DecisionDepot is for informational use only. Not legal advice. Always verify against the source ruling before relying on any analysis.
© 2026 DecisionDepot
27,361 rulings indexed. Last ingest about 3 hours ago .
Data refreshes about every 15 minutes during California business hours.
DecisionDepot is for informational use only. Not legal advice. Always verify against the source ruling before relying on any analysis.
© 2026 DecisionDepot dev · 2026-07-08 01:03 UTC Admin
In re I.E. CA4/2 (2026) · DecisionDepot
/ California Court of Appeal In re I.E. CA4/2 Unpublished Filed 2/17/26 In re I.E. CA4/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO In re I.E., et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.
RIVERSIDE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES, E086643 Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super.Ct.No. DPRI2500167)
v. OPINION
R.S.,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Malvina Ovanezova,
Temporary Judge. (Pursuant to Cal. Const., art VI, §21.) Reversed.
Richard L. Knight, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
Minh C. Tran, County Counsel, Jamila T. Purnell and Catherine E. Rupp, Deputy
County Counsel for Plaintiff and Respondent.
1
This matter involves conceded inquiry error under California law implementing
the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA; 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.). (See Welf. &
Inst. Code, § 224.2, subd. (b)(2).)1 In light of the child welfare agency’s concession, with
which we agree, we vacate the relevant, contrary juvenile court findings bearing on
inquiry, as we briefly explain post. In all other respects, we affirm the court’s findings.
More from California Court of Appeal Source: opinion data from the Free Law Project / CourtListener (public-domain court records). DecisionDepot is for informational use only and is not legal advice — verify against the official reporter before relying on any text or AI-generated summary.
BACKGROUND R.S. (Father) filed this appeal following the combined jurisdiction and disposition
hearing, at which the juvenile court determined his four children, ranging in age from 3 to
16 years old (collectively, Minors) required the court’s dependency protection. (§ 300.)
R.E., the children’s mother, does not join in Father’s appeal. The court sustained
jurisdiction as to the couple’s daughters—a toddler and a teen—under section 300,
subdivisions (b)(1) [failure to protect], (d) [sexual abuse], and (j) [abuse of a sibling], and
for the two teen boys under subdivision (b)(1). The court concluded out-of-home
placement was necessary for the girls’ protection. The court ordered family maintenance
and reunification services for the parents.
DISCUSSION Father does not contest the foregoing general orders or findings. He contends only
that, contrary to other juvenile court rulings concerning ICWA, Riverside County
Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) has failed to fulfill its duty to inquire of
1 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
specific, known, extended maternal and paternal relatives regarding whether Minors may
have Native American ancestry. (See § 224.2, subd. (b)(2).) We agree.
By statute, both the juvenile court and the applicable county child welfare
department have “an affirmative and continuing duty to inquire” whether a child subject
to dependency proceedings may be an Indian child. (§ 224.2, subd. (a); see In re
Dominic F. (2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 558, 566 (Dominic F.); see also § 224.1, subd. (b)
[statutory definition of an “Indian child,” mirroring the federal definition under ICWA in
The duty of inquiry includes “the obligation to make a meaningful effort to locate
and interview extended family members to obtain whatever information they may have as
to the child’s possible Indian status.” (In re K.R. (2018) 20 Cal.App.5th 701, 709; see
§ 224.1, subd. (c)(1) [“Extended family” may vary by tribe but generally includes, as
relevant here, the children’s grandparents and their parents’ siblings.) Our high court has
recently explained the importance of the inquiry duty, including contacting extended
family members: If “ ‘inquiry is inadequate at the outset, the likelihood that the
opportunity to gather relevant information will present itself later in the proceeding
declines precipitously.’ ” (In re Dezi C. (2024) 16 Cal.5th 1112, 1133 (Dezi C.).) Dezi C.
highlighted that, “[a]s required by statute, an adequate initial inquiry that reaches beyond
parents to extended family members and others facilitates the discovery of Indian
identity, and [thereby] maximizes the chances that potential Indian children are
discovered and tribes are notified.” (Id. at p. 1140.)
When there is “reason to know a child is an Indian child, the juvenile court must
find ICWA applies and ‘treat the minor as an Indian child unless and until it determines
that ICWA does not apply.’ ” (Dezi C., supra, 16 Cal.5th at p. 1133.) In the alternative,
the juvenile court may make a finding “that an agency’s inquiry and due diligence were
‘proper and adequate,’ and the resulting record provided no reason to know the child is an
Indian child, so ICWA does not apply. (§ 224.2, subd. (i)(2).)” (Dezi C., at p. 1134.)
We review the juvenile court’s multiple findings that DPSS’s inquiry was proper,
adequate, and conducted with due diligence for the court to conclude there is no reason to
believe or know Minors are Indian children, and that ICWA therefore “does not apply.”
