California Court of Appeal

In this case, defendant-father challenges the juvenile court's order asserting jurisdiction over his two children under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300(b), on grounds that substantial evidence did not support it. The court's jurisdictional order and the dispositional and custody orders that derived from it are reversed, where the juvenile court's finding that defendant's harassment of the children's mother in violation of a family law restraining order and defendant's denigration of the mother to the children placed the children at risk of emotional, but not physical injury, could not support assertion of jurisdiction under section 300(b), which requires proof of physical harm or substantial risk of such harm.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/13/2015
• Published 03/13/2015

Judges

• Manella

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel