San Diego Cnty. Health & Human Servs. Agency v. A.R. (In re N.O.)

At the contested hearing, the court found that Minor had not met her burden under section 364(c) to show that conditions *210 still existed that would justify the court's initial assumption of jurisdiction over her; that there was no reason to continue the review hearing until minor was found, as requested by Minor's counsel; and that it therefore was required to terminate jurisdiction.

On appeal, Minor contends the juvenile court's finding that conditions no longer existed in May 2018 that would justify the initial assumption of dependency over Minor in August 2015 was not supported by substantial evidence; that the court abused its discretion in not continuing the family maintenance review hearing until Minor was found and assessed; and that the juvenile court violated Minor's statutory right to counsel under section 317.

As we explain, we conclude Minor failed to satisfy her burden to show at the contested hearing that conditions still existed which would justify the initial assumption of jurisdiction of her under section 300. Based on this conclusion, we reject Minor's contention that the court abused its discretion in refusing to continue the section 364 review hearing…

*235 I fully appreciate the significant challenges faced by both the Agency and the juvenile court in this cross-border dependency matter. And I understand the majority's reluctance to say that the court abused its discretion when it denied any further continuance and terminated jurisdiction. But in the fall of 2017 after the Agency completely lost contact with Mother and the child, the juvenile court on two occasions continued the scheduled family maintenance review hearing, quite properly recognizing that it needed more current information before deciding whether to terminate jurisdiction. "[I]f we can just verify [Minor] and [Mother] are okay. [¶] I think we can comfortably close this case out."

Unfortunately, the continuances yielded no additional information. At that point, the court essentially took the position that it could not continue the matter indefinitely, conducted the review hearing with stale information, and terminated jurisdiction. In my view, the primary problem with this approach is that the evidence at the review hearing revealed two relatively simple straightforward steps the Agency admitted it could have taken but did not take to locate Mother and the…