In Re Rebecca H.

E. Katherine Dashiell, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Objector and Appellant.

B.C. Barmann, County Counsel, Patrick L. Enright and Marvin R. Coston, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Catherine Fancher Campbell, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Minors.

OPINION

DIBIASO, J.

Objector Clinton H. (the father) challenges juvenile dependency orders which denied him reunification services with his minor children (Welf. & Inst. Code [1] § 361.5) and terminated his parental rights (§ 366.26). The critical issues are the meaning of, and the relationship among, subdivisions (a), (b)(2) and (c) of section 361.5, and whether the father was entitled to reunification services as a matter of law.

We hold that a juvenile court may not deprive a parent of reunification services under these portions of section 361.5 unless, based on the opinions of two qualified mental health experts, it finds: (i) the parent suffers from a mental disability as described in Civil Code section 232, subdivision (a)(6), and (ii) as a result of the mental disability, the parent is either incapable of utilizing reunification services at all or is unlikely to be capable…