DISCUSSION

Father’s appeal challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the juvenile court’s jurisdiction finding. He does not challenge the disposition order based on those findings. As discussed, while the appeal was pending, the juvenile court terminated jurisdiction over A.W. and granted Mother sole legal and physical custody with monitored visitation for Father. Father has not appealed the termination and custody orders. On October 20, 2023 we requested the parties address in supplemental briefing whether the court’s orders mooted Father’s appeal. The Department argued in its supplemental brief that the appeal should be dismissed. Father’s attorney filed a letter brief stating only that Father “will be submitting on the briefs previously filed.” Father’s appellate briefs do not address mootness. “A court is tasked with the duty ‘“to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.”’” (In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276.) “A case becomes moot when events

4 On our own motion we take judicial notice of the January 9, 2023 minute order and the January 17, 2023 minute order and final custody order. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459, subd. (a).)

4 ‘“render[] it impossible for [a] court, if it should decide the case in favor of plaintiff, to grant [the plaintiff] any effect[ive] relief.”’ [Citation.] For relief to be ‘effective,’ two requirements must be met. First, the plaintiff must complain of an ongoing harm. Second, the harm must be redressable or capable of being rectified by the outcome the plaintiff seeks.” (Ibid.) In other words, “relief is effective when it ‘can have a practical, tangible impact on the parties’ conduct or legal status.’ [Citation.] It follows that, to show a need for effective relief, the plaintiff must first demonstrate that he or she has suffered from a change in legal status.” (Id. at p. 277.) Father has not identified any ongoing harm we can rectify by reversal of the jurisdiction finding. Even assuming the change in Father’s visitation from unmonitored to monitored constituted a change in legal status, we cannot provide any relief that will have a practical, tangible impact on that status because Father failed to appeal the termination and custody orders. As we explained in In re Rashad D. (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 156, 159, “termination of dependency jurisdiction does not necessarily moot an appeal from a jurisdiction finding that directly results in an adverse juvenile custody order. But in most cases, including the one at bar, for this court to be able to provide effective relief, the parent must appeal not only from the jurisdiction finding and disposition order but also from the orders terminating jurisdiction and modifying the parent’s prior custody status. Without the second appeal, we cannot correct the continuing adverse consequences of the allegedly erroneous jurisdiction finding.” (Accord, In re Gael C. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 220, 225.) By not appealing from the final custody order, Father “forfeited any challenge to those rulings [in the order], including to the

5 juvenile court’s jurisdiction to issue them.” (In re Rashad D., at p. 167; see In re Gael C., at p. 225.) Finally, while a reviewing court has discretion to reach the merits of a moot case in certain circumstances, Father has not asked us to exercise that discretion or identified any factors warranting our exercise of discretion. (See In re D.P., supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 282; In re Gael C., supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at pp. 225-226.)

DISPOSITION

The appeal is dismissed as moot.

FEUER, J.

We concur:

SEGAL, Acting P. J.

MARTINEZ, J.

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