Dependency Case Law

In re Erik P. (Dec. 16, 2002) 104 Cal.App.4th 395 [127 Cal.Rptr.2d 922]. Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

The juvenile court terminated the mother’s and father’s parental rights to the child during a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26 hearing. The mother had nine children and over time lost custody of all of them. The child’s parents were determined to be unable to care for him or his siblings. Because the parents had failed to reunify with their other children, neither parent was offered reunification services for the child. The adoptive parents of one of the child’s siblings expressed a desire to adopt the child, and the Department of Family and Children Services moved him into that home. At the contested permanency planning hearing, the juvenile court found the child adoptable and terminated the parental rights of the mother and father. The father appealed the juvenile court’s decision, arguing that the finding that the child was likely to be adopted was not substantially supported and that the section 366.26(c)(1)(E) sibling-relationship exception to termination of parental rights applied to the present case.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the decision of the juvenile court and held that (1) substantial evidence supported the finding that the child was likely to be adopted, (2) the father had standing to appeal the juvenile court’s determination regarding the application of the sibling-relationship exception to termination of parental rights, and (3) the father failed to establish that he qualified for the sibling-relationship exception. First, the appellate court reasoned that the child was adoptable because the evidence indicated that the child was an attractive baby boy with no major physical or mental problems and a prospective adoptive parent was interested in the child. Next, the appellate court concluded that the father had standing to contend on appeal that the section 366.26 (c)(1)(E) sibling-relationship exception should have prevented termination of his parental rights. Adopting the rule of In re L.Y.I. (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 942, the appellate court reasoned that the father had standing because the sibling relationship and the child’s adoption directly impacts the parent’s interest in reunification. However, the appellate court held that the father waived his right to raise the sibling-relationship exception on appeal because the father failed to first raise this exception before the juvenile court at the section 366.26 hearing. The appellate court explained that allowing the father to raise the sibling-relationship exception for the first time on appeal would deprive the appellate court of a sufficient factual record from which to determine whether the juvenile court’s order for terminating parental rights is supported by substantial evidence.

Furthermore, the appellate court held that even if the father had not waived the sibling-relationship exception of section 366.26(c)(1)(E), the exception is still inapplicable to the case because termination of the father’s parental rights to the child would in no way affect the child’s relationship with his sibling, since the father no longer had a relationship with the sibling. The appellate court also reasoned that the child’s relationship with his sibling was not sufficiently substantial to invoke the sibling-relationship exception because the child spent only 2 months in the same home as the sibling as a newborn before being placed in foster care with another half-sibling. Therefore, the appellate court affirmed the juvenile court’s decision, concluding that the juvenile court adequately addressed both the applicability of the sibling-relationship exception and the child’s adoptability.