Orange County Social Services Agency v. Cam B.

Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) and minor, Hadley B., appeal the juvenile court’s order dismissing a dependency petition after refusing to allow an amendment to include evidence of incidents occurring outside Orange County. In a second dependency petition on behalf of the same minor, the juvenile court struck all allegations of acts outside Orange County and of those litigated in the first petition. SSA filed a petition for extraordinary relief from the rulings on the second petition. 1

On the appeal, we find the juvenile court erred in dismissing the original dependency petition and reverse, directing the juvenile court to dismiss the second petition, accept amendments to the original petition, and conduct another jurisdictional hearing. We deny the petition for extraordinary relief as moot.

I

Facts

SSA detained 14-year-old Hadley B. in May 2006, after he ran away from his father during a family visit to Orange County. Both parents refused to pick Hadley up from the police station after officers located the boy. *1045 Mother would not accept responsibility for Hadley, deferring all parenting to father. Father told the officer “he wanted his son taken to…