“[T]he juvenile court’s fact-specific determination that an inquiry is adequate,
proper, and duly diligent is ‘a quintessentially discretionary function.’ ” (Dezi C., supra,
16 Cal.5th at p. 1141.) “ ‘ “On a well-developed record, the court has relatively broad
discretion to determine whether the agency’s inquiry was proper, adequate, and duly
diligent on the specific facts of the case. However, the less developed the record, the
more limited that discretion necessarily becomes.” ’ ” (Ibid.) “ ‘ “When . . . the court’s
. . . finding that the agency’s inquiry was proper, adequate, and duly diligent rests on a
cursory record and a patently insufficient inquiry that is conceded, the only viable
conclusion is that the finding [that ICWA is inapplicable] is unsupported by substantial
evidence and the court’s conclusion to the contrary constitutes a clear abuse of
discretion.” ’ ” (Id. at p. 1134.) So it is here.
DPSS concedes inquiry error as to the maternal relatives—in particular Minors’
maternal grandmother and grandfather. DPSS in its respondent’s brief acknowledges it
“should have interviewed maternal grandmother as she was reasonably available.”
Further, DPSS concedes, “The record is also silent as to [its] attempts to interview the
maternal grandfather.” DPSS represents that it “will correct this oversight by
interviewing the grandmother, and by documenting the reasonable efforts taken to
interview the maternal grandfather.” DPSS argues, however, that “there is no need to
reverse the [juvenile court’s] ICWA finding [namely, that ICWA and corresponding
California law do not apply to Minors] or remand the matter.” DPSS says no action is
necessary on appeal because “[t]he case remains open, [including for a period of]
reunification services, and [its] ICWA duties are ongoing.”
We do not agree that the ongoing nature of the dependency means that
unsupported juvenile court ICWA findings may remain intact. The juvenile court entered
multiple findings in the record stating that DPSS social workers have conducted an
adequate ICWA inquiry, and that there is no reason to believe Minors are Indian children
within the meaning of ICWA and California law. These findings were erroneous, as
DPSS now concedes. This includes findings at the jurisdiction and disposition hearing
that: DPSS “conducted a sufficient inquiry regarding whether [Minors] may have Indian
ancestry”; “The Indian Child Welfare Act . . . does not apply”; the Minors “are not Indian
children” under governing law; and that “proper and adequate further inquiry and due
diligence as required have been conducted and there is no reason to know whether [any
of the Minors] is an Indian child.” We vacate these findings.
As this court has explained, “Before the juvenile court makes a finding that ICWA
does not apply, it must ‘first ensur[e] that [DPSS] has made an adequate inquiry under
ICWA and California law, and if necessary, the court must continue the proceedings and
order [CFS] to fulfill its responsibilities.’ [Citation.] A juvenile court’s finding that
ICWA does not apply implies ‘that social workers had fulfilled their duty of inquiry.’ ”
(In re Dominick D. (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 560, 567.) The court’s ICWA findings are
unsupported where there has been no inquiry of the maternal grandmother or grandfather.
DPSS seeks to preserve the juvenile court’s due diligence and ICWA rulings at
least as they may pertain to its failure to interview Minor’s paternal uncle. DPSS justifies
this distinction on grounds that Father was born and raised in Nicaragua to parents with
Hispanic-sounding surnames, Father attended high school and at least some college there
until age 23, and his sisters still live in that country. The record indicates Father is not
close with his sisters, but he maintains a relationship with his younger brother, who lives
Noting ICWA’s focus on protecting children’s potential membership eligibility in
United States-based tribes and indigenous communities (see 25 U.S.C. § 1903(4)), for the
future viability of those communities, DPSS argues “there is no feasible way that the
ICWA could apply to [Minors] through their paternal relatives.” We decline to parse the
juvenile court’s findings as DPSS now requests. The juvenile court did not do so below
and, in light of the necessity of vacating the court’s ICWA findings for further inquiry, we
see no reason to countenance or encourage DPSS’s advisory opinion request. (See
Dezi C., supra, 16 Cal.5th at p. 1151 [noting that “ ‘[t]he required inquiry here could have
been conducted in significantly less time than it took to defend this appeal’ ”].)
In sum, we vacate the juvenile court’s findings that Minors do not come within the
provisions of ICWA and that DPSS’s ICWA inquiries were proper, adequate, and duly
diligent. (Accord, In re Dominick D., supra, 82 Cal.App.5th at p. 567.) We otherwise
affirm the juvenile court’s dispositional findings and orders (ibid.), which Father does not
challenge apart from his ICWA claim. (See also In re S.H. (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 166,
171 [“when a social services agency accepts its obligation to satisfy its inquiry
obligations under ICWA, a reversal of an early dependency order is not warranted simply
because a parent has shown that these ongoing obligations had not yet been satisfied as of
the time the parent appealed”].) We see no need for conditional reversal of the court’s
other orders or findings up to and including at the disposition hearing, nor for instructions
that Father requests to direct DPSS and the court how to carry out their well-established
DISPOSITION The juvenile court’s finding that Minors do not come within the provisions of
ICWA is vacated for further inquiry. The juvenile court’s findings and orders are
affirmed in all other respects.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
CODRINGTON J.