In Re Biggs

17 Cal.App.3d 337 (1971) 94 Cal. Rptr. 519 In re DAVID BIGGS et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

EVELYN ROBINSON, Defendant and Appellant. (Consolidated Appeals.)

Docket Nos. 18668, 18669. Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division One.

March 31, 1971. [340] COUNSEL

Edward J. Owen, Thomas P. Burke, Morton M. Sider and Myles Phillip Burton for Defendant and Appellant.

John D. Maharg, County Counsel, and Douglas C. Miller, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

OPINION

THOMPSON, J.

These are appeals from orders of the juvenile court in two companion cases adjudicating minor dependent children and ordering that their custody be placed under the supervision of the Department of Social Services. We affirm the orders of the juvenile court.

We are confronted with a threshold question in our consideration of the case at bench. (1) Relying upon Matter of Cannon, 27 Cal. App. 549 [150 P. 794], and dictum in In re De Vore, 64 Cal. App. 347 [221 P. 706], appellant contends that an appeal under the Juvenile Court Law is in effect a limited trial de novo upon the record in which the Court of Appeal is entitled to make its own findings of fact irrespective of findings of the juvenile court which are supported by substantial evidence. The contention is unfounded. Cannon was decided under the Juvenile Court Law of 1913 which did provide that standard of review. (Stats. 1913, ch. 673, p. 1304.) Beginning in 1915, however, the Juvenile Court Law was amended to adopt the substantial evidence test of appellate review. (In re Bacon, 240 Cal. App.2d 34, 46 [49 Cal. Rptr. 322], hg. den.; In re Corey, 230 Cal. App.2d 813, 823 [41 Cal. Rptr. 379].)

Facts

We thus view the record in the light most favorable to the orders of the juvenile court. So viewed, the record establishes the following. Appellant is the mother of four children. She has placed two of them (Danny Biggs and Debbie Bagwell) in foster homes. In August or September 1969, appellant moved into an apartment in a four-unit building at 5617 Fernwood. The household consisted of appellant, her son David Biggs, age seven, her daughter Serenia Robinson, age four, and George Paris, appellant's "boyfriend" who was not the father of either David or Serenia. During the ensuing five months, the landlord and a neighbor noticed that David's face was swollen and bruised much of the time and that his arms were bruised. On one occasion, Paris took David from his bed and kicked him in