasonable judge could have concluded that a compelling justification was made to forgo adoption and order a permanent plan of long-term foster care for Caden.”
Flaws Found
She continued:
“[T]wo overarching considerations guide our analysis. First, the juvenile court’s determination that mother had ‘substantially complied with her case plan’ and ‘continues her efforts to maintain her sobriety and address her mental health issues’ is not supported by the record. Second, the court gave short shrift to uncontroverted evidence that long-term foster care posed substantial risk of further destabilizing a vulnerable child, fostered unhealthy and sometimes ‘toxic’ interactions between mother and child, and robbed Caden of a stable and permanent home with an exceptional caregiver.
“If anything is clear from this record, it is that Caden has suffered years of trauma and instability as a direct result of mother’s entrenched and unresolved substance abuse and mental health issues—the very problems that led to Caden’s removal from her care in the first place. Mother has repeatedly, over the course of 30 years, been unable to maintain her sobriety outside of a structured treatment setting.”
Cuéllar’s Opinion
Unpersuaded by Sanchez’s opinion, Cuéllar wrote:
“The Court of Appeal did not explain how the parent’s struggles related to the specific elements of the statutory exception: the importance of the child’s relationship with the parent or the detriment of losing that relationship. Instead, the appellate court treated the lack of progress in addressing substance abuse and mental health issues as a categorical bar to establishing the exception. That conclusion was mistaken, so we now reverse.”
Reversal comes despite mootness. Since the Court of Appeal issued its decision, another Juvenile Court hearing was held, pursuant to Welfare & Institutions Code §366.26, and the mother’s parental ties were severed.
Cuéllar said in a footnote that his court has “discretion to retain the case and decide it as one presenting issues of public importance, capable of repetition, yet tending to evade review,” remarking:
“The parental-benefit exception is of great importance and one of the most litigated issues in dependency proceedings. Moreover, dependency matters should proceed as expeditiously as possible, which may heighten the difficulty of providing review in our court.”
The jurist set forth:
“[T]he parent asserting the parental benefit exception must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, three things. The parent must show regular visitation and contact with the child, taking into account the extent of visitation permitted. Moreover, the parent must show that the child has a substantial, positive, emotional attachment to the parent—the kind of attachment implying that the child would benefit from continuing the relationship. And the parent must show that terminating that attachment would be detrimental to the child even when balanced against the countervailing benefit of a new, adoptive home. When the parent has met that burden, the parental-benefit exception applies such that it would not be in the best interest of the child to terminate parental rights, and the court should select a permanent plan other than adoption.”
The case is In re Caden C., 2021 S.O.S. 2275.
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