Orange County Social Services Agency v. Susan E.

Introduction

In this case we hold the safeguards afforded parents by section 361 of the Welfare and Institutions Code apply just as much to supplemental petitions filed under section 387 of the same code as they do to initial petitions. We further hold that mere chronic messiness in housekeeping, absent unsanitary conditions or resulting illness or accident, is not the clear and convincing evidence of a substantial risk of harm to a child which may justify a child’s removal from his or her parents under section 361.

Facts

Paul E. is a four-year-old child, possibly autistic, who is loved by both his parents, Stephen and Susan. His mother is willing to chase him around the house to keep him from hurting himself. Paul has never been abused, or neglected, and his parents enrolled him in a special school for his needs. Until his recent removal by social workers he lived with his mother, father and grandmother in the grandmother’s home in Huntington Beach. Unfortunately, despite their love for Paul, housekeeping at the grandmother’s house has been, to say the least, “substandard.” In July 1994 conditions in the house were both dirty and unsanitary.

But Paul was not…